Former University of Washington head football coach Tyrone Wilingham.
When Tyrone Willingham was appointed head football coach at the University of Washington, prior to the 2005 season, optimism rang throughout the Pacific Northwest. After coming off the horrible Keith Gilbertson era, it appeared that the Husky football program could go nowhere but up.
With Willingham, many people thought the program was finally back on the right track.
There were, however, many who weren't so convinced it was the right hire. Take me, for example. When I heard that Willingham was going to be the Huskies next coach, I cringed.
I knew that Willingham was going to demand discipline. That the problems which plagued the Huskies under Rick Neuheisel would not under Willingham. But I had some serious reservations about Willingham's ability to lead a program to success.
Prior to coming to Washington, Willingham was just 65-51-1 in 10 seasons at Stanford and Notre Dame. More importantly though, and the main reason I was pessimistic, was his bowl record: a very unimpressive 1-4.
Things were so bad in Willingham's final year at Notre Dame in 2004 that he wasn't even allowed to coach the team's bowl game, a game they eventually lost to Oregon State.
Four years later, all I can say is "I told you so." I had my reservations about Willingham, and I was right. In four seasons as Washington's coach, Willingham was 11-37. This past season, the Huskies finished an embarrassing 0-12. They were the only team in the Football Championship Subdivision without a single victory.
Willingham blames Neuheisel for the Huskies ineptitude. In fact, after the Huskies 16-13 double-overtime loss to in-state rival Washington State, a team which had allowed 60 or more points to four different Pac-10 opponents, he said as much.
But the reason for the Huskies failure the past four seasons wasn't because of Neuheisel, although Neuheisel certainly didn't help. No, it was because of Willingham's own personal shortcomings.
In the 48 games Willingham coached at Washington, the Huskies were outscored in the second half 37 times. Not so coincidentally, that's the same number of losses the program accumulated.
Willingham was fired because he couldn't adequately prepare his team. It didn't matter how well his team played in the first half, because most of the time, he would be so outcoached in the second half that he'd lose.
Willingham consistently failed to make the proper halftime adjustments necessary to win a ballgame in the second half. To think that Willingham was fired for any other reason than his failure to win would be absolutely asinine.
Then I flip on the television yesterday and see Charles Barkley flapping his gums about how there needs to be more black coaches in college football. How it's a disgrace that there are just FOUR black coaches in college football right now and something needs to be changed.
Then I read the following article about how this issue may be taken
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