I Blame the White Guy

There is always someone to blame.

I blame Charlie Weis for his inability to make a contest out of recent games versus the University of Southern California.  I blame Weis for wasting what turned out to be critical time outs that lead to the upset loss to 20-point underdog Syracuse.  I blame Weis for not teaching his players how to cover an onsides kick, which almost led to Notre Dame’s second straight loss to Navy.   

Since the new millennium, Notre Dame’s football program has turned from a national powerhouse to a national punch line.  It all can’t be pinned on Charlie Weis.  It all can’t be pinned on Ty Willingham.  It all can’t be pinned on George O’Leary, or Bob Davie, or even Kim Dunbar. 

But there has to be someone to blame.  

I blame Kevin White. 

Kevin White, Ph.D. served as Notre Dame’s Athletic Director for nearly an 8-year span, beginning in 2000 and ending when he left the Irish to become the AD at Duke this past summer.  During that time, the Irish—on paper—went a relatively respectable 57-40. The biggest defeats did not come on the field, but rather in the office of Kevin White.  

Before I criticize White’s overwhelming bungling of the Notre Dame Football program, allow me to give credit where credit is due. 

White did wonders for the Notre Dame Athletics program as a whole.  His work entitled him the honor of Regional Athletic Director of the Year in 2004.  The University made great strides in almost all of its “Olympic” sports. 

Unfortunately for Kevin White and Notre Dame, Olympic sports don’t get you an NBC contract or millions of dollars of ticket sales, merchandising revenue, or for the most part, national recognition.   

Keeping with this political season, Olympic sports are your Secretary of Agriculture, your Secretary of Veterans Affairs, or your Secretary of Health and Human Services.  Notre Dame Football, however, is your Secretary of State.

At the beginning of White’s second year on the job, he awarded head football coach Bob Davie a five-year extension on his contract.  By the end of that second year, he was asking Coach Davie to resign from the position. 

White fired Davie, unwilling to resign.  In doing so, White not only made Davie the first coach in Notre Dame Football history to be publicly fired, but put Notre Dame on the hook for the remaining four years of his contract.   

With the firing of Davie, the first national search for a Notre Dame Football coach in decades had begun.  With what appeared to be unlimited financial resources and an alumni-base desperate to return Notre Dame to national prominence, this could have been White’s finest hour.  This, ultimately, could have made his legacy. 

Unfortunately, it did.   

White hired the now-infamous coach, George O’Leary.  O’Leary had taken Georgia Tech to five consecutive bowl bids, had won National Coach of the Year honors in 2000 as well as ACC Coach of the Year honors in 1998 and 2000. A glance at his resume led Irish fans to believe they had found the right guy. 

Unfortunately, White gave the same once-over to O’Leary’s resume as the average Irish fan.  With millions of dollars on the line in contract money, as well as a reported $1.5-million buyout owed to Georgia Tech, White did not do his due diligence and vet his new hire. 

Inaccuracies and exaggerations—not to mention downright lies—were quickly found on O’Leary’s resume by a bumpkin reporter in New Hampshire and, after public embarrassment to both O’Leary and Notre Dame, O’Leary resigned—forcing White to begin his second search for a head football coach.   

There was grand speculation among the fan base that the Irish would make a play the Super Bowl winning coach Jon Gruden. Gruden's father coached for the Irish in the '70s and had attended high school in South Bend.

Many fans and alumni believed he could be drawn back to South Bendwith the right tug on his heart strings (along with the right dollar amount). No official offers, however, were ever made. 

White went on to buy out the remaining contract from Stanford University and sign Ty Willingham, the runner-up to the initial coaching sweepstakes won by George O’Leary. 

Quickly, attention was averted from O’Leary’s resume to Willingham’s race.  Notre Dame was lauded for hiring its first African-American head football coach in school history and one of the few black coaches in Division I Football.   

While Willingham went on to become the first Notre Dame coach to win 10 games in his first season, it was his final two losses—a devastating 44-13 blowout to USC, with the Trojans outgaining the Irish on the field by more than 500 yards, and a 28-6 routing by North Carolina State in the Gator Bowl—that turned a lot of Ty followers quickly into second-guessers. 

Notre Dame would go on to be shutout twice the next season, a first since 1956, and accumulate a non-bowl eligible 5-7 record.  In 2004, the Irish would finish 6-5, including its first home loss to Purdue in 30 years. 

To fans, alumni, and the student body, it wasn’t so much that Ty Willingham lost as it was the way that he lost.  Five losses came by 30 points or more, eight losses came by 22 points or more.  After starting out 8-0 in his first season, Ty would only win 13 of his next 28 games. 

White fired Coach Willingham prior to Notre Dame’s appearance in the Insight.com Bowl, making  Ty the first Notre Dame football coach to not complete the tenure of his contract (and forcing Notre Dame to once again pay the remaining two years of the contract). 

Rumors ran rampant as critics cried racism and reports leaked out that the decision was not White’s but rather the fulfilled wants and desires of the boosters, the Board of Trustees, and the University’s new president, Father John Jenkins. 

Whether or not White was overruled and forced into firing Coach Willingham is inconsequential.  If he felt strongly enough to keep Willingham, White could have made it happen. 

He was the athletic director at the University of Notre Dame, not the volunteer coordinator at the St. Joe County Senior Center.  Backbone and influence are required for his position.   

Buzz arose in the college football world that former Notre Dame wide receivers coach and then-current Utah head coach, Urban Meyer, had a desire to fill the head coaching vacancy at Notre Dame.  In his biography, Meyer only reinforced this fact. 

“I wanted to go to Notre Dame,” Meyer admitted, “but my family wanted to talk about going to Florida.”   

His wife followed up Meyer’s want to return to South Bend,  “He left his heart at Notre Dame when we left there last time—he really, really, really loved Notre Dame.”

In no uncertain terms, it should be known that Urban Meyer is not the head football coach at the University of Notre Dame because White could not close the deal.  The University of Florida snatched up Meyer, who was coming off an undefeated season and a BCS Bowl bid with the Utah Utes, and soon after the Gators became National Champions.   

White seemed to have silenced his critics, however, when he was able to lure offensive coordinator Weis from the New England Patriots and back to his alma mater. Weis would sign a six-year contract worth an estimated $2 million per season.

Halfway through his first season, however, (yes, his FIRST season) despite sporting only a 5-2 record, White rewarded Weis with a contract extension. The new deal kept Weis as the Irish head coach for a jaw-dropping 10 years and a reported annual salary of more than $4 million. 

This brings all the Notre Dame fans, alumni, and student body to where we are today.  Weis, despite early flashes of brilliance, has proven that he may not be cut out for college football.

Now Notre Dame is forced to live with more below-average performances rather than buyout another one of White’s football contracts—this one the biggest of all, with some speculations hitting the $20 million mark.  

And while White is to blame, he is not to be found—at least not on the Notre Dame campus.  He is surely upgrading Duke’s men’s gymnastics, women’s volleyball, and the entire fencing program. 

But heaven help the Blue Devils if football coach David Cutcliffe decides to leave for greener pastures.  It’ll cost them a lot of money—and I know just who to blame.