Sports has a long and infamous history of racial prejudice. The "black power" salute at the 1968 Olympics. The 1936 U.S. Olympic team that pulled two Jewish runners, at least partly because the Games were in Nazi Germany. Jackie Robinson, who dealt with more adversity in his barrier-breaking 1947 season than any of us will ever likely go through.
Unfortunately, in recent years, although racial prejudice is as low as it has ever been, some are still hunting for prejudiced individuals - mostly in the wrong places.
The day before Notre Dame began an already impressive season by overwhelming Pittsburgh in their season opener, readers of ESPN.com's Page 2 were treated to an inflammatory rant against the university by columnist Alan Grant. Grant, who is black, wrote a book a few years ago about Notre Dame's "Return to Glory" season of 2002 under Ty Willingham. Grant spent a lot of time - in my opinion, far too much time - in the book discussing how Willingham was Notre Dame's first-ever black football coach. In the recent article, Grant picked up where he left off, claiming - with no quotes from any university official - that the Irish hired Willingham so they could recruit black players.
Grant went on to make the clear assumption that because Willingham wasn't bringing in the black recruits that he believes they hired him for in the first place, they fired him. Grant states, "When Notre Dame fired the first black coach in its history - and after just three seasons, which is the shortest tenure of any of its head football coaches - Notre Dame ... exposed itself."
Clearly, the reader is being led to believe that Willingham's firing was racially motivated.
Grant, clearly annoyed with the firing, states at least three times in the article that he loathes Notre Dame for what (he perceives) the school did to Willingham. He gives many reasons that the university should not have fired Willingham, but none of the reasons has to do with football.
Among other things, Grant believes that Willingham should have stayed because minority enrollment was up at Notre Dame - which might or might not actually have had anything to do with Willingham.
Possibly Grant wanted to point the spotlight away from the fact that Willingham went belly up in big games. In three years under Willingham, the Irish were beaten by at least twenty points a whopping eight times, including three embarrassing 31-point losses to Southern Cal. In comparison, in five years under Willingham's white predecessor, Bob Davie, the Irish only lost by twenty or more on five occasions. Davie's .583 winning percentage was also superior to Willingham's .567, yet I do not recall anyone claiming that Notre Dame was "exposed" when they unceremoniously dumped Davie after a 5-6 season in 2001, buying out the remaining four years on his contract. (No, Willingham's was not the first contract that Notre Dame "failed" to honor, as some would have you believe.)
Charlie Weis's success - with Ty Willingham's players - coupled with Willingham's 0-2 start in his new gig at Washington, including a blown lead and loss against the undermanned Air Force, has resoundingly proven that not only was replacing Willingham with Weis not a racially motivated move, but it was also a good move by Notre Dame.
In other words, another badly played race card by a very bitter columnist.
Write to Andy at
ndistops@hotmail.com
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