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The Doomed
UHND.com - Ken L. Britton
12/24/2001
No, his name was not Jon Gruden, not Tom Coughlin, not Bob Stoops, not Steve Mariucci. He would not take a sledgehammer and shove it down the throat sideways of the Rod Gillmore’s of the world simply by intimidation and reputation.
But his name was George O’Leary. He was a head football coach at Georgia Tech, and a very good one. He was driven and intense. He had taken a program that was left in tatters post-post Bobby Ross, and turned them into the second leading power in the ACC.
The hiring of O’leary followed White’s pattern of hiring. Don’t say a word, and stay underground until you can emerge with a coach to introduce. White played this to perfection as the pressed kept guessing all the while not knowing who and when White spoke or inquired about a coach. The only solid information that ever emerged of his search was a conversation with Oregon coach Mike Belotti, in which Belotti. Rumors about O’leary never materialized. His name was only mentioned after he had accepted the position.
White had everything in place. His excuse for a head football coach was gone, and in a matter of days he had hired a coach who had proven himself with much less talent than what could be acquired at Notre Dame. He had hired a disciplinarian. He hired someone who loved the University. He hired someone who would not shake losses off as if it happens all the time. He had hired someone who could win games. Hell, he had hired someone whose last name was O’leary. He had operated according to standard business practices, according to his own rules set for and by himself, and come out on top.
The only thing to do now was wait until next year and watch if/how O’Leary would turn things around.
But there’s a problem: that waiting period lasted only five days.
What’s that you say? Has the 2002 season mysteriously started in December? No, that’s the approach of doom, an unmitigated disaster.
Kevin White knew it as soon as O’leary handed in his resignation in the middle of the night Friday morning. I was lucky enough to have heard later (or else I wouldn’t have gotten much sleep that night).
It was doom approaching, in the form of reputation and rhetoric. The questions quickly started to pile in my head, as in the heads of many Irish followers: The press is going to have a field day with this, what is White going to do? Who on earth would want to coach here now? How long is going to take to recover from this? Who is going to be out new coach? How long will it take to find a new coach? How can this happen when it was needed least….?
I quickly got a grip on myself and slowly realized that I had nothing to do with this situation. Besides causing stress (which impending destruction of part of one’s life frequently causes), this would not affect my life in the least. What of the players? What must be going through their mind? They’ve suffered their entire careers through losing and inept leadership, how can this put any light into the picture? Was this what they went to Notre Dame for? Is Lorenzo Crawford, despite his jokes, kicking himself for not staying with UNC? Gerome Sapp had offers from just about every school in the country. After sitting behind Ron Isreal (for no other reason than because Isreal was a year ahead of him), was this what he wanted his senior year? Did Caryle Holiday shake off Nebraska to compete with two other quarterbacks plus Arnaz Battle for this?
What ND is left with is begging former coaches for advice. They are also being turned down by coaches who should not be considered in the first place. They have inexplicably not even given Tom Coughlin – who on paper is the most qualified coach in football at any level to take the job – the time of day. On Tuesday a frustrated Coughlin, no longer being able to swallow his pride, released a statement saying he was happy where he was. If you buy that a success driven coach who has a losing team that is schedule to be 27 million over the cap this February is happy where he is, you should take ethics counseling from Gary Condit.
The search is now on in a desperate fight for the remaining Irish luster’s life. It’s up to White and Malloy to find answers. How many do they have? Joe Montana has given advice, Lou Holtz has been asked (and accepted) as a consultant. I do not disagree with these actions, but it’s not the sign of strong leadership either. Take a look at the picture from afar and it is an administration desperately trying to pick up the pieces before it is too late.
At the very least, the ND administration is showing patience, and that is needed. If an NFL coach has interest, they will not under any circumstances resign their job until the season is over.
Because wipe away a little more luster and their next. The pundits laugh. Everybody suggests, and heck, who imagined Bob Davie would be laughing right now?
What’s that approaching? It might be the ides of March for Notre Dame Football if something is not done in the next six weeks.