Ty Willingham, former coach of Notre Dame and now the coach of the Washington Huskies, has decided to play the race card. He has basically claimed that the entire Notre Dame institution is racist. This has upset a few people.

The majority of this country is not racist. The majority of the colleges and universities in this country are not racist. The majority of those institutions football programs are not racist. It is not a system set up to deny black men from being able to coach. He was given a 5 year contract. He didn’t stay for the entire time and got fired, but might that have more to do with his ineptitude and his lack of fostering a competitive program than the fact that he had darker skin than some of his players? If Notre Dame were so racist, would they not have hired a white coach in the first place? Since 1894, there have been four coaches with worse career records at Notre Dame than Willingham: Henry McGlew, Hugh Devore, Joe Kuharich, and Gerry Faust (Technically, Kent Baer had a worse record, but he only coached one game and that came after Willingham was fired).

But wait, Charlie Weiss got a better contract extension right off the bat than Ty Willingham’s deal. Was it because his skin was lighter? Or might it have had something to do with the fact that Weiss has completely transformed almost the exact same offense as Willingham into one that actually wins? Or that he already has a top 5 recruiting class lined up for next year because everybody wants to play for him? It surely doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that there are going to be at least a half dozen NFL coaching positions available in a few months that are going to have some money to throw around? Why would Notre Dame want to keep one of their own, anyway?

I’ll be the first to acknowledge racism if I see it. But from what I have been able to see, Willingham just lost all credibility that he had a week or two ago.