Right coach can bring ND back
Rarely does an administrator in college athletics say anything that I believe, so it scares me to be buying what Jack Swarbrick was selling Monday.
Notre Dame's athletic director said of Fighting Irish football, "I'm confident that the resources are in place to have a really quality coach come here."
The past couple months a debate raged nationally, if not globally, over whether Notre Dame is a quality position for head coaches anymore.
One university of thought is that the sport passed the Irish by. Failings of the past three coaches - including Charlie Weis who was dismissed Monday - support that premise.
It's poppycock, however.
The right man can awaken Notre Dame's echoes. If Pete Carroll coached the Irish they would be USC. If Urban Meyer coached the Irish they would be Florida. If Nick Saban coached the Irish they would be Alabama.
A head coach can win multiple national championships in South Bend and become one of the most celebrated figures in sports.
That's as tempting as aspiring to be the manager who takes the Cubs to the World Series, only more plausible.
Of course, the flip side is the next Notre Dame coach can be what Weis became - a celebrated failure.
Extreme highs and lows and love and hate are what make Notre Dame special. The middle essentially is deserted.
We're talking the Yankees of college football here. The ND logo, the Fighting Irish nickname, the Saturday rituals - so much of it remains the envy of the industry.
Swarbrick makes sense when he refers to the "the equity of the brand." Consider the attention Notre Dame received recently simply for losing and Weis received simply for failing.
No other university is afforded that much airtime and print space on the way from one football coach to another. Clearly, the sport is better when the Irish are prominent as either big winners or big losers.
Now, a case is made that high-school prospects know little of Notre Dame's tradition and couldn't care less about it.
But with apologies to Boston College, Notre Dame still is the primary Catholic university of college football.
Some of the best athletes nationwide compete at Catholic high schools. Trust me, folks, those players and their coaches and their parents know what Notre Dame football is about and enough of them want to be a part of it.
Beyond that, public-school players around Chicago, down in Texas, in the inner city of Los Angeles and elsewhere also would have to be deaf and blind to be unaware of Notre Dame football.
Back in the 1980s I mistakenly dismissed the Irish. Academic requirements were too difficult, behavioral standards too stringent and social opportunities too limited for minorities, blah, blah, blah.
Notre Dame hired Lou Holtz as head coach and contended for national titles and Heisman trophies again.
The only time Notre Dame football isn't all it can be is when administrators squander the brand by hiring the wrong man for the right position.
"This is a job in which there is great interest," Swarbrick accurately insisted.
All Notre Dame has to do is pick the right coach and let the good times roll.
mimrem@dailyherald.com