In the end, the starring role in Notre Dame's month-long football drama went to the man who auditioned for it first.

And when the curtain rose for the third act of the historic saga, University officials agreed that no one was better suited for the part than Tyrone Willingham.

"Tyrone was the very first person I talked to," athletic director Kevin White said Tuesday following a news conference announcing Willingham as the University's 28th head football coach. "We simply got the absolutely the perfect guy, and I know it's going to sound Pollyanna, but maybe it's divine intervention, but we got the right guy. I'm convinced of it."

Willingham, the head coach at Stanford University the past seven seasons, signed a six-year contract. The 48-year-old North Carolina native becomes Notre Dame's first black head coach of any sport.

"… it is about, yes, great football excellence, but also about the mind and spiritual development of young people," Willingham said during the news conference with his wife, Kim, and their three children in attendance. "I think that fits very well with Tyrone Willingham."

"This is an exciting moment," he added. "It is a moment that you often go back in your life and you try to figure out what has brought you to this moment."

What brought Willingham, a 25-year veteran with collegiate and professional coaching experience, to the New Year's Day introduction as head coach was a series of landmark events that unfolded over the past four weeks.

It began with the Dec. 2 ousting of Bob Davie, the first Irish head football coach to be fired.

The University on Dec. 9 named former Georgia Tech head coach George O'Leary as Davie's replacement. But just five days later O'Leary announced his resignation after admitting that his biography contained false academic credentials.

Officials flew Willingham to South Bend Monday for a meeting with the advisory committee that helped with the coaching selection. Willingham and administrators completed terms of the contract about 8 p.m. Monday, White said.

White would not comment on specific terms of the contract but said he had "virtually no negotiation with Tyrone" and that Willingham would receive the same compensation that O'Leary would have been paid under his six-year deal.

Reports that Willingham's salary will be between $2 and 3 million annually are inflated, according to White.

"I think he wishes he were compensated at that level," White said. We said at the front of the search that we would pay a strong market salary, and we say that about all of our head coaches and have done that."

Speculation that the search for a coach cost more than $10 million is also off-base, University spokesman Dennis Moore said.

Despite public criticism that the O'Leary resignation highlighted the University's need to employ an executive search firm, Notre Dame had retained such a firm as well as an independent consultant after Davie's firing.

"They were on board from Dec. 2 at 3 o'clock in the afternoon," White said, adding that University public relations officers helped by conducting Web engine searches into candidates' backgrounds.

White said the firm and consultant also were involved in talks with candidates Notre Dame eyed to replace Davie. The athletic director would not disclose names but described the selection process:

"I visited with four people," he said. "We had targeted six initially. I went out and sat face to face with four. And as Phase II came into play [after O'Leary resigned], we added an additional person, so four became five. So as I stand in front of you today — and that's me, not the committee — I still only had face-to-face conversations with five people, one of which we extended an offer to, we had a press conference and unfortunately it didn't work out; another one was the person you just heard from today."

"Beyond the five people that I physically sat down with, and only two of which came and spoke to the committee, there were a zillion telephone calls and some were three minutes to 10 minutes to 30 minutes to an hour. And as I kind of collect from all the mediums all the number of people that have expressed publicly that they were offered the job and/or visited with the interview committee and/or were in deliberations as to whether to accept the job, let me be clear that two people were offered this job. That's the reality of it."

White clarified that among the pool of candidates some were bound by contractual limitations to their current employers and several others decided it wasn't a good time to make a coaching move.

Willingham received the job after two meetings with University officials, once before O'Leary's appointment and once following it. Notre Dame delayed the second meeting until after Stanford's now-ironic appearance against Georgia Tech Thursday in the Seattle Bowl.

"We were very careful not to ask for permission [of Stanford AD Ted Leland] to reapproach Tyrone until the day after his bowl game," White said, "and that's exactly what we did."

The awkward scheduling of Willingham's introduction on New Year's Day was not meant to deflect attention from the announcement, according to University President Father Edward Malloy. Instead, officials timed the event around the plans of Malloy and members of the Board of Trustees.

"I have to go on a one-week trip to Mexico starting next weekend, and we were going to get this one done way or the other sometime during this week," Malloy said. "That was a realizable goal."

White added, "It was a process that we just know we needed to bring to completion and find the very best guy we could."

If the coach's appearance Tuesday is an indication, the University has found a witty and frank personality to head the football program.

Asked what offensive strategy he would incorporate into the program, Willingham told the corps of reporters: "Well, you know what, I am primed for this one. I want you to know that. Because as I understand the Notre Dame tradition, the focus is 'win.' So my offense … is about winning." And later, "My defense, before the next person gets the mic, is about winning."

At another point in the 45-minute nationally televised news conference, a reporter asked Willingham if there were any sticking points in negotiations with Notre Dame. The coach asked, "How pointed would you want me to be on my reply?" and then declined to comment.

Willingham offered warning that he was a no-nonsense coach who wouldn't be soliciting laughs on the field or in the media room. "… I won't be telling many jokes. This is probably as good as it gets," he said.

Officials praised his pointedness.

"You just need to do a good job, be focused and have the kind of relationship with your student-athletes and with the rest of the university that we expect of you," Malloy said. "I just want him to be himself. He doesn't have to tell jokes. He doesn't have to spend huge amounts of time in public performance."

The University president noted that Willingham was an all-around institutional fit. At Stanford, he coached players in a rigorous academic environment similar to Notre Dame's.

He also is comfortable working at a religious-affiliated school, Malloy said.

Three weeks ago, the University believed O'Leary offered the same qualities.

"George kind of appeared to all of us as something out of central casting — a second-generation Irish Catholic, good football coach and great institutional fit," White said. "George expressed great passion for the job."

But Willingham has been just as passionate about the job, according to White. Willingham believed he was most qualified for the position and was disappointed when O'Leary was hired.

Willingham offered concise comment about his being Notre Dame's second choice.

"The way that I will address it is to win," he said.

In seven seasons at the helm of the Cardinal team, Willingham coached Stanford to a 44-36-1 record, including four bowl appearances and a Pacific-10 Conference championship in 1999. His 2001 Cardinal team was his most successful, with a 9-3 record and berth in the Seattle Bowl.

Willingham was twice named PAC-10 Coach of the Year. He was a finalist for the national-coach-of-the-year award in 1995 and won the equivalent of that honor from the Black Coaches Association in 1995 and 1996.

He holds a 3-2 record versus the Irish the past five seasons.

The Kinston, N.C., native was a walkon in both football and baseball at Michigan State University. He graduated received a bachelor's degree from the school in 1977 and began work that year as an MSU football graduate assistant.

He was a secondary coach for Central Michigan University from 1978 to 1979 and then was a secondary and special-teams coach for his alma mater for the next three seasons.

He held those positions also at North Carolina State University from 1983 to 1985.

At Rice University, he coached receivers and special teams from 1986 to 1988.

He spent the next six seasons as a running-backs coach — at Stanford from 1989 to 1991 and with the Minnesota Vikings from 1992 to 1994.

He returned to Stanford in 1995 as head coach.

Friends and former colleagues lauded his appointment at Notre Dame.

"He is someone who has so many intangibles and will be an excellent fit at Notre Dame," Condoleezza Rice, former Stanford provost and current national security adviser to President Bush, said in a statement. "He will be good with the alumni and someone Notre Dame will be very proud of."

Vikings head coach Dennis Green called Willingham an "ideal selection" for the University.

"He has the great combination of being demanding and understanding," Green, also a former Stanford coach, said in a statement, "and I think that he is going go help the players reach their goals — and that's what it's all about."

E-mail Jason McFarley at mcfarley.1@nd.edu

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