White's character is clean
Todd David Whitmore
The Common Good
The fallout over athletic director Kevin White's failure to check the veracity of George O'Leary's résumé serves as a reminder that, as a whole, sportswriters are not known for the depth of their insight into character.
Nearly all of the comments excoriated White for not catching O'Leary's misrepresentations, as if it was a character flaw on White's part to miss O'Leary's lies. There is a different read of White's actions, however, and that is that, in the technical sense of the word, they exemplified virtuous behavior.
John Courtney Murray, the Jesuit who is most responsible for making the case that being Catholic and being American is not oxymoronic, argued that civil society requires a virtuous people. Murray was not a romantic. He did not have a hyper-pious understanding of civic virtue. The virtue of civility, for Murray, primarily meant that a person entered public discussion honestly and, barring reasons for thinking otherwise, assumed that others were entering the public sphere honestly as well. Civil society simply cannot hold up if our assumptions are built on cynicism.
White did not have reason to doubt the basic facts of O'Leary's résumé. White checked into how O'Leary performed, for instance, at Georgia Tech, but, at least at first, had no evidence to suggest false reporting on O'Leary's part. Given what has since happened, it may be considered prudent to check into the factual basis of every detail, however old, of every resume, but to start with that practice would have been the act of a cynic.
Critics might reply that O'Leary made a fool of White. Jay Leno referred to the former Georgia Tech coach as "O'Really?" But that is the risk that even reasonable trust takes: that someone will misuse that trust and make one look foolish. The alternative, however, is for everyone to give up on even reasonable trust. The result is a society that replaces any semblance of community with such things as prenuptial contracts and surveillance cameras as first rather than last resorts. Precisely when to trust and when to rely on external checks is a matter of prudential judgment. But the assumption that distrust ought to be the primary mode of operation and trust the rare exception is a sign of a sick society, not of wisdom.
Two other actions on White's part are also worth mentioning. First, in an earlier column I took him to task for saying during a press conference that football was the "heart and soul" of the University. I am sure that I am not the only one who pointed out the problem with such a view. To his credit, White said in a later press conference, while still honoring football, "One has to understand that the heart of the University is its academic excellence and the soul is its Catholic identity."
Such public self-correction is evidence of humility. It is precisely the kind of humility that was lacking in O'Leary when, after the news was out and apparently on the advice of his lawyer, he tried to recast his conversations with Notre Dame in order, it seems, to make the case that Notre Dame fired him. If he resigned, as he said at first, then Notre Dame would not have to buy out his contract.
The final action worth mentioning is the hiring of Tyrone Willingham. White and others in the University have stated repeatedly that Willingham's being African-American had nothing to do with his being hired, and there is no reason to doubt this. Still, hiring him is a departure both for Notre Dame and big-time Division I football generally. White acknowledged that much of the attraction to O'Leary was the latter's Irish heritage. It made O'Leary, ironically, seem known already as one of the Notre Dame family. It raised comfort levels. If Willingham's being African-American had nothing to do with his being hired, then neither should have O'Leary's being Irish. But the latter did.
What this means, though, is that to hire Willingham the University had to move at least somewhat out of its comfort zone. That the University hired him simply on the basis of his ability does not expunge the fact that in hiring an African-American head football coach it did what it is not used to doing.
It is said of some of the medieval monastic orders that they formed to do good, and as a result of their discipline and parsimony did well. In Notre Dame's case, perhaps it can be said that in its ambition it hired Willingham because it wanted the team to do well, but in superceding previous, even unspoken, assumptions about the "Notre Dame family," did good.
Todd David Whitmore is an associate professor of theology and the director of the program in Catholic social tradition. His column appears every other Thursday. He can be reached at whitmore.1@nd.edu.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, February 7, 2002
