Willingham established his reputation because he relentlessly pursued perfection. Now he's expected to lead the tradition-rich Irish football program back to national prominence.
By ANDREW SOUKUP
Sports Writer
A few days after Notre Dame hired Kevin White, the new athletic director received a lunch invitation from Donald Keough, former chairman of the Notre Dame Board of Trustees. During that first meeting with one of the most powerful men at Notre Dame, Keough told White something he would never forget.
"Here's what you have to do to be successful," White remembered Keough saying. "Whatever you do, you've got to learn to be able to hear the music."
White learned how to listen to Notre Dame's complex symphony of history, tradition and lore that echoed from the racks of candles at the Grotto to the locker rooms inside Notre Dame Stadium. High academic standards didn't stop Notre Dame from winning national titles in the past, and White saw no reason why they should in the present. Athletic expectations weren't lowered in the past, and White didn't drop the standards when he took over.
When you're at Notre Dame, you act a certain way, and with the way White conducted his orchestra, he made sure everyone understood that very clearly. If one instrument was off, White didn't hesitate to replace it.
That's why, less than 12 hours after the 2001 season ended, White fired former head coach Bob Davie and went looking for someone who could to live up to Notre Dame's expectations. Someone who could restore credibility and respectability to a program accustomed to national championships, not sub-.500 seasons.
White wanted someone who could hear the music.
So he called Tyrone Willingham.
Crossing paths
Willingham and White first crossed paths at Central Michigan University in 1978. At the time, White coached the school's track and field team while Willingham, in his first college coaching job, worked with the Chippewas' secondary.
White saw how Willingham, even as a young football coach, demanded perfection from his players. He established a reputation as a coach who refused to tolerate laziness and held high expectations for everyone around him.
"I don't think anybody dared not to live up to his expectations," said Muddy Waters, who hired Willingham as secondary coach at Michigan State in 1980. "I think they respected him so much they wanted to do the best they could for him."
The two parted ways when Willingham left Central Michigan after two years for Michigan State. While White gained a reputation as one of the best athletic directors in the nation, Willingham emerged as one of the best young coaches in the nation because he demanded so much out of himself and his players.
"Nothing is acceptable outside of the pursuit of perfection," Willingham said. "Very few will be perfect, matter of fact, there is no player, no person, that I've been around that will be perfect. I know in most cases, I will probably fall short, but that doesn't diminish my desire, my enthusiasm to reach that goal."
The pair reunited in 1996 when both worked for rival Pac-10 schools. By the time the White joined Arizona State as athletic director, Willingham had a year of head coaching experience at Stanford, where several of White's former track athletes at Central Michigan worked as coaches on Willingham's staff.
"There were always these tentacles between Ty and myself," White said.
White's respect for Willingham was plainly obvious and he admired the way the football coach ran his program. And when White left Arizona State for Notre Dame, Stanford Athletic Director Ted Leland made a light-hearted comment.
"I know you've got great respect for Ty, and at some point, you're going to try to hire Ty," Leland told White.
Little did he know how right he was.
Different frequencies
White had a short list of candidates he wanted to contact about the possibility of replacing Davie and Willingham was at the top. After announcing Davie's firing, White picked up the phone, dialed Leland's number, and asked for permission to interview Willingham. The next day, White made contact with the Stanford head coach.
"He was the guy that I felt I knew the best in terms of personal ego and reputation," White said. "I guess Ty's been on my list for a long time. I've always respected and admired and thought seriously about him. ... I've already come out of the closet. If I was at Arizona State, I would have tried to recruit him. If I was at Michigan, I would have tried to recruit him."
But something happened during the interview. The two just didn't connect.
White wanted someone who had a tremendous passion for Notre Dame, and he wasn't getting that from Willingham. White also said several people close to Willingham told him the Stanford coach was considering making a move to the NFL in the near future.
"It wasn't as gushing as I hoped it would be," White admitted.
But Willingham isn't a gusher. He fiercely guards his personal emotions. Every word that comes out of his mouth is carefully chosen. And when football is the subject, Willingham is deadly serious.
"He can loosen up now, it just depends on the situation and who he is around, but he loosens up pretty good," said Charlie Baggett, Willingham's college roommate. "But it does take a lot, and he doesn't come out of that very often."
Willingham shouted on one frequency how badly he wanted the job, but White heard only whispers on another frequency.
The two parted ways, and Willingham stayed at Stanford while White continued his search. A week later, Notre Dame hired George O'Leary, who didn't have a problem gushing to White about his love for Notre Dame, and the Stanford coach was all but forgotten.
Willingham didn't dwell on the missed opportunity. In three weeks, Stanford would play in the Seattle Bowl. So, just like he'd done his entire life, he focused on the task at hand and didn't think about anything else. Notre Dame had passed him by.
"I think there's a work ethic instilled in him from the time he was very young that when there's a job to do, you make sure the job gets done," said Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy, who worked with Willingham in Minnesota. "And that becomes the most important thing at that time."
Segregation
Lionel Tyrone Willingham grew up as one of four siblings in segregated Jacksonville, N.C., the son of a landlord who built his own rental houses and a schoolteacher who served as the first black woman on the local Board of Education. From them, Willingham discovered the value of hard work and opportunity.
"I wish everyone in the world could have had my parents," Willingham said. "They've been as good a role model and as good a coach in terms of the fundamentals they established within me."
Jacksonville wasn't exactly a hotbed of civil rights conflict during Willingham's youth, but he and his family could easily see the effect of segregation. Black families could only live in a designated area of the city and all black students in the county had to attend one school.
"We seldom thought of the racial problems when were growing up," said Willingham's brother, Jerome. "It's a racial problem when you have to go to a set school, but as a little kid the only thing you knew was that's where your friends were."
Willingham loved playing baseball and basketball with neighborhood children. But football was his favorite sport. While most of his friends played in the street or at the recreation center, Willingham would lie on his back in the front lawn throwing a football in the air, itching for his chance.
Jacksonville integrated when Willingham was 12. And as one of a handful of blacks in former white-only schools, Willingham quickly realized the only way he'd be able to take advantage of the few opportunities that came his way would be through hard work.
"It was two societies," Jerome Willing-ham said. "As long as we were in our neighborhood, it was wonderful. When we stepped out of that environment, we found out that we weren't welcome."
Wil-lingham found that he wasn't particularly welcome on the high school football team. The first black quarterback in Jacksonville High history, Willingham didn't play until midway through his junior year of high school, and he only got into the game because the starter was injured. But unlike several of his black teammates who couldn't handle the lack of playing time, Willingham never stopped practicing.
"Some players reacted by quitting," Jerome Willingham said. "He didn't. It didn't seem to bother him. I never saw any anger or frustration."
After working so hard to earn a spot on the team, Willingham didn't want his football career to end in Jacksonville. He sent letters to more than 100 Division I colleges asking for a chance to walk onto the football team. Only two responded — Michigan State and Toledo. Willingham chose Big Ten powerhouse Michigan State, and vowed to his parents he would earn a scholarship so that they wouldn't have to pay for his college education.
It was in East Lansing, Mich., where Willingham first learned to listen to the music.
Striving for perfection
In his room at Michigan State, Willingham constantly kept watch over his diverse music collection. He organized his records by stacking them alphabetically in plastic milk crates. Whenever someone took a record out of the sleeve, Willingham made sure it went right back in the spot.
Perfection in every part of life, that was Willingham's ultimate goal.
"He expected the best," Baggett said. "He wasn't the fastest guy in the world, but he used to beat us in wind sprints. We wanted to run them at 50 percent, but he wouldn't do it, he wouldn't go along with us. He never slacked off."
It took the walk-on just one season to make good on his promise to his parents to earn a football scholarship.
And the two-sport standout also distinguished himself on the baseball team and earned a spot on the All-Big Ten team his senior year.
But football was his first love, and he wanted to be perfect at it.
Every Saturday, Willingham would rouse his roommates out of bed at 7 a.m. for early-morning workouts. They'd be shaking off hangovers while Willingham, who didn't drink, ran at the front of the pack.
Willingham never complained about the lack of playing time he got in college. At one point, he was sixth on the quarterback depth chart. But he im-pressed his teammates and his coaches with his hard work and his no-nonsense attitude.
"He would do anything to help us win," said Darryl Rogers, who coached Willing-ham during his final year of college and offered him a graduate assistant position with the Spartans. "The players respected him because he wasn't kidding and he wasn't jacking around. What he was saying was solid and sound."
Willingham's hard work paid off when Baggett got injured. Willingham drove his friend to the hospital and then promptly took his spot on the depth chart, starting the final six games of the season at quarterback. He lost the starting job next season, but his teammates had seen enough — they voted him the team's most inspirational player.
"I'm constantly in the pursuit of perfection, and I want to be the best I can be and I want to be perfect today," Willingham said. "But I qualify that by saying I am impatiently patient about that code. The impatient part is that I want to have it yesterday. The patient portion of it is that if I don't get it yesterday, I want it tomorrow."
Earning respect
Tomorrow came quickly for a former college athlete who wanted to coach football. He served a one-year stint as a graduate assistant for the Spartans before going to Central Michigan. Willingham then moved from Michigan State to North Carolina State to Rice, where he also jumped into an internship program with the San Francisco 49ers designed to help minority coaches move into the NFL.
There, Willingham got to know Dennis Green.
The two had coached on opposite teams and had been mutual acquaintances for several years. But Green, who worked with the 49ers, needed a racquetball partner in the morning. Since Willingham didn't mind waking up early, he agreed to play. The two clicked immediately.
"We had that opportunity to get a feel for each other and to get a feel for what he thought on certain issues and what I thought on certain issues," Willingham said. "We had very similar minds."
A few years later, when Green was looking to fill a position on his staff at Stanford, he hired Willingham as the running backs coach. And when Green left for the Minnesota Vikings in 1992, Willingham followed him.
"I think there are a lot of people Coach Green could have picked," Willingham said. "I feel very fortunate that he picked me."
Those who have worked with both Green and Willingham saw similarities in coaching styles when Willingham left Minnesota for his first head coaching position at Stanford in 1995. Willingham opted to teach and instruct rather than scream and yell.
"He grew up under the Denny Green system and he's very similar to Denny in the way he approaches the program, his system, his philosophy and his values," said Irish secondary coach Trent Walters, who worked with Green and Willingham in Minnesota.
In practices, when a player makes a mistake, Willingham will raise his voice only once — only because it's necessary to get the player's attention. He motions for the player to come next to him and in low, controlled tones, calmly explains the mistake. He trades flashes of greatness for consistency and treats All-Americans the same as walk-ons.
Willingham wants to create a well-rounded person, not just a football machine. He evaluates success based on the physical, mental and spiritual development of his players. The poster boy for micro-managers, Willingham instructs his players on everything from how to read a blitz to how to hold a fork at the dinner table.
The result is lasting admiration for the head coach.
"I think he demands a whole lot, but everything he demands, he can do," said former Stanford receiver Troy Walters, now with the Indianapolis Colts. "He's a guy you want to go to war with. He's been in the same situations, he's had to overcome a lot of things, and he's had to work hard in life. You believe what he says and that he can do stuff because he's coming from the same situation."
"Just because he's not vocal with screaming and yelling doesn't mean he's not intense," Notre Dame receivers coach Trent Miles said. "He knows exactly what he wants, and he doesn't have to scream and yell to get it out of people all the time."
With respect came success. Willingham led the Cardinals to a 44-36-1 record over six years, a Rose Bowl berth and a top 10 BCS finish. He was selected Pac-10 Coach of the Year twice. Coaches longed to work on the same staff with the man who had a reputation for getting involved in every facet of the team without stepping on assistant coaches' toes.
But Willingham will have none of the praise.
"I don't see myself as being any different from anybody else," he said. "In the greater scheme of things, I'm just another man."
The second meeting
White didn't agree. It had been nearly three weeks since O'Leary resigned and White was reluctant to select another coach until Stanford's season was over. He wanted to talk to Willingham again.
Willingham certainly didn't expect another call from White. He remembered looking at the television on the morning of Dec. 14, the day headlines screamed across ESPN that O'Leary had been forced to resign as head coach of the Irish. But Willingham wasn't planning on fielding another call from Notre Dame.
"I didn't expect to hear from them again," Willingham said. "There was nothing that would lead me to believe that."
Mere hours after Stanford lost to Georgia Tech in the Seattle Bowl, White was on the phone asking Leland for permission to talk to Willingham again. He talked to the coach the next day.
"Ty, would you have a sincere interest in this thing?" White asked.
"Kevin, you made a mistake," Willingham said. "You should have hired me. I'm the guy. I would love to be at Notre Dame."
It was as if someone cranked the volume knob to full blast.
"I was looking for a gusher," White said after Willingham finally gushed. He had the same passion for Notre Dame as the fiery O'Leary — he just showed it differently.
Over the next day or two, Willingham evaluated the possible scenarios. He talked with nearly every major person involved in his life. He talked about the increased pressure at Notre Dame with his brother. He talked about moving to Indiana with his wife. He talked about the thrill of a new challenge with Dungy. And he talked with Leland.
"He was sort of, to me, casual about his interest in the job," the Stanford athletic director said. "Until he took it."
Suddenly, the two-year-old joke between Leland and White didn't seem all that funny anymore — at least to Leland. White, on the other hand, was giddy. It took nearly a month, but he finally found the man who could hear the music.
Facing the music
Notre Dame welcomed the new Irish football coach just as quickly as he left Stanford. The mayor of South Bend presented him with a key to the city. Fans praised the hire. Players welcomed him with open arms.
"He's got his hands in everything," Notre Dame center Jeff Faine said. "Offensive line, running backs, defensive backs, you feel like he's coaching everybody. I love it."
"The way he came across and the things he said, it was so easy to talk to him," said Irish kicker Nicholas Setta. "There was no hesitation. You knew the guys were going to have great respect for him and you knew it was going to be a great thing."
After the pomp died down, Willingham looked a Notre Dame community starved for football glory in the eye and promised he would win.
Pressure didn't matter to Willingham. He saw a challenge. He took the job. He won't change. Instead, he believes things around him will.
"His whole thing is that he's got to win there because that's the best college job in the country," said Baggett, who has stayed in weekly contact with his former college roommate. "It's a big challenge for him, but he's fired up about it."
Willingham is nearly settled into his new life at Notre Dame. He still lives out of a hotel room, but he already has his prized stereo system set up in his office. Sometimes, during the day, sounds of the Notre Dame marching band faintly resonate from Willingham's office.
"Other days, I might listen to gospel, rhythm and blues. But today," the head coach said with a grin, "today is my fight song day."
Willingham has heard the music. He knows what is expected of him. He understands that nothing less than perfection is expected at Notre Dame.
And he loves it.
"That's the goal, to be perfect," he said. "That's the goal, that's the joy. The chase is better than the capture. That, to me, is a great way to live as a person and an athlete, to be perfect, to be the best I can be."
All Sports Stories for Friday, April 26, 2002
