School of Hire Learning Would Help Notre Dame

Imagine if you bought a home as fast as Notre Dame Athletic Director Kevin White hired a football coach.

You know, paid “Speedy’s Limousine Service” to whisk you around to open houses in the Southland while you kept your thumb on a stopwatch, as though you were a contestant in some teen-driven, made-for-MTV scavenger hunt.

You to driver: Keep the motor running, pal, this won’t take long.

You to real estate agent: Let’s cut to the chaise ... lounge. I need a ranch-style home for under a million bucks, and I’d like to be signing escrow papers before the 6 o’clock news. Can’t help? Well, I’ve got a nice little fix-me-upper in Atlanta I can always turn to.

If you put this kind of effort into buying a home, whose fault would it be if it turned out the house had leaky pipes?

Well, that’s just what White ended up with: George O’Leaky.

Some guys take longer picking out socks than White took finding a coach.

White’s week in review: Fires Bob Davie on Sunday Dec. 2; flies to West Coast on Tuesday, is either rebuffed or put off by all-star coaching cast that includes Jon Gruden, Steve Mariucci, Mike Bellotti and Tyrone Willingham; flies to Atlanta on Thursday, meets with Georgia Tech Coach George O’Leary at Hartsfield Airport hotel; flies back to Notre Dame on Friday, hires O’Leary on Saturday, introduces new coach in South Bend, Ind., on Sunday.

Wow.

Pretty impressive, except for the teeny-weenie problem of O’Leary’s past. For $10, the Irish could have solicited a routine academic background check and discovered O’Leary had not obtained a master’s of science degree at New York University in 1972, as he had claimed for years in his media guide biography.

It might have spared Notre Dame the colossal embarrassment of having to accept O’Leary’s resignation after it was learned the coach had not come clean about his academic or playing career.

White knew O’Leary had to go lest the school be subjected to countless “Win one for the Fibber” quips.

Don’t misunderstand, speed has its advantages. Imagine a world without microwave popcorn or express checkout lanes. That doesn’t mean White has to turn a coaching search into a game of speed golf.

White may have succumbed to his reputation of being quick on the draw. We all were impressed with the expedited manner in which he replaced basketball Coach Matt Doherty, who left Notre Dame to become coach at North Carolina.

Same story then: White hopped on his plane and brought back, post haste, Mike Brey from Delaware. It wasn’t a big-name hire, but basketball insiders knew White had chosen a solid, dependable man.

You could understand the rush for White to want to quickly find a replacement for Davie if only to keep Notre Dame recruits from changing their minds.

It was far more important to hire the right man, however, and there were doubts about O’Leary even before this hire turned to fiasco.

O’Leary was a respectable coach and his Irish Catholic roots must have won over Notre Dame’s men in collars, yet O’Leary’s past deserved closer inspection.

O’Leary’s 33% graduation rate at Georgia Tech was nothing close to the 100% mark Davie turned in last year. O’Leary also had minor scrapes with the NCAA and, only last year, one of his players accused O’Leary of allowing him to be brutalized by teammates in a practice drill.

Discipline?

O’Leary was 27 minutes late to his first news conference and seemed to loathe the public relations skills required to handle the incredible demands that come with being Notre Dame coach.

Yet, after his West Coast trip turned up dry, White turned to O’Leary and signed him six days after he fired Davie--you won’t find quicker turnaround stories in the book of Genesis.

It was White, remember, who rushed to judgment last year and handed Davie a five-year contract extension only days before Notre Dame got clobbered, 41-9, in the Fiesta Bowl.

White admits that was a “misread” on his part, but then he had to pay Davie $1 million as part of the buyout package.

This is not a thunderbolt flash, but the task of hiring the next Notre Dame coach has to be a tad more painstaking. White’s career and the future of Notre Dame football are riding on it.

White might consider joining a Lamaze class, if only to learn breathing techniques.

He needs to take a chill pill, take a slow boat to China--and abstain from any of the Jackie Chan “Rush Hour” films.

What’s the big hurry now?

Recruiting is no longer an issue. Coaches have entered a “dark” period for contacting players that lasts until Jan. 3.

White’s next hire might be his last, so he’d best not whiff this time.

If it takes wasting a recruiting class to get the right man, waste the year.

If it means waiting until the NFL season ends in the pursuit of a big catch, more likely San Francisco’s Mariucci than the Raiders’ Gruden, White ought to wait.

Had White stopped to smell a rose last week, he might have learned O’Leary wasn’t even the most qualified O’coach out there. Boston College’s Tom O’Brien has defeated Notre Dame twice in his five years at Chestnut Hill.

Crisis management? If O’Brien could rescue Boston College from the throes of a gambling scandal, he can handle anything thrown at him at South Bend.

Background checks? O’Brien is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, an ex-Marine and a straight shooter. It’s interesting that O’Brien was a leading candidate to replace O’Leary at Georgia Tech last week before he asked to be removed from the list of potential candidates.

This time, before White instructs his pilot to go wheels up, he ought to sit by a fire, pour some chamomile tea and read a good book.

We suggest, “The Tortoise and the Hare.”