Artificial success

Tyrone Willingham's expected success at Notre Dame was supposed to right all the racial wrong within the college football coaching fraternity. His success was supposed to awaken the echoes of the hallowed dome of Notre Dame. He was hired three years ago after the embarrassment from the athletic department of hiring a coach who lied on his résumé. He rescued the school by having an 8-0 start and finishing that season at 9-2. Over the three years he spent at Notre Dame, he had a record of 21-15, and also took steps to improve a program that was not in the best shape behind the scenes. Despite this, after a disappointing 6-5 campaign ending with a 41-10 loss to the No. 1 team in the country, Notre Dame decided to end Willingham's tenure at the most prestigious coaching position in college football. The firing of Ty Willingham means more than just a lower number of African American coaches in the country. It's an ugly and dirty reflection of a college culture that is losing touch with its purpose.\nThe primary responsibility of a university is to educate a student. Period. The success in extracurricular activities by the university is a huge plus. I will even say it's a great recruiting tool not just for athletes, but also for other students. Success in these extracurricular activities brings lots of attention to the school in many different ways. It gives the university a chance to promote and try to bring exposure to their other programs. It also brings the university money it always seems to need. Not too many schools have benefited more from the success of extra programs more than Notre Dame. For many years, Notre Dame football has been the program to rival. It has more national championships than any other program, and it has more wins than all programs but one. The success of this program has brought it a great deal of success, including its own national TV deal with NBC. \nWith all of this success, one thing Notre Dame has still been known for besides football is academic success. Despite its success on the football field, over the years Notre Dame has been able to keep a high level of success in the classroom. But saying that, the firing of Ty Willingham shows that Notre Dame is trying to join the ranks of other universities by putting sports and the athletes above the other students and the true goal of a university, which is to educate a student before anything else. The really sad thing is that this is coming from a school that's ranked in the top 20 academic schools in the country. It's sad that a top university has gotten to the point where they seem to care more about success on the football field than anything else. Wondering where I got this idea? At the press conference the athletic director said Willingham had achieved great success within the program Sunday through Friday, but that the progress wasn't being made quick enough on Saturday afternoons. So basically, it doesn't matter that he has made the efforts to make sure most of the athletes get a degree from the school, because he's not winning on Saturdays.\nThe idea of this isn't anything new, it's just something that is seems to becoming a bigger problem than previously now with this situation. The idea of placing athletic programs and "student-athletes" has reached a new level with such a prestigious academic institution like Notre Dame becoming more concerned with success at football than classroom success.