{image1} The University of Notre Dame beat the University of Washington 36-17 last weekend in football.

The win was rather unremarkable, except for the fact that the Huskies coach used to be the coach of the Fighting Irish. This is a phenomenon that occurs more often than one would think in college football, as coaches routinely ride the carousel of their chosen occupation.

They ride and ride, holding on as tight as they can and as long as they can to these jobs, until the forces of their profession inevitably fling them off.

But unless you were under a rock last week, the Ty Willingham vs. Charlie Weis showdown in Seattle was somehow billed as a "big deal" because Willingham would be facing the same kids he recruited and that are now being coached by Weis.

Coached particularly well, one might add, as the Irish have already scored an early season upset at Michigan, and may still be a factor in the National Championship race - although the road to doing so is almost impossibly difficult.

Fueling the "big deal" angle of this story was undoubtedly the fact that Willingham happens to be black, and Weis, white. So the convenient template of "black man done wrong by faceless evil white power brokers" was very much in play with anyone too lazy to look at the facts.

But this angle seemed to suit ESPN's John Saunders like a glove, so he rolled it out on their Sunday show "The Sports Reporters." Amazingly, Saunders claimed that Willingham feels like he was "used, back-stabbed, and perhaps even the victim of racism" in his Notre Dame dismissal.

Wow!

That's some strong stuff for Saunders to casually throw out there as just second-hand hearsay. If Coach Willingham wants to say that himself, fine. After all, he's the aggrieved party, and would have more first hand knowledge of the situation than just about anybody.

But for guys like Saunders, the simple template of a racist angle is apparently too hard to pass up - truth or facts, be damned.

Alright, just so I get this straight.

Notre Dame hired Coach Willingham, despite being racists. They held their nose at his early success when he went 10-3 and everyone was raving about the choice. They also hung tough on acting upon their racist urges to fire him after his 5-7 second season - one in which he lost four games by 26 or more points. Then after another lackluster 6-5 season, the Notre Dame hierarchy (remember, racist slugs that they are) finally sprung their racist trap - and FIRED HIM!

Haaaa, haaaahaha!

I'm sure there was much rejoicing at Notre Dame over this, especially the part about having to pay the remaining two years of his contract. Boy, do white racists love paying black men NOT to work!

True, Willingham had a 21-15 record when fired while his predecessor, Bob Davie, had a 21-16 record when he was allowed to finish his deal - and then get fired. Willingham however, had lost by 31 points or more at Notre Dame a total of five times. By comparison, the Irish under Davie had just one such loss; Lou Holtz and Dan Devine had none.

There is also a lot of talk right now about Charlie Weis "winning with Ty's guys."

He sure is.

Just like how Willingham went 10-3 in year one, yet you hardly heard the cry of "winning with Bob Davie's guys."

Ralph Fridgen of Maryland came in, and went to the Orange Bowl with "Ron Vanderlinden's guys."

And the beat goes on.

Floyd Keith, executive director of the Black Coaches Association, told ESPN News at the time that he was disappointed with Notre Dame's decision. Citing Davie's nearly identical three year record, Keith asked why Davie was allowed to finish his contract, and Willingham was not.

"This sends an alarming message to African-Americans," Keith said.

Actually, it sends an alarming message to any school that is considering hiring an African American coach. That message is loud and clear: any termination of a black head coach, regardless of justifiable circumstances, will be branded by many as evidence of "racism."

What school wants to walk down that path?

Like Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm: "So what? I fired the black man. Oooh. 'Black man' can never be fired. Black people never do anything wrong."

Even more chilling for school administrators mulling over head coaching candidates I would bet is having to hear guys like John Saunders on ESPN repeating and recycling utterly outrageous themes of racism for months and years to come.

If you really want to talk to a coach who got a raw deal in college football, call up Mike Price at Texas-El Paso. Price got fired by Alabama based on a totally flawed article in Sports Illustrated about a night out at a strip club.

Or maybe call George O'Leary himself, whose resume fluffing flushed his tenure at South Bend before it even began. It also touched off a string of similar pointless witch hunts in sports that claimed such noted figures as Sandra Baldwin of the USOC.

Can you imagine - imagine! - what it would be like if a black coach had been hired, then fired in a week over a resume glitch over 10 years old?

Ray Rhodes was fired after one season in Green Bay, and the appropriate race-roilers tried to drum up the typical "outrage."

But when Rhodes was here in Washington in 2000 as defensive coordinator under Norv Turner, he turned down the chance to succeed Norv on an interim basis when Turner got whacked in mid-season.

You want a raw deal? Turner was coming off the Skins only playoff appearance in a decade, and he was fired with a 7-6 record! Try doing that to a black coach and get away with it in the media!

Tony Dungy's ouster in Tampa Bay elicited whimpers of the same type from many in the media. Problem was, Dungy had simply run his course in Tampa, and the organization needed a change. Plus, the guy they hired to replace him, seemed to do alright. Gruden, I think his name was. Saw him coach once in a big game and do okay.

They say football coaches are "hired to be fired" and that applies to everyone's skin color. Pretending that a black head coach like Willingham being fired is evidence of racism only serves to stifle schools from hiring them in the first place.

At least Willingham got a very nice high profile Division IA job right away at Washington, so things could be worse. Right now however, he's off to a slow start and the honeymoon won't last very long.

Ty knows there's only one line that matters -- the won-loss line -- not the color line. If he doesn't work wonders on the former, the latter really won't matter this time.

Not even with his apologists in the sports media trying to breathe life into tired myths about race and firings.