I realize I’m incredibly slow in blogging about this story, but just in case you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard, Kevin White is no longer Notre Dame’s athletic director.
Kevin White was hired as Duke’s athletic director Saturday, leaving Notre Dame for a school with an elite basketball team and a football team that has had 13 straight losing seasons and has not been to a bowl since 1994.
Notre Dame appointed Missy Conboy as its interim athletic director. The school said there is no timetable for a permanent replacement.
White will replace Joe Alleva, who was hired as LSU’s athletic director in April after a decade of leading the Blue Devils’ 26 sports programs.
“Kevin White is in the first rank of athletics directors nationally and will make a perfect fit at Duke,” university president Richard Brodhead said.
White had been at Notre Dame since 2000. He hired football coaches Tyrone Willingham and Charlie Weis, and hired former Duke assistant Mike Brey as the men’s basketball coach. …
White helped Notre Dame plan a $26 million renovation of the basketball arena and expand the school’s nonrevenue sports. He and his wife were made honorary alumni three days before switching jobs.
But White was widely criticized by Irish fans because the football team hasn’t won a national championship since 1988  the longest stretch in school history  and some fans place much of the blame on White.
He gave Bob Davie a contract extension in 2000, then fired him after the next season. White replaced Davie with George O’Leary, who resigned after less than a week on the job after he admitted he had lied about his academic and athletic past. White’s next hire was Willingham, who lasted just three years.
In all, the Irish football team had four winning seasons, three losing campaigns and one .500 finish during White’s tenure.
Her Loyal Sons and Rakes of Mallow have complete coverage of White’s departure and the search for a possible replacement.
I apologize for not blogging this sooner. My parents were in town this past weekend, visiting us and the baby, so my free time for blogging was limited. Even so, as I mentioned in comments on another post, I actually drafted a whole post about this on Saturday, only to have my computer crash before I’d saved it. I then intended to post something Monday or Tuesday, but got totally consumed with blogging about the rapidly changing Hillary Clinton-related developments, and never got around to it.
Anyway. Yeah. Kevin White, gone. I can’t say I’m shedding any tears over it. What do y’all think?
P.S. Duke sucks.
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Categories: Notre Dame
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June 5th, 2008 at 11:08:07 am
I suppose, depending on the new AD, this puts Charlie Weis on a much shorter leash to turn the team around…?
June 5th, 2008 at 11:49:58 am
Colin Cowherd was saying that the ND AD is a weak position. Apparently the decision to fire Willingham was made by other higher-ups and White was against it. White apparently was also against the massive extension given to Weis just a few games into his illustrious head-coaching career. I don’t know enough about ND’s other sports and their coaches to comment further on White’s performance, but I’d have made the move to Duke if I were him, too (I’d take restoring the image of the men’s lacrosse program over dealing with the Weis headache any day).
June 5th, 2008 at 1:08:47 pm
I was a fine athletic director Sunday through Friday.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:14:56 pm
Charlie Weis will indeed be on a much shorter leash. They can only blame Ty Willingham for their pathetic football team for another 7 years, unless they give CW another 10 year extension for winning more than 3 games next season.