WILLINGHAM: BLACK COACHES AREN’T GETTING ENOUGH TIME

Tyrone Willingham knows a little something about getting fired. It happened to him at Notre Dame in 2004, and at Washington this year.And although Willingham isn’t asking for any sympathy for his own situation, he says that coaches -- and especially African-American coaches -- are getting fired too quickly, and without enough time to build their programs.”It’s not just my issue, it’s a college football issue — we have to give coaches a chance to do their job,” Willingham told the Chicago Tribune. “Because now we have coaches … especially some of the minority coaches … they are losing their jobs after 21/2 years. That’s not right."Miami coach Randy Shannon is currently the only African-American head coach of a BCS team. Willingham says he’d like to believe that more big programs will have black coaches at the top."One thing no one has ever disputed is that our program was run the right way,” Willingham told the Tribune. “That should identify clearly that African-Americans have the ability to run one of the largest corporate football programs in this country in the manner that it should be done. So hopefully it was a steppingstone for all.”