White says ND’s black mark is his fault Irish AD: ‘I dropped the ball on this one’

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White takes the blame for the hiring fiasco that led George O’Leary to resign after just five days as the Irish football coach.

“I dropped the ball on this one,” White, speaking publicly for the first time since the resignation late Thursday, said on his radio show Sunday night. “It’s been the most challenging, difficult time, in not my professional career, but in my life. I feel very responsible for not making this thing work better. That’s all on me.”

O’Leary, who stepped down as Georgia Tech coach to accept the Notre Dame job on Dec. 9, resigned after admitting that academic and athletic accomplishments listed in his biographical sketch for more than two decades were false.

He did not have a master’s degree in education from New York University. He also didn’t letter for three seasons at the University of New Hampshire. In fact, he attended New Hampshire only two years and never played in a game.

White said Notre Dame officials talked to more than 50 people about O’Leary, including coaches he had worked for more than 20 years ago, and found nothing to cause anyone to question O’Leary’s past.

“I think everybody that has been part of George’s life was just in shock that he had some of this erroneous bio material that dated back 20 to 25 to 30 years ago,” White said on his program, which airs on ESPN Radio 1000.

White has come under heavy criticism from students and alumni, with some saying they believe White should resign because of the error. White said he never considered resigning and said he has the support of the Rev. Edward A. “Monk” Malloy, the university president.

“Monk has been very, very supportive,” he said.

Louis M. Nanni, vice president of public affairs and communication, said the university still has confidence in White.

“We know that obviously he has taken a lot of heat at this moment,” Nanni said. “So goes the job of being the athletic director at Notre Dame, especially when it pertains to something going wrong in the football arena.”

White also said that while a lot of people are worried about what the incident has meant for Notre Dame, he feels most for O’Leary. He said he talked to O’Leary on the telephone about midnight Thursday when he resigned.

“It was the toughest phone call I’ve ever been party to,” he said.

White said a Notre Dame staff member was with O’Leary on Thursday when it became apparent he would have to resign.

“He said, ‘Oh my gosh, how do I tell my mother?”‘ White said. “The person who has been hit the hardest, and the people who have been hit the hardest, are clearly the O’Leary family.”

White said he doesn’t think the search was rushed. He described the search as methodical, saying O’Leary was offered the job because he met the criteria Notre Dame was looking for.

White said there is no timetable for selecting a replacement. But White said finding a good coach now is harder than it was now.

“It’s complicated,” he said. “Institutions or professional organizations have done a terrific job in contractually tying up their talented people. … It’s not just the matter of waiting until the end of the bowl season and it’s just not a matter of waiting until after the NFL season. I think largely those contracts are still in place.”