Compared to his experience at Notre Dame, where he was savaged after the mediocre 2004 season, Willingham has little to worry about. Before this season, the Huskies were picked to duke it out with Stanford for last place in the Pac-10, winning perhaps three games tops.
"I love it," says Lambright. "I thought before the season, if they got four wins, then it would be one heck of a year. If they can put six together, I'll be first in line applauding Tyrone."
Kevin P. Casey
Willingham has consistently declined to discuss his embattled tenure at Notre Dame.
Kevin P. Casey
Willingham has consistently declined to discuss his embattled tenure at Notre Dame.
Related Content
More About
The evening after the ASU game, another heartbreaking overtime loss that left the Huskies at 4-5 with much-diminished chances of making the postseason, 60 Minutes aired a feature on Willingham's successor at Notre Dame, Charlie Weis. In his second season, Weis has the Irish ranked in the Top 10; and Steve Kroft, a 60 Minutes correspondent, remarked that Weis had remedied the school's recent lack of commitment to winning and academic excellence.
Willingham said he hadn't seen the 60 Minutes piece, but when told of Kroft's assertion, he had an uncommonly charged response.
"Oooooooh," he said, before stopping abruptly. One thing Willingham prides himself on is making sure his student athletes make it down the aisle in a cap and gown on graduation day. At Stanford, his graduation rate was 94 percent—95 percent at Notre Dame. (At UW, the grad rate has hovered in the 60 percent range, something Willingham wants to improve.)
Willingham has consistently refused to comment about his experience at Notre Dame, but how would he respond to patently erroneous information that called his integrity into question?
"I wouldn't respond," he said.
For sportswriters and fans, the Willingham style doesn't make for fascinating reading and viewing. He processes a win on the same emotional level as a loss, except that it's a win—and wins are inherently better than losses.
Not that some sportswriters don't work overtime trying to crack Paint Dry Ty.
"You like candy as a kid?" the P-I's Moore asked Willingham last week, looking for some kind of Halloween column hook. A moment before, he'd asked Willingham about his favorite Halloween costume as a child. Willingham, who grew up in Greenville, N.C., and was among the first African-American students to attend a previously segregated high school, told Moore that he didn't have a favorite costume—that the most he might have worn was a mask.
"Candy's good," said Willingham.
"So you liked Almond Joy?" asked Moore, almost laughing at himself.
Willingham nodded and replied: "They're good."
"I could ad-lib everything," says Willingham, when asked about his Paint Dry Ty, Boy Scout image, "but I don't like repeating facts. I am very honest and up front. So many of us are trying to put a particular spin on things. I come to you with no agenda. What it is is what it is."
info@seattleweekly.com
