"When we were growing up, on Sunday mornings, there was only one game on T.V. -- Notre Dame (reruns)," Curry told ESPN Radio's morning crew, Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic -- the latter a 1985 Notre Dame alumnus.

"We laughed. I am not a close friend of Ty's, but we are definitely friends and we had a mutual interest -- Notre Dame football. Even when I was a student athlete at Georgia Tech, I was a Notre Dame fan and Ty was a Notre Dame fan (at Michigan State). There was a mystique there...I'm not sure there is today."

Golic, an affable former Irish tackle who went on to play for the Philadelphia Eagles, reluctantly agreed.

Notre Dame fired Willingham after his Irish team completed a disappointing 6-5 season with a 41-10 loss at top-ranked Southern Cal, N.D.'s third consecutive 31-point loss to the Trojans. In three years, after going 8-0 to start out, Willingham's teams finished with a 21-15 record, and he became the first Notre Dame coach since 1933 not to complete the traditional opening five-year contract the university offers its coaches.

"Notre Dame was a special place, one with a mystique that attracted student athletes from across the country," Curry said to Greenberg and Golic. "I'm not sure the same conditions prevail today."

Notre Dame always appeared to be a beacon of fairness and tolerance, albeit being manned by a demanding fandom that expected a continuation of college football's then-winningest tradition.

"Today's bluechip athlete was two years old when Notre Dame last won a national championship (1988-89 in Lou Holtz's third year)," Golic said. "He doesn't always connect with the Notre Dame tradition."

With nearly 50% of today's Division I-A football players African American, there are only two (of 119) black head coaches remaining -- U.C.L.A.'s Karl Dorrell and Sylvester Croom of Mississippi State, after Tony Samuel was fired at New Mexico State and Fitz Hill resigned at San Jose State.

"That is sad," Curry lamented. The executive director of the Black Coaches Association took it one step further.

"In three years, I think he has done everything short of winning a national championship," Floyd Keith told The Associated Press's Tom Coyne. "And I don't think he's inherited national championship talent."

It is debatable whether there were any elements of institutional racism in deciding Willingham's fate. More likely, in firing the former Michigan State defensive back short of the usual five-year cycle, Notre Dame, fairly or unfairly, forfeits some of its cachet as somehow different from the standard-issue, huge-stadiumed I-A powerhouses.

"It's a case of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately," Golic said.

Athletic Director Kevin White spoke in the glowingest of terms Tuesday regarding Willingham's Sunday-to-Friday preparation and building of of the image of the student-athlete who stayed away from legal hassles.

But always, it came back to the bottom line. "If Tyrone had reversed the process," former Irish coach Ara Parseghian told Greenberg and Golic, "and had gone 6-5, 5-7, then 10-3 this year, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

"I walked in with my eyes wide open (regarding expectations)," continued Parseghian, whose teams won two national titles in his 11 seasons. "I remember driving up Notre Dame Avenue, seeing the Golden Dome and feeling this electrical charge..."

Notre Dame's commanding national presence needs no retelling here. But for the young high school studs today, it is not perceived as "cool."

Many signs point to Utah's Urban Meyer, a former Holtz and Bob Davie Assistant at Notre Dame for five years, who, when reached yesterday after practice, admitted to having "Great respect for that university," a key reason for having a Notre Dame "out" in his Utes contract.

"By the way," he told A.P., "we had a good practice today. Want to talk about our practice?" Despite no basket-weaving courses, few academic casualties and a football program "Light years ahead of where it was before Ty got here," according to Kevin White, when the subject is Notre Dame these days, Vince Lombardi's infamous "Victory isn't the main thing, it's the only thing" declaration takes stage front and center.

As Curry said, "What message does it send regarding commitment?" From the Detroit Free Press's Mitch Albom to The Washington Post's Michael Wilbon, columnists everywhere weighed in.

"It's like spitting in somebody's face and telling him it's a raindrop," Wilbon wrote.

It is how Notre Dame now deals with its updated, downgraded image that will define Irish football for generations to come.

Fair? Nope.

But that is the route Notre Dame chooses now, far from the romantic image of nearly every football playing son of ethnic parentage dreaming of playing on the sweat-stained fields once roamed by the Gipper, Knute, Leahy and Ara.

Good luck.

— Paul Smith