George O'Leary

influenced more young people in the past week than in his entire coaching

career of 20-plus years.

The sudden

end to his five-day stint as head football coach at Notre Dame, after

it was revealed that he had falsified portions of his resume years earlier,

stunned the sports world and sent one of this country's most respected

institutions scrambling to recover from a public relations nightmare,

while the man himself stood in limbo, the remainder of his career in doubt.

One must wonder

how much thought he gave to the possible consequences back in 1980 when,

as a would-be assistant at Syracuse, he embellished his record of academic

and athletic achievement. He might have thought to himself, "Who

really cares how many games I played at New Hampshire, if I can get the

job done as a coach? When game time rolls around on Saturday afternoon,

does it really matter if I actually completed a master's degree in physical

education?"

Apparently

not, at least in the early years. The fictitious portions of O'Leary's

resume followed him to every coaching stop, through a reasonably successful

term as a head coach at Georgia Tech, all the way to the hallowed golden

dome at Notre Dame, where an innocent attempt by a New Hampshire newspaper

to print a "local boy makes good" story brought it all crashing

down.

In the actual

nuts and bolts of college coaching, does it really matter that he never

played a down at New Hampshire or earned that degree at NYU? Of course

it doesn't. Other men with no playing experience in college have been

successful as coaches, even in the pros. And you certainly don't get the

lion's share of your training for the sidelines in a classroom.

What does matter

here is obvious. It's already been talked about and written about dozens

of times in recent days, but it can't be overstated. The man lied, plain

and simple. L-I-E-D.

Can he recover

from this? Sure, to some extent. I'm sure that he and his family have

already suffered more than they could possibly imagine, and I'm not looking

to pour salt on any wounds. Aside from the public humiliation, there's

the millions of dollars O'Leary has lost in future revenue, much of which

was a done deal through his new Notre Dame contract. Now there's a real

question of whether he will ever be a head coach again anywhere. If he

coaches again in college, rival recruiters will pounce on every athlete

considering a move to his school "You're going to play for O'Leary?

Are you serious ?"

But on the

other hand, how many young men and women who witnessed this episode will

think twice the next time they consider falsifying a job application,

or misleading the police, or lying to a spouse? We'll never know the answer

to that question.

There seems

to be a constant debate in the sports world on whether athletes are role

models. Well, there's no doubt about that where coaches are concerned,

and they know that better than anyone. They take young men and women at

a most vital time in their lives, mostly during high school and college,

and impart lessons that their pupils will carry to the grave. That awesome

responsibility too often gets lost in the world of the average sports

fan amid life-and-death concern for wins and losses.

The O'Leary

incident flies directly in the face of two principles taught over and

over in this country the past 50 years the insane pursuit of money above

all else, and the equally insane concept of moral relativism, climaxed

a couple of years ago by a mind-boggling debate over the importance of

the president of the United States lying in court.

Of course,

Notre Dame's actions in response to O'Leary's indiscretion were partly

motivated by a desire to cover its collective backside and save its reputation

at all costs. People already wonder why this school and so many others

don't check into the backgrounds of their hires a bit more thoroughly.

In this case, the answer is obvious O'Leary was coming to boost the win-loss

record, and never mind that he brought with him a mediocre player graduation

record (for Georgia Tech, anyway) and succeeded a coach whose graduation

rate of late was 100 percent. Now O'Leary and Notre Dame must live with

the consequences.

But maybe this

will prove that all is not lost, that there are some things still more

important than money, athletic success and moral relativism. Maybe this

will resurrect a wise but largely forsaken concept handed down some 3,000

years ago: "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches

(Proverbs 22:1)."

[Monroe Roark

can be reached at [email protected] .]