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Notre Dame football: The complicated legacy of George O’Leary

By Daniel Morrison

1 Jan 1999: Head Coach George O''Leary of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in action during the Toyota Gator Bowl Game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at the Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida. The Yellow Jackets defeated the Fighting Irish 35-28. Mandatory Credit: Erik Perel /Allsport
1 Jan 1999: Head Coach George O''Leary of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in action during the Toyota Gator Bowl Game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at the Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida. The Yellow Jackets defeated the Fighting Irish 35-28. Mandatory Credit: Erik Perel /Allsport /
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ORLANDO, FL – SEPTEMBER 19: Head coach George O’Leary of the UCF Knights yells into his microphone during an NCAA football game between the Furman Paladins and the UCF Knights at Bright House Networks Stadium on September 19, 2015, in Orlando, Florida. Furman won the game by a score of 16-15. (Photo by Alex Menendez/Getty Images)
ORLANDO, FL – SEPTEMBER 19: Head coach George O’Leary of the UCF Knights yells into his microphone during an NCAA football game between the Furman Paladins and the UCF Knights at Bright House Networks Stadium on September 19, 2015, in Orlando, Florida. Furman won the game by a score of 16-15. (Photo by Alex Menendez/Getty Images) /

Notre Dame football hires O’Leary

Hiring him at Notre Dame only made sense. The Irish needed a stabilizing presence for the program following the Bob Davie era. They needed to rebuild and bring the program into the 21st century, and George O’Leary was a program builder.

For O’Leary, Notre Dame football was a dream job. The coach loved to lean into his Irish heritage, just as the university leans into its nickname. Maybe that love of Notre Dame is what lead him to lie on his resume. Maybe George O’Leary just wanted to make sure he got the job.

Either way, it cost him his dream job. It cost him his reputation. For what? He pretended to be a three-year letter at New Hampshire and made up a fake school and a fake Master’s degree like he was Jeff Winger.

If they weren’t on his resume, they would never have kept him from getting a job to coach football, which he undeniably was good at.

O’Leary would say that he made the abridgments to his resume early on to get jobs, and he just never went back to correct them.  In that sense, he did something that most people do to get their first job, he pretended like he was more qualified than he was. It didn’t make him a bad person necessarily.

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