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A question of vanity Attorney says O'Leary didn't submit false info to get a jobPosted: Thursday December 20, 2001 7:00 PMUpdated: Saturday December 22, 2001 4:36 AM
By Mike Fish, CNNSI.com Exiled from the coaching fraternity, George O'Leary is holed up at his summer house on Lake Oconee in Eatonton, Ga., dealing with the embarrassment and anguish of fibs that cost him the head football job at Notre Dame. O'Leary has served as the butt of jokes since quitting the storied Notre Dame job last week after misrepresentations were discovered in his biography, which touted him as a letter-winning football player at the University of New Hampshire and the holder of a master's degree. "Ah boy, it's just tough here," says O'Leary, sounding groggy and depressed on the phone. "Within a week you lose two great jobs." Not to mention perhaps as much as $10 million in potential salary, according to his attorney, and a career-full of credibility. O'Leary, who left Georgia Tech for the Irish, plans to go public with his version of the story in the coming weeks, but for now he says only, "Yeah, I think there needs to be some corrections." His longtime friend and attorney, Jack Reale, opened the defense Thursday, saying O'Leary never submitted a false document or resume to get a job. And, in fact, he maintained O'Leary never filled out a job application until Notre Dame. Then, it was after he'd already accepted the job and everything he put down was accurate.
"Personally, George is crushed," Reale said. "He was devastated, non-communicative for a number of days. Depressed, as you might expect. But he is a mentally tough person. That has never been a false portrayal. "Little by little, I see signs of him rallying and being willing to fight and clear up his name to the extent that he can clarify what the circumstances were. It's a very sad time. He feels worse in some ways about some of other coaches affected by this decision and this result, both the coaches at Notre Dame and Georgia Tech, as well, of course, as his family." Reale said O'Leary was in Washington, D.C., recruiting when Notre Dame officials called with questions about his biography that had appeared in the Georgia Tech media guide. Once officials accepted his resignation, O'Leary boarded the school's private jet at 4 a.m. last Friday for South Bend, cleaned out his office, got back on the plane bound for Atlanta and was at his lake house by 9 a.m. During the courtship to replace Bob Davie, Notre Dame didn't ask O'Leary for a resume or to fill out an application. They issued a press release on his hiring that included details from the football media guide at Georgia Tech. Then, they gave him an application to complete before officially starting December 12. The form didn't address playing, but it did academic background. "Under educational background, his says 'B.S. in Education, 39 hours of graduate study.' That's it, period," Reale said. "There's no reference to a master's degree or whatever." That, in Reale's eyes, is proof O'Leary wasn't living a lie -- or at least was coming clean. "One thing is clear and absolute, at no time did he ever submit a false resume or biography to anyone to get a job," Reale said. "Did he puff? Yeah, he puffed as to his varsity letter experience." On an April 1, 1980, form provided for his first college job at Syracuse, there is a reference to O'Leary having been a letterman at New Hampshire -- which is incorrect. Reale notes that O'Leary was hired as the Orangemen's defensive line coach the previous January. O'Leary didn't need a resume or application when Bobby Ross hired him as Tech's defensive coordinator in 1987. Reale said the spring media guide has no reference to a master's degree, but it first showed up in the fall. O'Leary may have provided background to someone on the staff, but Reale maintains he didn't fill out a resume. Nor did he provide a resume/application when Tech hired him away from the San Diego Chargers in 1994, with the idea that he would eventually replace head coach Bill Lewis -- which happened late in the season. "In the worst case, somebody verbally asked George about that [background] and he puffed it because of insecurity from being a Central Islip [New York] boy who is now working here among the PH.D.'s and the chemists," Reale said. "Or out of vanity or anything else. Again, it was an after the fact puff, and it had no bearing on getting a job, getting advanced, getting paid or whatever. "He's not guilty of fraud, because he never got anything as a result of this resume or application. They were always after-the-fact documents that were put into record. He is guilty of vanity. And that kind of vanity is no different than the kind of vanity where somebody gets a hair transplant, a boob job, builds a house bigger than they deserve because they're trying to make themselves feel good. He never did any of that kind of stuff. He wasn't that showy."
As for graduate studies, Reale said O'Leary accumulated 39 hours -- about two-thirds of what is required for a master's -- at New York University, State University of New York at Stony Brook, along with correspondence courses at Azusa Pacific. The hope is for O'Leary to be coaching on the sidelines next season, either in college or the NFL. A head job would be ideal, but realistically he may have to rebuild his image as an assistant. "We have received a tremendous number of calls from very solid football people who would hire him tomorrow," Reale said. Not lost on Reale is the ease with which people forgive and forget, including coaches who error -- though Notre Dame failed to stand long by O'Leary's side. "There on the side of the [Notre Dame] library is Jesus, with his arms outstretched," Reale said. "Now, is he signaling touchdown or saying 'Come to me and I will forgive you?' The latter wasn't presented as an option. "If you make a decision hiring a guy, let's measure the level of imperfection or the nature of the particular flaw. Is it critical and destructive or is it part of human condition that everybody has to a greater or lesser degree? My thought is that in this case it is a little vanity and smugness. And anybody that gets to the top of the profession probably has healthy dose of it or they're good at holding their cards close to vest and never letting it come out."
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