The mere mention of Quentin Burrell's great grandfather inspired a warm smile to slide across the stone-cold seriousness of Tyrone Willingham's face, touching the Notre Dame sophomore so deeply. Here he was, meeting the Fighting Irish's new coach for the first time and Willingham wanted him to see something on his trophy shelf: The 2000 Eddie Robinson Coach of Distinction Award, leaving the living legacy of the Grambling legend to understand he finds himself the bridge at the crossroads of history.

	At Notre Dame, Tyrone Willingham can inspire a new generation of black coaches.

"My great grandfather was one of the first people to call me when he heard Coach Willingham had gotten the job here," said Burrell, a backup cornerback from Decatur, Ga. "This is an opportunity he never had as a coach, and in some ways, I think he's coaching Notre Dame through Coach Willingham now. This means so much to him."

Eddie Robinson was glad to confirm his great grandson's suspicions and suggested something else, too: He isn't alone. There are black coaches young and old who have been delivered hope with Willingham's hiring at Notre Dame. If he had rejected the Irish to stay at Stanford, how long until one of the elite college football programs hired a black coach? Out of 117 positions in I-A football, there are four black head coaches. If not Willingham, then whom? If not now, then when? There doesn't exist a black Bob Davies or Larry Coker or Frank Solich, faceless coordinators who have been elevated to elite head jobs. There are no black Gerry Fausts, scholastic coaches ordained out of oblivion to wake up the echoes.

Where do black coaches get jobs? Almost always, at places white coaches with options would consider career suicide. This is starting to change with Willingham at Notre Dame, with Bobby Williams at Michigan State. While it was wonderful to see New Mexico State and San Jose State give black assistants opportunities to take over a program, these aren't plumb jobs.

"When you give the African-American coach a chance, it's very often where winning hasn't been the tradition, where the budget always has a shortfall, where alumni never support, where the student body doesn't come out," said Bob Minnix. " 'Here it is,' they tell you. 'Go win.' And you've got one hand tied behind your back."

"... But this is Notre Dame now. ..."

As president of the Black Coaches Association, Minnix is pragmatic about the possibilities for progress with one of the most famous coaching jobs in sports afforded to a black man. As a Notre Dame alumni, he's thrilled to believe the Irish are going to get back to prominence. After watching Willingham beat Notre Dame with what Minnix considered "far less talented teams," understanding the coach's character and vision, he said he's sure this was the right man for the job.

If Willingham could recruit a winner to Stanford, there's no reason to believe it can't happen with Notre Dame too. To inspire change within the hiring practices of America's athletics directors, what could well be needed is Willingham transforming the Irish into a national contender again.

"I do think Notre Dame can establish a standard now," Robinson said. "If they have success with this coach, many other people will not be afraid to do this kind of thing. This happened with Doug Williams winning a Super Bowl (as a quarterback). They're going to suffer criticism. They're going to take heat for this. But change will come. It never happens as fast as you want, but it does come.

"More than anything, people understand winning. I believe in this young man coaching Notre Dame now. He's earned this job."

If Southeastern Conference schools have a history of stopping at nothing for championship seasons, it should be remembered that there is still one length the SEC has never gone for victory: Hiring a black football coach. In its own backyard, Louisiana State had Robinson for a half century. Of course, every school in the SEC could've hired him. Only, they never did.

"If I could've won there, that would've been the thing," Robinson said. "I was from Baton Rouge, knew LSU and I knew they wanted to win. I'm not upset over the fact I never had the chance. There were a lot of people with good records who never got those jobs. It didn't happen for me. I have no regrets. I know what I could've done there, but I also know what I did at Grambling all those years."

Los Angeles owner Carroll Rosenbloom offered Robinson the Rams job in 1978, but with quarterback Doug Williams heading into his senior season, even a contract that would have tripled Robinson's salary couldn't coax him away from Grambling. Before leaving to interview with the Rams, he explained to his players that it was important for him to make the recruiting visit west. In his mind, the world needed to hear a black coach had been considered as a candidate to coach in the NFL. Still, it would be a decade before Al Davis hired Art Shell, breaking football's sideline color barrier.

Even now, Robinson swears he harbors no bitterness, no resentment. At 82, he still sees the possibilities. He was born into a time when a young black student wouldn't have dared dream of a football scholarship to Notre Dame, never mind a chance to coach the Fighting Irish. After all these years, all the Irish struggles of the past decade, Notre Dame still stands as something of a standard.

This was already the most pressurized job in college sports. And now? Well, understand this: The nation will examine Tyrone Willingham like it has never a college coach. So, yes, sometimes it is sure to get a little lonely in his office. And when this inevitably happens, the coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish ought to glance over at that trophy on his shelf and remember the great Grambling coach, the guardian angel there to guide him.

Adrian Wojnarowski is a columnist for The Record (N.J.) and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPNWoj@aol.com.