Looks like Charlie gets more from Our Lady's school NOT to coach than Kelly gets to actually do the job. Chuck should wear a mask! http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...notre-dame-football--20120516,0,1438293.story
Worst deal ever was giving Charlie that contract extension after 4 or 5 games. Not only did it bring down a media firestorm over the whole firing of Willingham and how much Willingham was paid and how Weis is white and Willingham was black and there for it must have been a racist thing. Not to mention while there was excitement over the way the team started the season, it was way premature to give a guy an extension. The school was hoodwinked and manipulated by Weis and his agent into to thinking that unless they got this done that the Weis to the NFL rumors would never stop and eventually somebody would offer him so much money he would have to leave for the NFL.
When has that ever stopped a coach from switching jobs. It matters not how many years are left, they will still bolt to a perceived better opportunity.
Oh Jesus Christ.. at Notre Dame they boast of having a world class business and law school, yet they were hoodwinked by the fat man and his agent from NJ? That's not a ringing endorsement for either. Is there anyone there on campus who can actually do their job? I'm sorry, I have a hard time faulting Weis for getting all that he could financially. Keep in mind, this is the school that ran off Lou Holtz and replaced him with Bob Davie.. then sacked Davie replacing him with Willingham, who is honestly the worst coach at Notre Dame in my lifetime.. Charlie takes a lot of heat, and that comes with that lofty paycheck. No one truly stopped to take an honest assessment of the **** hole left behind after King Ty took his new wardrobe to greener golf courses. There's plenty of blame to go around at ND, but Charlie isn't even in the top 10 of the problems we've had these past 20 or so years. Hell, the guy actually brought in legit NFL talent (something we were sorely lacking) and went to 2 BCS games.. granted he ended with a plane crash thud.. He clearly was not ready to be a head coach, yet.. but all things considered, he's not the boogeyman everyone makes him out to be.
Hey, hey, hey! Easy with the Jersey talk. I gave everyone in the Outfit a Garmin for Christmas, capice? Notre Dame paid Charlie Weis more than $2 million last year as part of his contract buyout plan which continues through 2015, according to the Chicago Tribune. If you compare that to a recent database posted by USA Today that analyzes the salary of all Div. I football coaches, Weis made more from the Irish than all but 30 coaches made from their current school. His paycheck was bigger than what Gary Patterson got from TCU, what Chris Petersen got from Boise State and what Mark Dantonio got from Michigan State.
You're right Bill, they wanted Lou out and felt he'd become "bigger" than the program or something like that....I think they deluded themselves into thinking it would be easy to replace him. Although I am not sure that Lou would have lasted much longer anyway, his wife was going to be diagnosed with cancer in the next year and I think he might have resigned on his own to help take care of her during that time she was battling cancer.
Although the general impression is that he was "sacked", that is not the case. It was close, because he felt that he no longer had the support of the AD, which was true. Lou left on his own, but no one in the administration tried to make him change his mind. The then-AD made two horrendously bad decisions which haunt ND to this day: 1) he stopped supporting Holtz, and 2) he hired Bob Davie. Bottom line....Karma's a bitch. We've had some ADs over the past 15 or so years prior to hiring Swarbrick who have been as bad as, or worse than, the coaches they have hired. I'm comfortable that our current AD would not have made the decisions like I mentioned above and like the Weis debacle. In this regard, we finally are on the right track.
Sid you are right Lou did leave on his own, and you are right he lost the support of the AD's. IMHO they made a big mistake when after the NC year of 88 and the great year of '89 that they didn't go to him and offer a huge contract to make it clear that they wanted him to finish his career at ND and they felt he deserved to be the highest paid coach in college football. They also should have supported his coaching staff, instead they sort of forced out Vinnie Cerrato his recruiting guy and didn't give him the money to hire the best staff in football. They were living in the past when ND coaches never made more than the highest paid faculty member (a noble idea but impractical), although I'm sure guys like Ara and Lou made plenty of money on side deals and endorsements. They were used to operating on handshakes, again a noble thought that worked well in the past but times changed. In short at a critical time they didn't treat Holtz like the treasure that he was and instead put up obstacles to his continued success and once he saw that the game was rigged so that he couldn't be competitive at the highest level he bowed out.
I think I've mentioned before that I sort of knew Hugh Devore, he was a patient for awhile. He told me that Leahy was also made to feel somewhat unwelcome. Not so much that they called him in and told him such, but the priests were uncomfortable with the level of success he had and feared being a "football" factory at a time when they were trying to transform the University into what it has become an Academic powerhouse. At a time of unlimited scholarships, they were always battling with Leahy over how many players he could bring in every year, and again didn't like that he had become so big, bigger than the University in their opinion. All that stuff about him retiring due to health was not really true, he retired because he got tired of fighting with them over what he thought he needed to do to keep the team at the highest level and they were tired of him as well. Of course they thought Terry Brennan could replace him and he could be controled where they struggled to control Leahy.
I have heard the same story about Leahy that you described above. You would think that after that experience (hiring Brennan as his successor), after the Devine experience (hiring Faust as his successor), and after the Holtz experience (hiring Davie, Willlingham and Weis and striking out with O'Leary), we would learn to hire experienced college coaches with solid winning records and truthful resumes. But nooooooo...........I only hope that the next chapter in our pattern of periodic self-destruction occurs many years from now when I'm gone.
No need, Godfather. All's well, but thanks for the thought. I'm just hoping that we don't make another mistake like Terry and I have described, period. If we do, I hope it's so far into the future that I'm not around to see it or to live through the aftermath, as we all have had to endure for the past 15+ years. The Leahy fiasco happened before I was even an ND fan. My first two years as a student were the final two years of the Leahy impact. Then we had the Era of Ara followed by Dan Devine. Great years. Then Faust, which fortunately only last a few years, followed by 10 years of Lou. Then........................ :cry: I hope Kelly can turn it around.
Holtz leaving ND was one the best things ever to happen to college football. I have truly enjoyed watching him over the years on ESPN.
Holy Crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can I sell tickets to the upcoming event??? In this corner, weighing in at... Seriously... I respect the ND guys here and feel that they can contain themselves. However, I want to make it a little easier for them. I have locked the topic to give a 24 hour cool down period before I unlock it. If Terry or Bill thinks this unnecessary, they can unlock it any time they wish... Just wanted to throw up a barricade before Lake Pontchartrain overflows again. ;-)
I actually think I understand what Dave meant. It was a compliment to Holtz' TV persona, not a knock on him as a coach. Unfortunately, his history here caught up with him, and it came across as a slam. Karma. :wink:
I think that I used the wrong word in sacked, I actually knew he resigned. However no one believed that is what he wanted to do. Then he went to S. Carolina and put them on the map, that ended a bit ugly with I think it was a fight. However he brought the program up and was instrumental in getting Spurrier there as his replacement and Spurrier has brought them along also to the point that they are annually one of the better teams in the SEC. Holtz had a lot to do with that happening. He and Spurrier have always had a good relationship and I believe Spurrier helped get Holtz's wife into Shands hospital in Gainesville. Like MCG I enjoy watching Lou on ESPN, Dr. Lou that is.