Government to Bailout Notre Dame Football !

 

The Bush administration in conjunction with the Democratic congress is now calling for a bi-partisan federal bailout of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football program to the tune of $ 14 billion.  Citing its cultural and historical value to the nation, its tradition and it popular fan base, the proponents are warning that failing to act is no option, “time is of the essence,” says an administration spokesman, “or we will lose a national treasure.”

Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid told reporters, “Charlie Weis needs help and he needs it now.  Notre Dame is coming to us for consideration and we are going to have to make a decision.”

Controversial congressman, Ron Paul, of Texas caused a brief uproar on the floor of the House of Representatives Monday when he asked House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, why they couldn’t just fire coach, Charlie Weis, and get a another coach?  “Why does the government always have to be involved in these things?  If some teams are losing that means that some teams are winning too.”

But there is bi-partisan concern that looking for another coach at this stage would be the death knell in a 120 year tradition that represents thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in franchising and licensing fees, yet another blow to a failing economy.

“To get another coach at this point,” explains Treasury Secretary Paulsen, “would be like asking the heads of the auto industry to give up their plush, executive, jobs in favor of others with bold claims but untested ideas which may or may not work when, in fact, the current executives know their industry better than anyone and have a record that we can see. We know what they will do.” 

Asks Paulsen, “Would you want the chairman of Citibank to just walk away?  And lose all that talent, just because his business has failed in a down economy?”

Speaking on Bloomberg Television, Marvin Forbes explained that “if the government is going to give out these large sums of money it wants to give them out to men and women with proven records who have experience and not just create new billionaires out of new people.”

President Bush, in an informal Roosevelt Room meeting with newspaper editors from selected mountain states asked, “Why would the government want to give money to a new coach?  What could a new coach possibly know that Charlie Weis hasn’t already learned in four years?”  Bush says he has looked Weis in the eye and has “a sense of the man’s soul.”

Notre Dame officials will be coming to Capitol Hill this week and there is every expectation that the government will provide the help they need. 

When asked about the crisis, President Elect, Barack Obama, has declined to comment, saying that there can only be one president at a time, but he did add that “These are emergency times and we need emergency solutions that are creative.  Americans are looking for change.”

Some outspoken congressional critics, such as ESPN’s Duna Jacoby, are suggesting that half of the $ 14 billion should be withheld until the school and its coach can come up with a workable plan for winning games.  But Marlin Yoder of the Catholic League says he met last night with Vice President Elect, Joe Biden, in a closed door session at the Chicago Hilton and stressed to Mr. Biden that any further delay by the government would be disastrous.

Secretary Paulsen admits that there are other storied football programs in trouble.  The recent loss by Ball State raised some eyebrows in Washington.  And while the government cannot bailout all the teams with losing seasons, it will consider them one by one on a needs basis.

Says a spokesman for the troubled Notre Dame football program, “No one here wanted to do it this way, we would have much preferred to have had a winning record on our own, as we did during the last Great Depression but this crisis came out of nowhere and has reached ‘Critical Mass’ and something had to be done and this seemed to be the only way to save the program.”

Stay tuned….

Memo to Notre Dame: Hire Skip Holtz

Skip Holtz should be the new Notre Dame Coach.

Charlie, we hardly knew ye, and perhaps we never will.  But the good ye done us, those spectacular recruiting classes, should not be wasted.  Just as Jerry Faust recruited so well and Lou Holtz used those teams to bring us back, now step aside and let his son, Skip Holtz, do the same fer us again. 

Skip Holtz has earned this moment.  He knows college coaching from the ground up.  He knows how to train and properly motivate insecure, young men, instead of tear them down – NFL style.  And he has learned how to play the expectations game from the master.  He can win a game he is supposed to lose and win in bowl games too.  He knows the ND tradition well, knows what the pressures will be and he has something personal to prove, that he is much more than the son of Lou Holtz.  He is the skipper.

We owe you much, Charlie.  You are a class act in many respects.  You are not a loser.  You leave with your genius for offensive call playing tarnished but intact.   And your recruiting work ethic will mean that you will share a bit with Skip Holtz and his turn around year.

Okay, ND, go to your alumni, buy this contract.  As Gloria Feldt has famously said, “The worst mistakes I have made in life and leadership have always involved waiting too long to fire someone.”

The Georgia Tech game last year revealed that our mighty coach was really an offensive play calling genius but not much more.  Notre Dame should have been looking hard from that moment on.

Skip, we need ye, son.  Wake up the echoes.

What Will Notre Dame do With Charlie Weis?

My flight home from Kiev arrived late last night so I missed my St. Patrick’s Day deadline, nevertheless, as a lifelong fan of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who went to high school in South Bend, I have to add my two cents worth to the discussion of the besieged Charlie Weis and his year of decision.

Like others, I was delighted by those first two turnaround years of the Weis era.  They were just pure magic.  And the off field antics, like the pass right opening play for the dying kid, and Tom Zbikowski’s professional boxing debut, were as wonderful as the on field acrobatic receptions of Jeff Samardzija.    I liked the way Charlie brought the whole community back home.  Joe Montana on the sidelines and having Lou Holtz and Ara Parsegian coach the two teams at the Spring Game.  It exemplified his generosity of spirit and his humility.  I was astonished that no one had ever invited Rudy back to campus until Charlie Weis.  Rather arrogant and mean spirited of the school, in my opinion.  Rudy’s movie had done more for their recruiting program than all their other pompous public relations efforts combined.  Charlie just seemed to be righting so many wrongs.

But none of it would have carried any significance, indeed it all would have inspired criticism, as in why not use some of your imagination and good will on the playing field, if it were not for the sensational offense.  It was such a relief to see the team actually making first downs and a Catholic school actually pulling off a few Hail Mary’s as opposed to throwing it up and hoping to get an interference call.

Like everyone else, I was stunned by last year’s opening Georgia Tech game.  Stunned.  I had been anticipating this game all summer and was convinced that this contest would tell me almost everything I needed to know about the coming season.  But the ebullient, ill fated, Gerry Faust never had a team look that weak.  I knew that night that our season was over and I told my son we would lose to Navy later in the year.

As the losses mounted I read with fascination the Tom Pagna articles in Blue and Gold, trying to read between the lines to understand the politics of what was going on.  Sometimes what the Irish sage was not saying about Notre Dame’s offensive line and its lack of mastering basics was just as revealing as what he was saying.

It seems pretty clear now that Charlie Weis did not know how to train college boys and worse, in his two spectacular years of success a bit of hubris had taken root.  He was apparently refusing to even recognize that he needed to train college boys.

There were some early signs that the Weiss promotion to legendary status was premature.  There was the unrealized greatness of that seasoned offensive line, allowing their star, Brady Quinn to be continuously sacked.   There was the Sixty Minutes show, with Weiss’ profanity being his most defining quality.  It was a bit curious to see his philosophy at work, the tearing down of a player, instead of the building up.  And yet, who could argue with success?   Evidently there was some kind of reverse psychology at work here that provoked greatness.  But even among eighteen year old boys?  They will respond to being ridiculed and screamed at?  They need no encouragement?  No nurturing? Apparently not, after all, it worked for the men of the New England Patriots.

Years before, I had had misgivings when the Notre Dame Athletic Department began to play their little games with Lou Holtz.  I had liked Holtz.  I was working at the White House when Notre Dame won their last championship.  I was the staffer who recommended him for a State Dinner.  That night I stood in the shadows and watched Holtz enjoy the after dinner program.  It was the King of Yemen, not the Queen of England, but hey, it was a State Dinner.  Holtz was a proven winner, even if he had become a little predictable.  The Athletic Department was obviously baiting him, playing to his choleric personality, doing what they had to do to get him to move on.  And like the herd among the subway alumni, I was fascinated by Bob Davie and his weekend at the helm.  But the Holtz departure made me a little nervous.  And it smelled a bit. 

So I have been a bit amused to see the same Notre Dame Athletic Department tied in contractual knots by their dear Irish Charlie, to whom they so rashly committed themselves and their millions.  Holtz must have had mixed emotions these past few years.

Most of us are still pulling for Charlie.  We want it to be true.  Any discussion of his work always includes those two awful recruiting years, which are now coming home to roost.  It is the excuse we all cling to, although other teams have had worse recruiting years and looked better than we did last year.   And all of us talk about his great recruiting skills, although it is scary to think that Gerry Faust also had great recruiting classes.

What gives us hope, what we are clinging to is the fact that unlike other past Notre Dame Coaches, the offensive play calling of Charlie Weis always adjusted quickly to the opposition.  He didn’t even wait till halftime.  He did it play by play.  It is that ability to adjust that we are hoping for.  We are hoping that over the summer he has humbly reassessed and that he now knows that he has to teach these high school graduates how to play at the college level.  And that he not only knows that but he will figure out how to do it.  And he will get it done. 

This past year was a bit embarrassing.  The emperor had no clothes.  Charlie Weis was exposed as a brilliant offensive call player, maybe one of the best ever, but not especially a sound coach of a college football team.  Indeed, if you have read his book, it is exactly all he has ever been throughout his life and maybe all he claimed to be.  The year he arrived at Notre Dame it was such a perfect fit, the exact need for a maturing team, that it gave the appearance of much more.

Now, Charlie Weis has been given a chance to become what we all thought he was, a great football coach.  It’s not easy fighting your way back to where you have already been.  If he pulls that off he will be even a bigger man personally.   The fact is, I want it and most of the Notre Dame Nation wants it too.  Let it be so, Charlie.  That question and many others will probably be answered September 6, 2008, when the lowly San Diego Aztecs meet the Irish in South Bend.

Note: See Skip Holtz, we need ye.  http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/skip-holz-new-notre-dame-coach/