Bad sports, good sports: Charlie Weis accuses Pete Carroll of affair
I will preface this column by saying this is going to be a Tiger-free zone. I wrote about Tiger Woods earlier in the week, and the rest of the world is doing a fine job of covering the ubiquitous story. No more assistance needed from me.
On to some bad sports. Charlie Weis, former head coach of Notre Dame (I love writing that), decided to mouth off this week, talking smack about Pete Carroll of USC, stating that Carroll was having an affair with a graduate student. Mouthing off is nothing new for Weis, of course. When he was hired, he waxed poetic about the “decided schematic advantage” that his Notre Dame teams would enjoy. I had never had a well-formed opinion about him when he was an assistant coach for the New England Patriots, but that initial news conference after his hiring by Notre Dame was enough to cause me to despise him instantly. If not for his towering arrogance, he would have been just another ineffective coach at a school that has never accepted its irrelevance in modern college football. His attitude, though, set him up to be under an even more powerful microscope than he might have otherwise been.
Notre Dame has a huge fan base, most members of which have no more connection to the school than an Irish background, a Catholic background, or both. Their sheer numbers, though, have led to a level of attention that far outstrips their actual accomplishments over the last 20+ years. Between 1995 and 2007, Notre Dame went to nine bowl games, losing all of them. Worse, the losses were by an average of more than 17 points. They broke the streak last year, beating a bad Hawaii team in an insignificant bowl a week before New Year’s Day. Part of the reason for this brutal bowl record was the fact that the illogical focus on Notre Dame football consistently led to them being selected for bowl games that were far out of their league, playing opponents who were far better than them, simply because the bowls knew how much attention they could draw to their game by choosing the Irish.
Weis was fired last week. His statements about Pete Carroll were in response to questions (from Irish Illustrated) about the level of scrutiny to which he had been subjected over his years at the school. Apparently, he felt like he was being held to an unfair standard, while someone like Pete Carroll was allowed to do whatever he pleased. There is no proof that what Weis said about Carroll is true, to my knowledge, and Weis has since apologized, using the awesome “it was taken out of context” defense. I am not a fan of Carroll, mind you, and I think he runs a dirty program (ask Reggie Bush), but this all seemed pretty unfair to him. Weis’ need to shift his misery onto someone else may amount to nothing, but it will at least bring some questions that Carroll certainly didn’t expect or want. It’s a shame that Carroll’s Trojans won’t get another opportunity to embarrass a Weis-led team. I can’t imagine any other schools will be knocking on Charlie’s door any time soon.
Bad sports, continued:
2) Some players just seem snakebitten. Greg Oden has been one of them since he entered the NBA in 2007. After being the first overall pick in the draft that spring, Oden injured his right knee shortly after the season started, and he required surgery which ended his season. He lost 21 games to various injuries during his second season, and on Saturday, 21 games into his third season, he again suffered a knee injury. He is expected to miss the remainder of the season.
3) I have always liked Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Hines Ward. He has always seemed like a good guy and a great, smart player. Smart player, maybe, but not necessarily smart person. Last week, Ben Roethlisberger, the Pittsburgh quarterback, missed their game against Baltimore with problems caused by a concussion that he had suffered the previous week. As I mentioned in last week’s BSGS, the NFL is taking concussions very seriously these days. During a pregame interview with Bob Costas, Ward seemed to be suggesting that Roethlisberger should have lied in order to get clearance to play. I would expect such shortsightedness from a fan, for whom these games are little more than video games, but a player should know better.
Good sports:
1) As the clock wound down in the Florida Gators’ loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship game, Tim Tebow, college football’s golden boy, did what any big-time athlete would do: he cried. Brett Favre would be proud.
2) The Philadelphia Eagles went to Atlanta to play the Falcons this week. All week long, the talk was about the return of Michael Vick to Atlanta. Vick’s lack of involvement in the Eagles offense up to this point in the season wasn’t enough to put off the rabid media, particularly ESPN, who seem to love tracking Vick’s every move. It was music to my ears when the boos rained down when Vick first took the field Sunday. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
By the way, pay no attention to the inevitable overstating of Vick’s role in the Eagles 34-7 win. Yes, he scored his first (and hopefully last ) two touchdowns as an Eagle. What you won’t read is that the scores had no bearing on the final result. The Eagles would have won without them. I don’t remember ever booing an Eagles touchdown in my life. Sunday, I did it twice.
3) David Stern has been extremely progressive during his time as the commissioner of the NBA. People have not always liked his heavy-handed methods, but there is no arguing the success of the league under his stewardship. In an interview with CNN/SI’s Ian Thomsen this week, Stern made it clear that he expects women to play in the NBA someday, and in the not too distant future. I don’t know whether or not this is true, of course, but I like to think it will happen.
Bad Sports, Good Sports appears every Monday
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To just one of the many mindless sportswriters, lazy thoughless lemmings going over the cliff.
If I had a dollar for every sportswriter who has quoted the totally not said “decided schematic advantage” I’d be a millionaire by now. It is so easy to find the entire contest of those comments by Weis, and unfortunately those words are ‘never used’, but what does truth and accuracy mean to the tabloid journalist mentality that exists today. Third graders would be flunked. Shame of you and thousands for continuing to spread lies.
Thomas – thanks for reading. I can not claim to have been in the room when Charlie Weis spoke those words. They were initially reported by Sports Illustrated as a direct quote. Yes, they have been repeated many times since. This is the first time I have ever heard someone claim that the words were never spoken by Weis. Repeating a quote from a reputable source is not usually called lying, but I guess I did not credit SI with having been the source of the quote, or I might have been off the hook. Judging by the tone of your message, I am guessing not.
By the way, does putting “never used” in quotes mean they were actually used, but you prefer to suggest that they weren’t?
I think “never used” refers to the “entire context” that Mr. Maher says is “so easy to find.” I don’t know, but that could be what he means. He isn’t clear. Or good at typing, it seems.
Still, since the context is so easy to find, and he could have proved Alan Spoll and the entire sports reporting world wrong by providing a simple link or other directions to the entire context, why didn’t he? If he has evidence that the entire sports journalism world is distorting the truth here, I don’t think Alan would object to having our lonely, little site be the place where Sports Illustrated is debunked.
But Maher also says that the statement was “totally not said.” In that case, maybe I am wrong and “never used” refers to “decided schematic advantage.” But if so, why would knowing the entire context matter in the first place? If the quote is fabricated, and finding this out is easy, can’t Maher throw us a bone and give some evidence?
Anyway, Mr. Maher doesn’t dispute the other, more recent statement attributed to Weis. The one where he accuses another coach of having sex with a student. Neither does Weis. He just said, as Alan tells us, that the words were taken out of context…. Am I the only one seeing a pattern?
I did find this with google, which claims he never said it. It bases its claim on a Notre Dame transcript of a press conference. Having not seen the press conference, I cannot weigh in on whether people should believe a Sports Illustrated reporter (or whatever other reporters were in attendance) or Notre Dame’s transcript, which I also have not seen. I also had never heard of Weis until reading Alan’s column. Maybe I should mention that. Not exactly following college football these days. So I don’t have a dog in this fight (not that you should be encouraging dogs to fight, speaking of Vick), unless you count that as an undergrad at Miami a long time ago, I rooted against Notre Dame football. But Lou Holtz was the coach back then. I don’t remember him accusing any coaches of having sex with students. Times have changed. Anyway, readers can determine for themselves whether the link — if they believe its version of the speech — absolves Weis of his arrogance, confirms it, or does something else.
My understanding was that it was said to his players in the presence of an SI reporter who was doing a story on him, so I am not sure what value a review of the press conference is supposed to provide. Nevertheless, even if he never said it, he said an awful lot of other things that would have led me to the exact same opinion that I have now. Weis is an arrogant, obnoxious person who clearly has a much higher opinion of himself than the results would suggest is appropriate.