Back after the 'Morning Drive' experience; Thoughts on the goings on -- World Series, Moneyball, BCS, Stern and Gumbel, and Notre Dame

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I took last week off from the blog for the simple reason that I was waking up at 4:30 each morning in Orlando to co-host ‘Morning Drive,’ on The Golf Channel and I found it difficult to do the show, spend some time out at Disney (for the golf tournament not for Mickey Mouse—sadly) and THEN sit down and write. Twenty years ago I probably could have pulled it off; maybe even 10 years ago. Now, not so much.

Actually I had a choice most afternoons: I could swim or I could blog. I opted to swim. That probably worked out best for everyone.

Life’s back to normal now—or at least my definition of normal—and I have a number of thoughts on all that’s going on in sports, which is a lot.

Let me start though, with the ‘Morning Drive,’ experience. The 4:30 wake-up calls sucked (I’m one of those people who always wakes up before the alarm or the call regardless of the hour. I’ve always wondered how that works, but I swear to God I rolled over in bed at exactly 4:25 each day) but the rest of the experience was fun. Everyone I worked with could not have been more welcoming and I like the way the show sets up: the hosts talk a lot. I like to talk.

If you’ve ever watched the show you know the hosts dress casually, no jacket and tie. I was told to wear whatever I wanted but NOT Golf Channel gear. So, the first day I showed up in a Richmond basketball shirt that Jerry Wainwright gave me years ago after I spoke at the team’s pre-season banquet.

The Richmond shirt got far more attention than anything I said all morning. Kevin Streelman, who is a Duke graduate, was an in-studio guest. “What’s with the Richmond shirt?” he asked on-air.

Fred Couples, who came on to respond to Greg Norman criticizing his pick of Tiger Woods for The Presidents Cup team, answered my first question about what Norman had said this way: “Didn’t you go to Duke University?”

“Yes,” I said. “They gave me a degree if I promised never to come back.”

“So why are you wearing a Richmond basketball shirt? What’s your connection to Richmond?”

“Duke never sends me stuff,” I answered.

I thought wearing an Army shirt two days later would get a lot more comment than the Richmond shirt but it didn’t. I guess people DO know my connection to the military academies even though it isn’t what it used to be.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience. I wish we’d had more time with Kelsey Grammer, who was doing a satellite tour to promote his new show and undoubtedly looked at his schedule and said, ‘Golf Channel, why the hell am I doing Golf Channel?’ I still watch Frasier most nights when I’m home and I still think Niles is one of TV’s all-time funny characters. Trivia: Did you know that Frasier was originally created for a six-show stint on ‘Cheers,’ and was supposed to be written out after Diane left him at the alter? The producers liked the character—and Grammer—so much they kept him in the show and he ended up playing Frasier for 20 years, winning Emmys for playing him on THREE shows—he won one as a guest-star on ‘Wings,’ in addition to ‘Cheers,’ and ‘Frasier.’

Okay, enough of that. On to some real stuff.

--The World Series. Riveting. Four games out of five have been terrific and the one blowout had the Albert Pujols three home run performance. I truly hope that Pujols stays in St. Louis. Great baseball towns deserve great players and Pujols is clearly that. For the record though, Tony LaRussa’s explanation that no one told Pujols that the media wanted to talk to him after his gaffe in game two doesn’t hold even a little water. No one wanted to talk to him after game 2 of the World Series? Seriously? Oh wait, maybe it’s that he’s not an important player. No. That doesn’t work either. Come on Tony, you’re better than that.

Pujols should stay in St. Louis and Prince Fielder should stay in Milwaukee. The latter isn’t likely to happen. Fielder’s going to go where he gets offered the most money and one of the big-money teams will probably come in with a blow-away offer. Too bad. Milwaukee is also a wonderful baseball town.

--On another baseball note I saw, ‘Moneyball,’ on Saturday. It’s good theater. Michael Lewis is brilliant and Aaron Sorkin is a genius so that’s about as good a writing combination as you can have. That said, I’d recommend people read my friend David Maraniss’s op-ed in the Tuesday Washington Post because it sums up pretty well how I feel about the whole ‘moneyball,’ concept. In the movie, Miguel Tejada, Tim Hudson, Barry Zito and Mark Mulder essentially don’t exist.

I’m not saying there isn’t merit to the whole ‘moneyball,’ way of thinking. I think the best organizations combine good scouting with all the Bill James stuff. I also think if Dave Roberts hadn’t stolen second base in game 4 of the ALCS in 2004, the whole concept would not be glorified the way it is. And the A’s and Beane haven’t looked quite so brilliant since the above-named players left town. Still, I enjoyed the movie just like I enjoyed the book although I couldn’t help but feel badly for Art Howe. (Philip Seymour Hoffman was great. He was also superb in ‘The Ides of March.’ I’m on a roll seeing movies of late).

--The BCS. Oh please. Or, as my good friend Bill Hancock said over the weekend, “good grief.” I’m hoping and praying for four undefeated teams so the politicians in two states can go ballistic when ‘their,’ teams don’t make the championship game.

--The NBA lockout, David Stern and Bryant Gumbel. The lockout is getting uglier by the minute. More and more people I talk to think the whole season is going by the boards. I’m still not buying it. I think both sides will cave after New Year’s; they’ll agree on something close to a 50-50 split on revenue and a harder though not totally inflexible cap. Stern is a tough guy to play poker against but he’s also smart enough to know he needs the playoffs on TV. Kobe Bryant isn’t getting any younger. For that matter, neither is LeBron James, believe it or not. I wonder how a second round pick like Maryland’s Jordan Williams, who hasn’t yet seen a penny and isn’t guaranteed a penny once the lockout ends, feels about leaving school right about now.

Gumbel is a very smart guy and you can bet he knew exactly what he was saying when he compared Stern to a plantation owner who is ‘treating men like boys,’ in his commentary on HBO’s ‘Real Sports.’ Gumbel knew what the reaction would be when he said what he said but he was clearly tired—as many people are—of Stern’s tactics and wanted to be SURE he got that message across.

I’m a Stern guy. I think he’s been a great commissioner. Can he be imperious? You bet. But I also know that implying in any way that what he’s doing has racial connotations is ridiculous. This is business, pure and simple. Stern’s been charged by the owners with getting them a better deal and he will do and say what has to be said and done to get that deal. Charles Barkley—of all people—brought up a telling stat: Since Stern became commissioner in 1984 the average player salary has gone from $300,000 a year to $5.1 million a year. And that’s in a league not nearly as successful as the NFL where there are STILL no guaranteed contracts. If Gumbel should have a problem with a commissioner or a group of owners for the way they treat their players he should focus on football.

Finally: Did Brian Kelly REALLY say the following when he was asked if he was concerned about quarterback Dayne Crist’s mental state after Crist fumbled a snap on the one-yard line with Notre Dame trailing Southern California 17-10: “No. I don’t have to worry about it he does.”? Seriously? He said that?

Wow. Talk about standing up for your players. Kelly also threw his whole team under the bus for a poor first half but refused to second-guess himself for his team’s preparation for the game coming off a bye week. Kelly cited his record coming off bye weeks the last 20 years as the reason he KNEW he didn’t do anything wrong.

So what’s his record coming off a bye week THIS year? Does this guy take responsibility for ANYTHING?

ND sits on the Big East television committee; Swofford pillaging; Why Serena’s fine was so low; PGA Tour playoffs and much more

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I suppose I could write today about the latest maneuverings among the money-grubbing college presidents but, to be honest, I find it hard to care that much. Any notion that tradition or rivalries or geography or doing what’s right has flown so far out the window it isn’t even worth railing about it.

All I know is this: If you put the BCS presidents in a room and someone threw a dollar on the floor it would look like the last scene of “Invictus,” with all of them diving on the floor to try to scoop up the bill. I do have one question though for those who run The Big East: What in the world was the president of Notre Dame doing on your television committee? That’s like giving President Obama final say on who his opponent is next November.

“So, Mr. President, who’s it going to be—Mitt Romney?”

“Don’t think so. Think I’d prefer Rick Perry or, wait, even better Sarah Palin with Glenn Rice as her running mate.”

(Calm down my right wing friends it’s just a joke).

This is the same sort of thing. “So, Father Jenkins, while you sit back there with your $10 million per year NBC contract that you share not a dollar of with us, what do you think we should do with this latest offer from ESPN?”

“Turn it down fellas. You can get more later.”

Unless, of course, your league gets raided by John Swofford, who in his biography lists, “pillaging the Big East,” as one of his favorite pastimes.

Oh, one other thing on my friend Father Jenkins: If you hear him say that Notre Dame might end up in the ACC rather than The Big Ten because the ACC’s ‘academic profile,’ fits Notre Dame better, here’s the English translation of that statement: “We’d rather play Duke, Wake Forest and Virginia a whole lot of the time instead of Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State and Wisconsin.” (Yes Irish fans I know they already play Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue).

Anyway, I really and truly don’t care about all the maneuverings. These are bad people doing bad things. Life is too short to pay them much attention. Call me when the 16-team conferences are in place and someone is ready to announce a football playoff. Until then, hey, hockey season starts in less than two weeks.

On the subject of bad people, let’s turn for a moment to the good folks at the U.S. Tennis Association. You might remember that a number of people were stunned when they only fined Serena Williams $2,000 for her outburst directed at the chair umpire during the U.S. Open final a couple weeks ago. How, many of us wondered, could they let her get off so easy for yammering on and on and, (among other things) accusing the chair of being, “the one who screwed me over two years ago,” when (A) NO ONE screwed her over two years ago and (B) it was a different woman.

Turns out there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. You see, if Serena had been fined $10,000 (or more, the max fine would have been $20,000 which is way too low) it would have been considered a “major offense.” Under the terms of the probation she was still on because of her profanity/threat-filled outburst in the 2009 semifinals, if she had committed a “major offense,” she could have been suspended for next year’s Open by The Grand Slam Committee.

Apparently Bill Babcock, The Grand Slam Committee’s administrator was ready to suspend Williams after looking at—and listening to—the tape. When the USTA realized that it could lose Williams for next year’s Open it made certain to keep the fine well below the “major offense,” level. Obviously, losing Williams would have hurt corporate sales and, perhaps most important, wouldn’t have made the all-important TV partners happy either. So, as usual when a name tennis player is involved, Serena skated.

That will certainly deter her from similar behavior in the future won’t it?

One other note on the geniuses who run the sport: Once upon a time Davis Cup was one of the great events in ANY sport. As tennis has lost luster, so has Davis Cup, to the point where I have suggested it be conducted over two years—meaning top players only have to potentially commit twice a year as opposed to four times a year—to make it special again.

Naturally, that suggestion has been ignored. And so, in order to squeeze it into the schedule, The Davis Cup semifinals were held the week after the U.S. Open. Are you kidding? Novak Djokovic finished off two grueling weeks of best-of-five tennis on Monday, thanks in large part to the USTA’s ludicrous scheduling, and then had to show up to be ready to play in Argentina three days later. What a shock that he couldn’t finish either of his singles matches.

Of course the tennis people will tell you all is well with their sport, which is why nothing ever gets fixed. When three of the top players in the world felt they were put at risk being asked to play on slippery, wet courts, the USTA’s reaction was, basically, ‘get over it fellas.’ Would they consider modifying their schedule so as not to stretch the first round over three days and then ask the players to play semifinals and finals on back-to-back days? (that’s with NO bad weather). Nope. CBS likes it the way it is and CBS pays the freight. Shut up and play.

Question for golf fans: Are any of you into The Tour Championship? I just can’t get excited about it and it isn’t because of the tour’s constant overhyping of the so-called playoffs. It isn’t because Tiger Woods isn’t there either because, as most people know, I enjoy watching and writing about and talking about other players. I do wish Rory McIlroy was there because he’s so much fun to watch play and to talk to when he’s finished playing. But it isn’t that either. I just feel as if nothing is really at stake except money. Player-of-the-year? Yeah, I suppose. If Keegan Bradley wins he deserves the award. If he doesn’t it should be him or McIlroy but I promise you there will be people campaigning for Luke Donald if he wins or Webb Simpson if he wins.

They’ve had wonderful years but my rule of thumb is simple: You can’t be player-of-the-year unless you win at least one major. Jim Furyk won it on The PGA Tour last year in large part because Graeme McDowell wasn’t eligible. McDowell was CLEARLY the worldwide player-of-the-year. If I’d been voting last year, with all due respect to Furyk who I’ve always like a lot, I would have voted for Phil Mickelson because his performance at The Masters was far more significant than Furyk’s three victories in non-majors.

But hey, that’s just me.

Oh wait, there’s a news flash coming in here: The AFC West is joining the ACC. Perfect: more mediocre football teams. Just what the ACC needs.

Maybe it’s time for Tiger to take extended break; ESPN book; Thoughts on the Jordan Williams and Scott Van Pelt story; Notre Dame follow-up

I’m not really sure where to begin today but let’s start with Tiger Woods because, well, he’s Tiger Woods and my phone began going crazy the minute he announced on Tuesday that he wouldn’t be playing in The U.S. Open here at Congressional next week.

I was so hoping he’d come by the house for a cookout one night.

It is hard for me—or anyone—to judge the soundness of this decision because, as is always the case with Woods, we’re reading tealeaves. His doctors have told him playing next week would be a bad idea. Makes sense. But he hopes to play in the event he ‘hosts,’ in two weeks. Does that make sense? If his knee and Achilles injuries are bad enough to keep him from playing a tournament he once won on a broken leg, they’re going to heal enough in two weeks for him to tee it up at Aronomink? Makes very little sense.

Here’s Tiger’s problem right now—in my opinion: He knows that all the various sponsors for his event, notably AT+T which is putting up about $8 million, aren’t going to be happy if he no-shows no matter how legitimate his injuries may be. There was a good deal of whining in 2008 when he couldn’t play after his knee surgery although Woods didn’t help things by not making the effort to get on a private plane and even make an appearance just to shake a few sponsor hands.

In truth, that was unlike him because the one and only group of people he’s ever been loyal to at all are those who pay him. Of course AT+T and the other sponsors weren’t technically paying him, they were paying to put on a tournament that benefits his foundation. Maybe that was the difference. Who knows?

Now Woods has those same sponsors wanting to know if he’s going to play or not. To them, showing up in Philly is a lot more important than showing up at Congressional or for The British Open or The PGA Championship this summer. Woods shouldn’t think twice about that. His skipping the Open is the first time I’ve had any sense that he’s looking at the big picture—which isn’t the next three months but the next three years, five years, ten years.

Early this year I thought he needed to play more golf. He kept talking about the ‘process,’ of working on the new swing Sean Foley has been teaching him. Fine. You can’t find true swing keys on the range. You have to take them to the golf course and see how they hold up under pressure. My friend John Cook was quoted back in March as saying Tiger was hitting it as pure as he’d ever seen on the range.

The range is irrelevant. Even hackers can hit good shots on the range. My thought was that Woods should go play four weeks in a row, even if that meant changing the schedule he has been so wedded to for years. Of course he didn’t do that and then he got hurt at The Masters.

Why he tried to play at The Players I have no idea. He doesn’t care about the event—nor should he—doesn’t like the golf course and clearly wasn’t close to 100 percent. For all of Tim Finchem’s claims that Woods looked completely healthy during the practice rounds, the fact is he was carted almost everyplace he went—which he doesn’t normally do—and other players saw him limping during the 18 practice holes (total) that he played. Does that sound healthy to you?

He obviously hurt the knee and the Achilles again trying to play there. So now I’ve come 180 degrees the other way: I think Tiger should just pack it in the rest of the year. Stay home and rest his mind and his body. Hang out with his kids, get some real rehab to be SURE he’s 100 percent before he tries to play again and just RELAX. I mean seriously, when was the last time in his life he did that for more than a week or two?

It wasn’t right after the infamous accident when he was in hiding and then in some kind of rehab and then making speeches to try to convince sponsors who were running for cover that he was a new man. A real break—not one forced on him by injury or public humiliation—might do him a lot of good. He might come back fresh and eager to play, rather than feeling he HAS to play. It might recharge him. Staying home for awhile might (though I doubt it) give him a chance to do some real reflecting on his life and his future. He should bring in a crisis manager—because the guy is still in all sorts of crisis—to tell him how he should deal with the media, with fans, with sponsors and with his travel schedule (Dubai et al should go away; play to be a champion, not to get richer). It should be someone who will tell him what to do not what he wants to hear the way his current ‘team,’ does.

Woods can still break Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major titles. He’s that talented and, when he isn’t in crisis, that mentally tough. But he needs to take a deep breath before he starts back up that mountain.

*****

I try very hard to steer away from ESPN-related subjects. My opinions on the people who run the network are pretty well known even if Tom Shales and Jim Miller didn’t call me for their book.

A note on the book: I don’t intend to read it if only because I haven’t found any of the excerpts particularly compelling. I mean, seriously people don’t like Chris Berman? That’s news? Keith Olbermann was crazy? Film at 11 stuff there, right? There were sex and drugs at parties in the 80s? No kidding, really? I’ve certainly never been to a party like that in my life.

The fact that the book is getting the attention it is getting is a tribute—unfortunately—to how important a part of our culture ESPN has become. There’s just no getting around that fact.

In the meantime, Scott Van Pelt has been in the news because of his Maryland connections—again. Van Pelt and I had a disagreement last year because I commented on his behavior while sitting in the stands at a Duke-Maryland game in College Park. He took offense to my saying that, as a public figure, who at times talked about college basketball on TV and radio, he needed to show some decorum, even while sitting in the stands. I wondered how people would react if say, Jay Bilas or I sat in the stands at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Duke gear and yelled at officials during a game.

Scott took offense and called me and we had a good talk and ended up, I think, agreeing to disagree. (He also took a shot a my brother during a speech at Burning Tree last summer since my brother had been the one who told me how Van Pelt behaved. For the record, my brother is close to Gary Williams and was sitting in front of Van Pelt because—like Scott—he’d been given tickets by Gary. Anyway, Scott, did you think someone wouldn’t report your crack back to me? I do have other sources).

No big deal actually. The other day Jordan Williams, the now ex-Maryland center who put his name into the draft after his sophomore year, told reporters Van Pelt had played a major advisory role in his decision. Then, after he and Van Pelt talked, Williams sort of withdrew that statement, said only that he had asked Van Pelt to get him some feedback from NBA people before making his decision and that the media—it’s always the media isn’t it?—had blown the thing out of proportion.

I don’t doubt it was blown out of proportion—what isn’t? And I’ve had coaches and athletes ask me for advice. I remember Eric Montross’s dad asking me years ago if I thought Eric should go to Indiana and play for Bob Knight. I was careful to limit my answer to what I had written in ‘A Season on the Brink.’ I did almost the same thing a few years later when Alan Henderson asked me the same question after I had spoken at Five Star. Knowing Henderson was being recruited by Duke, I was even more careful in how I answered the question.

So, I understand Scott’s dilemma. That said, I think he should have told Williams that the person he should be talking to is his college coach and to the NBA advisory board that gives a player an objective opinion on where he might go in the draft. It wasn’t Scott’s job to be Williams’ go-fer. I’m a little amused by Scott’s claim that he had, ‘crossed paths with Jordan while doing games.’ The truth is, they first met when Gary Williams asked Scott to speak to the team before a game at Duke two years ago. He was there as a Maryland grad who is a celebrity and a friend of Gary’s. Actually he was a Friend of Gary (FOG), an official support group of Gary’s.

It’s never easy to decide where you draw the line between being friendly with someone you are covering and becoming their friend. After all these years I’ve learned it is impossible NOT to be friends with some of the people you cover, especially if you know them for a long time.

I think Van Pelt made an innocent mistake not telling Williams he wasn’t the one he should be coming to for information or feedback. If I were him, rather than try to downplay the role he played, I’d just say, ‘yeah, I should have told him to talk to Gary or the advisory board and wished him luck and left it at that.’

One last thought for the day to those who (surprise) thought I was too tough on Notre Dame last week: I have read the report on Declan Sullivan and I am familiar with Father Jenkins’ pre-Notre Dame biography. Neither changes my opinion on him or on how Notre Dame has handled the situation. Oh, and I see where Michael Floyd has been cleared to get ready to play this season. Gee, what a surprise.

In light of Ohio State, where is the outrage for Notre Dame's far more serious issues?; The passing of Maryland political power broker Peter O’Malley

I know I do this on occasion but the subject of today’s blog is not going to be The NBA Finals (yawn); The Stanley Cup Finals (I plan to watch it all) or even Jim Tressel (I wrote a column you can read on WashingtonPost.com or on this blog).

I will add one thing to the Tressel column that there wasn’t space for (it will also run in tomorrow’s newspaper) because even though it isn’t directly connected to Tressel, it has some relevance in any discussion of big time college athletics.

I have no sympathy at all for Tressel or for Gordon Gee or Gene Smith—who, as I wrote in the column—should both be fired too at the very least for complete incompetence. But I also think we should keep things in perspective a little bit.

Ohio State is getting fried—justifiably—for allowing its program to run amok and then for trying to cover up clear violations. But why is it that almost NO ONE around the country is nailing Notre Dame for the cavalier manner in which it handled the death of Declan Sullivan?

Please don’t tell me you buy into Father John Jenkins blanket, “we’re all guilty,” press release. Really? If everyone is guilty where is the list of those fired or at least disciplined—starting with Jenkins and then going on down to the athletic director (who claimed there was ‘nothing unusual,’ in the weather conditions minutes before Sullivan’s tower came crashing down) to the head football coach who insisted on practicing outdoors on a day when there were wind warnings all over the Midwest; to whoever was responsible for not ordering Sullivan to stay off the tower—even if he was willing, though apparently terrified, to go up there?

No one was fired. Jenkins should have added a sentence at the end of his statement if he was being intellectually honest about how he felt that said: “Now let’s get back to the important work of figuring out how to beat Navy!”

Jenkins strikes me as a complete fraud. Can you imagine him refusing to meet with the family of the girl who committed suicide shortly after filing a report alleging sexual assault against a Notre Dame football player? He was acting on the advice of his lawyers. Where in the vows Jenkins took, I wonder, does it say: “your lawyer’s advice comes before comforting those involved in a tragedy?” Meeting with the family would not have been an admission of guilt; only an admission that he cared about people who were suffering.

Can’t have that. The lawyers told him so.

I can’t wait for the fall when all the TV apologists will tell us what a wonderful, caring place and nurturing place Notre Dame is. I will keep an air sickness bag handy should I happen to encounter a Notre Dame game while flipping channels. You can bet I won’t actually WATCH one. (Go ahead you Irish fans, pile on and tell me how awful I am for criticizing such a wonderful place. Can’t wait.)

Let me move on to a different sort of Irishman. His name was Peter Francis O’Malley. He died suddenly on Saturday at the age of 72 of a heart attack. Peter O’Malley wasn’t a friend of mine but I considered him a worthy adversary.

He was a political power broker in Maryland, a lot of his base being in Prince George’s County, the place that was once home to The Washington Bullets and Washington Capitals and is now home to The Washington Redskins. O’Malley was close friends with Abe Pollin and was an ‘advisor,’ to most of the important Democratic politicians in Prince George’s and to many others throughout the state. One of his many protégés was Steny Hoyer, now the minority whip in The House of Representatives. It was also O’Malley who played a key role in helping push through the legislation that got The Capital Centre built in about 15 minutes back in the mid-1970s.

I first encountered him when I began covering Prince George’s County. One of the first things everyone involved in politics out there told me was, “you have to get to know Pete O’Malley.”

I took their advice. I got to know him. It wasn’t as if he became one of my most valued sources—Laney Hester, the head of the police union was BY FAR my most important source—but he educated me on the county’s political history; told me who was important to know and who wasn’t and always took my calls or returned them quickly.

When I moved up to cover the state legislature he remained someone important for me to know. During the 1983 legislative session, a couple of Prince George’s County legislators decided to introduce a bill that would force Abe Pollin to pay the county’s amusement tax (nine-and-a-half percent if I remember right) from which he had been exempt. The county had waved the tax after Pollin had threatened to fold the Capitals because of red ink a couple of years earlier.

Since the bill directly affected only Prince George’s, it had to be voted on by the county’s delegation before being sent to the floor of The House of Delegates. Early on a Tuesday morning, prior to the weekly meeting of the local delegation, one of O’Malley’s ‘people,’ could be seen going from office to office. He had a message from Pete: kill the bill. They did—that morning. When I began asking questions, several legislators readily said that O’Malley had made it clear he wanted the bill dead so the bill was dead. It would not be introduced again.

I called O’Malley that morning and left a message telling him what I was writing for the next day. It was the first time he ever failed to call me back. The story ran on A1 of the paper, more as an object lesson in how to exert political power than anything else.

That morning, O’Malley did call me. “We’re supposed to have lunch next Monday,” he said. “I’m canceling.”

“Oh did something come up?”

“No. I just don’t have time to have lunch with the likes of you.”

I had heard in the past about O’Malley’s volcanic temper. This was the first time I had been exposed to it first hand. “Pete, was there anything in the story that wasn’t true? Did I call you to comment?”

“That’s not the point. The point is you didn’t HAVE to write the story that way but you CHOSE to write it that way.”

“Yes I did. And I think I wrote the right story.”

“Good. Tell that to the person you have lunch with next Monday.”

O’Malley forgave me, but not until I was out of politics and back covering sports. And he forgave me in his uniquely O’Malley way. After I’d written a story on Jim Phalen, the legendary basketball coach at Mt. St. Mary’s—his alma mater—he wrote me a note about how much he had enjoyed the piece. And then he added: “I think you belong in sports. The better side of you comes out when you are working there as opposed to politics.”

I passed that along to some of his political friends who agreed it was pure O’Malley: I’m going to give you a compliment, but remind you that I’m still smarter than you.

I’ve had the chance to know a lot of people in a lot of different walks of life. As anyone who reads this blog, I tend to be very black-and-white in my feelings about people even though I try very hard to stand back from my biases—or at least recognize them—when I write. At the very least I KNOW the biases exist.

Peter O’Malley was different. He wasn’t a friend and he wasn’t an enemy. I certainly respected him but probably not as much as he thought I should have respected him. He could be difficult and he could be helpful. But he was never, ever un-interesting. I’m truly sorry for his family that he is gone so quickly and so prematurely. He deserved a long retirement. He worked very hard for a long time to get there.

A Thanksgiving weekend of games; Catching up on comments and Wilbon move; The BB+T Classic Benefiting The Children's Charities Foundation

I spent a lot of time this weekend watching games. To me, that’s the best way to spend Thanksgiving weekend: Avoid the roads (and certainly the airports) and watch a lot of ball in-between spending time with your family. I also watched Christmas movies. I LOVE Christmas movies. ‘Miracle on 34th Street,’—the 1947 version—is about as good as it gets. I also really like ‘Elf,’—Ed Asner as Santa?; Bob Newhart as ‘Papa Elf?’ Brilliant stuff. I haven’t seen ‘White Christmas,’ yet this year but I will.

I won’t get too far into the BCS (you can read my Washington Post column on that if you want) but let me say this: Friday was a tough day. All credit to Auburn for coming back but it would have been great had Alabama won. First—and probably last—time I pulled for a Nick Saban-coached team and they blew it. They should have been up 35-0. Boise State’s loss was even more disappointing even if it did once again disprove Elwood (that’s his first name) Gee’s various ridiculous theories about schedule strength. Check out some of The Big Ten (and others) non-conference schedules. Oh, and the rumor that The Little Sisters of the Poor have been invited to join both The Big East and the ACC are true. I’m already picking them ahead of Duke if they’re in the ACC next year.

Note to my Duke friends who keep saying it’s ‘insane,’ to propose Duke leave the ACC in football. Really? How’s this for a stat: 1-20. That’s Duke’s record since Steve Spurrier left against alleged arch-rival North Carolina. When is a rivalry not a rivalry anymore? And it’s not like Carolina has been a superpower the last 21 years. Duke has also lost ELEVEN in a row to Wake Forest. That’s eleven—not a typo.

Let’s send out congratulations also to Notre Dame for finishing its season by winning three straight games. Beating Utah was semi-impressive even if the Utes failed to show up. It’s still a win over a good team. But all the screaming that, ‘Navy was an aberration,’ since the wins over Army and (very mediocre) USC smack of ‘I think they doth protest too much.’ The only real surprise for me is that the BCS apologists aren’t claiming Notre Dame should be ahead of TCU in the polls. Did anyone watch that ludicrous show Sunday night? If you believe the so-called ESPN experts, TCU is lucky to be in Division 1-A. One guy had them ranked SIXTH. Chris Fowler gets a nod as the only ESPN on-air guy with the guts to at least rank the Frogs third. You would think the panic button would be turned down over there with Boise State out of the picture but now they’re all freaking out that Oregon or Auburn might lose Saturday. Unfortunately, I don’t think that will happen.

Oh, one other Notre Dame note: a couple of posters accused both me and The Chicago Tribune of being unfair to dear old Notre Dame on the subject of the awful suicide story broken by The Tribune two Sundays ago. The reason is that the St. Joseph’s County police changed their story after The Tribune story broke and said they HAD been informed by the Notre Dame police about the sexual assault charge. The detective in charge, ‘forgot,’ to tell his boss about it. Really? Seriously? Ever see ‘A Few Good Men?” Remember the transfer order? Notre Dame is so busy hiding behind The Buckley Amendment and trying to make everyone else out to be the bad guy it makes a lot of people queasy.

A few other notes about posts that I finally had a chance to catch up on over the weekend. I want to thank the guy who called me a ‘shameless self promoter,’ for—among other things—not mentioning when I compliment Mary Carillo that she’s my wife. There’s a reason for that: she’s NOT my wife. My wife Christine is in the other room right now with our one-month old daughter who has her blue eyes and is quite adorable, thank you very much. Mary Carillo has been a good friend for 25 years—which, I believe, is exactly how I identify her when I write about her.

On the subject of not paying attention: Hey Hokie fans, come on down! Some of you wrote angrily about how wonderfully supportive you are of your football team. Yes, you are. In fact, what my column said—go back and read it if you’d like—is that Virginia Tech is the ONLY ACC school that sold out all its home games this season (sorry N.C. State fans, that’s according to the ACC so take it up with them if you have a dispute). I DID say they haven’t won a game that truly mattered outside the ACC in recent years, which has nothing to do with their level of support.

Some of you wondered how I would feel about Mike Wilbon leaving The Washington Post for ESPN and if that somehow proved that the fact that I would prefer (by a lot) being at The Post over ESPN was wrong. All it proves is this: ESPN threw a LOT of money at Mike’s feet. I’m glad for him. I’m sad to see him leave The Post because it was his home for 32 years and the paper was, I think he would be the first to tell you, great to him. I have no issues with someone—anyone—being swayed by a huge pay raise (ESPN, in true ESPN fashion told Mike he could only have that kind of money if he left The Post. Personally, if I’d been Mike, I’d have called their bluff. You think they would dump him? He’s actually GOOD on TV, unlike, say my close friend Rick Reilly). And, for the record, I never criticized Reilly for leaving Sports Illustrated, I simply said that I didn’t think ESPN The Magazine was in the same league with SI. I’ll stand by that statement until the end of time.

As for the guy who noted that I’m not Woodward or Bernstein: no kidding. But I’m VERY proud to work at and to have been part of (in a small way) their newspaper and the newspaper of The Graham family; Ben Bradlee; Howard Simons; Leonard Downie; Dave Kindred; Ken Denlinger; David Maraniss; Tom Boswell; Tony Kornheiser; Mike Wilbon and Herblock—among many others. Yes, I’ll take that list over Chris Berman, Bob Knight and Andy Katz without apology.

Okay, I think I’m caught up now. If you live in the Washington area, let me make a shameless plea to you to consider buying tickets to the BB+T Classic on Sunday. The first game begins at 2:30. It is Florida vs. American. Then comes Navy vs. George Washington and at 8 o’clock in what should be really good game, Temple vs. Maryland. The Terrapins are considerably better than people around here think. The hoops should be good; the Redskins game, if you HAVE to watch, is over by 4 o’clock and God knows the cause is good. The Children’s Charities Foundation, which runs the event has turned nearly $10 million over to kids at risk in 15 years. Just for comparison purposes: with a one-day event and NO NCAA exemption (as in the games not counting against the maximum you can play and no national TV contract) that’s more than TWICE what the Coaches vs. Cancer event, which is now a 16 team-event has turned over to charity in 16 years even though it has all the above-mentioned advantages. Tickets are very inexpensive in today’s market: $45 top for a tripleheader. You can get more information from Ticketmaster or at Children's Charities Foundation. At least give it some thought.

Monday rundown – Notre Dame stonewalling again, Tiger Woods, McNabb, ESPN-BCS apologists, banning bloggers and Jane awaits an Islanders win

Since there is no blowaway, got to talk about it story going on in sports right now, I thought I would touch on a number of different items today.

ITEM: Notre Dame could be in serious trouble again. This story could become a very important one if people at Notre Dame don’t come up with a very good explanation for what The Chicago Tribune reported on Sunday. According to the Tribune, a freshman at St. Mary’s College (an all girls school across the street from Notre Dame) committed suicide on September 10th—10 days after filing a complaint with the Notre Dame campus police that she had been sexually assaulted by a Notre Dame football player.

Obviously there is no tangible way to connect her death to the alleged assault. She had a history of depression issues prior to enrolling at St. Mary’s and none of us will ever know what led her to take her own life. But what The Tribune is reporting is extremely damning: That the Notre Dame police didn’t contact the St. Joseph’s County police department (which conducted the investigation of the suicide) to let it know that the victim had filed a sexual assault complaint 10 days before her death. The Tribune also said that the campus police department had refused a request for documents from its investigation, claiming it was not subject to Indiana sunshine laws that affect public police departments. It also refused to allow football coach Brian Kelly, athletic director Jack Swarbrick or anyone in the administration to comment AND the player—who The Tribune says it has contacted and also received no response from—is still playing.

Wow. Maybe there is an explanation but right now no one at Notre Dame is supplying one because the school is busy stonewalling. If you add this to the awful way Notre Dame handled Declan Sullivan’s death a few weeks ago with Swarbrick speaking in so much non-committal legalese that the school president, The Reverend John L. Jenkins, FINALLY had to send out an e-mail saying, yes, we let the young man down and didn’t protect him, this looks very bad for Notre Dame.

This is so serious I’m not going to even get into some of the ridiculous things Kelly said after the win over Army on Saturday night (calling the loss to Navy ‘an anomaly,’ among other things). Let’s hope Father Jenkins steps forward soon to explain exactly what happened. Until then, everyone’s job—including his—can be and should be in jeopardy.

ITEM: Tiger Woods unveils another ‘new,’ Tiger Woods. This is for those of you disappointed because it has been a while since I’ve criticized Woods. Honestly, I find this completely un-interesting. It is clearly just another image-rehab attempt by Woods and his sycophants to try to win back corporate money and fans—the fans being important because their support leads to corporate money. It is no coincidence that the latest blitz comes a couple of weeks prior to Woods’ 18-man exhibition event in California which he hasn’t played in for two years. (First year injury; second year, um, injury so to speak). He’s trying to keep his sponsor on board after two disastrous years and unveiling the latest version of his new self all at once.

Do I believe Woods when he says he’s learned the joys of giving his son a bath in the last year? Maybe. But if it is so joyful and SO important to him why was he in Australia chasing appearance money a couple of weeks ago when he could have been playing a couple of miles from his house at Disney? Why is he going to Dubai early next year to chase more appearance money?

This is more of the same stuff we heard in February at The Tiger and Pony show; more of what he heard in the tightly controlled TV interviews in March and more of what we heard at The Augusta press conference in April. Here’s when I’ll start to think Woods has changed at all: when he stops chasing appearance fees all over the world; when he changes his schedule to support some of the events on his home tour that are struggling just because it is the right thing to do; when he tells PGA Tour officials he wants for them to arrange for him to sign autographs for at least 30 minutes (ala his good friend Phil Mickelson who does it most days for 45) after every round he plays; when he stops playing all his pro-am rounds at 6:30 in the morning so that more people—many of whom only have Wednesday tickets—can get a chance to watch him play.

Enough with the mea culpas. We’ve heard them all. Enough with being a new Tiger. DO something tangible. How about being interviewed by someone who won’t throw you one softball after another like the ESPN morning pitchmen?

I’m available. When I get that phone call THEN I’ll believe you’ve changed.

ITEM: Donovan McNabb has somehow figured out the Redskins two-minute offense. Wow, must be great coaching. Now, if he can just get into cardiovascular shape…

ITEM: Craig James, the lead pony (get it) among the ESPN BCS-apologists said this on Sunday night: “I know Boise State beat Fresno State 51-0 on Friday night but that’s what I expected. Fresno doesn’t have any really impressive wins on its resume.”

Really? Does Fresno have any other 51-0 losses on its resume? What was the Oregon-Cal score again? My God when does this garbage stop?

ITEM: Since the birth of my daughter—now almost one month ago—The New York Islanders have not won ONE game. That’s zero—13 straight losses during which they have picked up two points for overtime losses. They HAVE fired a coach during that period and banned a blogger.

Seriously. Chris Botta, who was once the Islanders PR guy, writes a very informative blog (yes, I read it) called Islanders Point Blank. Chris is hardly a killer. He has pointed out that a team that hasn’t won a playoff series since 1993 and has finished 26th-30th and 26th in the overall standings the last three years is, um, not all that good. He did point out what every sane Islanders fan (I know, all 14 of us) was thinking last summer when the team fired Billy Jaffe as its TV color guy apparently for being too negative: Billy Jaffe was anything but negative: he was honest but always looking for silver linings on the rare occasions when they appeared.

He was also very good. As opposed to Butch Goring, who was a GREAT Islander but is an awful color commentator. If the Islanders are down 6-1 and they get a shot on goal, Butch will tell you the Islanders are showing great life. I have no doubt he’s a great guy and the trade Bill Torrey made to bring him to New York in 1980 changed the history of the franchise. But he’s brutal.

Apparently general manager Garth Snow can’t stand ANY criticism at all. He stopped talking to Botta a year ago and the day after he fired Scott Gordon as coach and Botta pointed out that Gordon probably wasn’t the one responsible for the current state of the franchise, Botta was told his credentials were being lifted. Are you kidding? They ought to make Botta the GM, spend some money to hire people to work in the front office and make me the coach.

I mean could they be any worse if they did that? Jane awaits a win…

And Finally: On the subject of banned bloggers, the Miami Heat last week banned a very talented writer named Scott Raab who works for Esquire and blogs on their website. Raab had really gone after LeBron James, very profanely at times, and The Heat said he couldn’t come to games or practices anymore. Rabb, understandably upset, said (among other things): “If my name was Feinstein or Halberstam this would not happen.”

My name in the same sentence with David Halberstam in any way, shape or form? I love Scott Raab.

A week of joy and tragedy keeps all in perspective

Last week was one of those times in my life where I was reminded—again—that getting all wound up about the horrors of The BCS or Dan Snyder or ESPN or even NPR—is perfectly okay as long as all of us (myself included) remember that none of them are life and death issues.

I saw new life up close and personal last week and it was an extraordinary experience as any parent can certainly attest.

One day later I read in detail about the death of a 20-year-old Notre Dame junior and, even as the details continue to trickle out very slowly, remain stunned and shocked by how Declan Sullivan died.

I also learned of the death of a good friend, another needless death that leaves me with a feeling of terrible sadness.

The incomparably good news, of course, was the birth of Jane Blythe Feinstein late on Tuesday night. Men always joke about lucky we are to not have to give birth but it really isn’t a joke. I think I’m a fairly self-aware person and I know for SURE I could not have gone through what my wife Christine went through last Tuesday. Of course, as she so eloquently said on Wednesday morning, “I’d go through it 1,000 more times if this (Jane) was the final result.”

The best line of the brutally long day—16 hours of labor before the c-section—came from Chris’s doctor, Dena Kleinerman, who looked at me when it was becoming apparent a c-section was going to be necessary and said: “You need to go eat something. I’m not saying this because I care about you but because I don’t need you passing out in the delivery room.”

Jane came into the world with a full head of light brown hair—almost exactly like I did. In fact, my father’s first comment when he saw me was, “he needs a haircut.” One of his last comments to me was, “you need a haircut.” Some things really DO never change. Jane arrived kicking her legs and waving her arms. Truly her father’s daughter.

There’s no happier moment in a parent’s life than the birth of a child. I’ve been fortunate enough to have three now and, as with all parents, I fell completely in love with each of my children the instant I first saw them. Which is one of many reasons why I can’t think of Declan Sullivan without thinking about his parents. I can’t even imagine what that phone call was like. I wonder who at Notre Dame made the call and what in the world they said. “I’m terribly sorry, your son is dead because no one thought to get him out of a hydraulic lift in winds gusting to 50 miles per hour?”

I have no desire to pick on Notre Dame right now. I can’t imagine what the players are feeling or how the student body feels. When I was in college a good friend’s girlfriend was murdered and I can remember the entire campus being engulfed in an almost indescribable feeling of grief. I’m sure it is very much like that at Notre Dame this week.

That said, the questions are unavoidable. It is clear from his tweets that Sullivan was aware before he went up on the lift to tape football practice that the winds were frighteningly high. Once he got up there he was, to use his word, ‘terrified,’ clearly beyond belief given the ‘holy ----, holy ----,’ that he repeated in his tweet just a few minutes before he died.

Did Sullivan ask anyone about not going up there in the wind? If he did and someone told him to go up anyway, this is a tragedy that goes beyond being a horrible accident. Even if he didn’t, even if he felt he had to suck it up and go up there, where were the adults? Apparently the scissor-lift is not supposed to be operated in winds over 28 miles per hour. That’s a pretty specific number that one would guess is based on testing. It is pretty clear that this wasn’t a borderline call since there had been serious wind warnings posted throughout the Midwest that day.

There were also reports that the team continued to practice after the accident. When he finally spoke about what happened on Saturday evening after Notre Dame’s 28-27 loss to Tulsa, Coach Brian Kelly said practice had continued—for a while. His explanation was he wanted to keep the players away from the accident and he left assistants in charge while he went to see how badly Sullivan had been hurt. He said when he returned, he called the team to midfield, told them what had occurred and sent them inside.

I’m willing to give Kelly the benefit of the doubt if only because he IS the father of three kids and I’m sure when he got there, he was told right away how serious the situation was. I know enough about good trainers and EMT’s to know that they almost certainly told Kelly that Sullivan wasn’t likely to survive. I can’t imagine ANYONE not being brought up short by something like that. I would feel better if Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick hadn’t gone right away into lawyer mode in making himself the school’s spokesman for the next three days. As far as I know, Tim Collins, the video coordinator at Notre Dame for the past 20 years hasn’t spoken publicly about this yet. No doubt he’s being kept under wraps by Swarbrick and Notre Dame’s lawyers.

Other video coordinators around the country have talked about how respected Collins is within their community. On Saturday, John McGuire, Navy’s long-time video coordinator, who I trust implicitly, said the same thing. “He’s a good guy and a responsible guy,” McGuire said.

He didn’t need to complete the thought for me to wonder if that was so how did Sullivan end up on that scissor-lift? Of course Collins is the only one who can really answer that question. The BEST case scenario for Collins and Notre Dame is that Sullivan just went up there on his own (even though terrified) and no one thought to stop him. That is a pretty awful best case scenario.

There is no best-case scenario for what happened to my friend Bill Shannon. Unless you are part of The New York baseball community or sportswriting fraternity, you probably don’t know Bill. He worked for UPI for years and was also one of the most respected official scorers in baseball, working games at both Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium and then Citi Field. Beyond that, Bill was the classic hale fellow well met. He always had a kind—and often funny word—for everyone and was very good at everything he did.

He was also his 92-year-old mother’s caretaker and lived with her in New Jersey. Bill’s mom had dementia. Last week, she got up early one morning and sat down in a chair and lit a cigarette. Then she apparently forgot about it. Bill, who was upstairs sleeping (he worked most nights) never got out of the house as it burned down. His mom did.

I heard someone on a radio show this morning refer to the Redskins loss in Detroit on Sunday as, “tragic.” I almost drove off the road. Tragedy is Declan Sullivan and Bill Shannon. Pure joy is the birth of your child.

Notre Dame’s real ‘headaches' vs. Navy: outplayed, outcoached, outworked and outfought

Oh My God, the whining coming from Notre Dame people has become completely deafening. If it wasn’t so sad, it would be hysterically funny.

Let me say this to start: I honestly didn’t think I would live to see the day Navy beat Notre Dame. Most years, the Midshipmen had no chance to win the game because the Irish were just too big, too strong and too fast for them to compete. On those rare occasions when Navy did keep the game close something always happened: a great play by a future NFL player from Notre Dame; a missed play at a critical moment by a Navy player; a strange call from an official. It was always something.

Then in 2007, in SPITE of a strange call (to put it politely; let me quote NBC’s Pat Haden at that moment: “You can’t make that call.” Except they did) from an official in the third overtime, Navy finally ended its epic 43 game losing streak to Notre Dame. If the Mids had never beaten Notre Dame again I could at least say I saw it happen once. Then it happened again last year and Saturday, it not only happened a third time but it wasn’t even close. Navy beat Notre Dame 35-17 in the new Meadowlands Stadium and the game really wasn’t even THAT close.

This is where the whining comes in.

For years, while Notre Dame was routinely beating the Mids, all you heard from Notre Dame people was how great it was that the two schools played every year and how much they LOVED Navy. After all, Navy had come to Notre Dame’s rescue during World War 2 when the school was in financial crisis. That was why Notre Dame was happy to ‘repay,’ Navy every year by guaranteeing them a big payday. The Irish had so much respect for Navy; for the quality of the players; for the coaches; for the mission they were on; for their work ethic and their sportsmanship. It was just one big love fest.

Now, Navy plays dirty football. The coaches coach dirty football. Navy is dangerous to play against because it ‘chop,’ blocks all the time.

Hmmm. What has happened in the last three years to cause such a change? Let me think about that one for a second. It couldn’t possibly be three losses in four games could it? Notre Dame—Mensch University if you ever watch a game on NBC (or just about anywhere else come to think of it)—couldn’t possibly be, you know, bad losers?

Let’s deal with the ‘chop,’ block issue first. A chop block is, in fact, an illegal block. It is a 15-yard penalty and it is called when an official believes that a second blocker makes contact with a defender below the waist when he is ALREADY ENGAGED with another blocker. This makes sense because if a defender is already being blocked, he has no chance to avoid the second block or to use his hands to prevent the second blocker from getting his legs. It is a dangerous play that should be—and is—illegal.

During Saturday’s game Navy was called for—wait for it—ZERO chop blocks. In fact, it was called for ZERO penalties. Here was one headline in Sunday’s South Bend Tribune: “Chop Blocks a Headache for Irish.” Really?

Here’s what was a headache for the Irish: Being outplayed, outcoached, outworked and outfought by a group of kids who have absolutely no right to not only beat Notre Dame, but hammer Notre Dame.

The block that the Notre Dame people are referring to is a ‘cut,’ block. Cut blocks are legal. They are often difficult to defend against—just like the option offense—because defenses don’t see them that often. Teams that run normal pro-style offenses or spread offenses don’t cut block that often. Teams that run the option—Army, Navy Air Force—all cut block at least in part because their blockers are generally smaller than those of other teams and this is one way to take advantage of quickness, speed and, well, skill.

Navy has run an option offense for 14 of the last 16 seasons, dating back to 1995. Until recently, Notre Dame and its apologists in the media didn’t seem to be bothered by the option or by cut blocking. Now, cut blocks are suddenly dangerous AND dirty. Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly said this last week: “I’m not sure if they’re legal but we have to be ready for them.”

I’m sorry, you’re not sure if they’re legal? Read the rulebook coach. And, while you’re at it, check out the game tape and show me (or anyone else) exactly where and when Navy started running the veer, as you claimed during your halftime interview on CBS. The veer? What were you watching? Navy ran the exact same offense it has run all year, except for going to a heavy alignment on the goal line, adding an extra tackle. Really tough stuff to figure out.

There was nothing—as Kelly claimed—that they’d been ‘holding back.’ As for the adjustments Kelly said he and his coaches had made, um, they didn’t really work that well did they? Navy went 77 yards for a touchdown on its first drive of the second half and 73 for a touchdown on the second drive.

I’m also wondering if these dirty cut blocks had anything to do with the Notre Dame offense scoring 10 points the first 54 minutes of the game before getting a consolation score when the game was over and Navy had gone to a prevent defense. Did Notre Dame move the ball? Sure did. And just like last year—just like Buddy Green’s defense does to teams all the time—they rolled up yards but not points. Navy got a critical stop on the goal line on the game’s first series and Dayne Crist threw two key interceptions. Was that those dirty cut blocks too?

It was completely ludicrous a year ago when Charlie Weis’s defensive coordinator—I forget his name and he’s not worth looking up—whined about dirty play after Navy’s victory. He cited one play in which a Navy player, Nick Henderson, made a STUPID play, going after a Notre Dame defender after the whistle. Then he claimed Kenny Niumatalolo coached his players to try to hurt opponents.

I’m sorry have you ever MET Kenny Niumatalolo? Forget about how good a coach he is (23-12 since taking over for Paul Johnson when a lot of people thought the program would tank without Johnson) you just won’t meet a better man in any walk of life than Niumatalolo. Am I biased? Sure. But the reason I’m biased is I know the guy and I can tell you without any hesitation he would no more coach one of his players to play dirty than he would try to coach someone to hurt his own players. It’s just not who he is.

Here’s the bottom line: Navy should NEVER beat Notre Dame. The advantages Notre Dame has over Navy or any of the academies are uncountable. You can start with the fact that Navy NEVER gets to play Notre Dame at home. They go to South Bend one year; to a ‘neutral,’ site the next year where the majority of the crowd is almost always pro-Notre Dame. (Oh, and please don’t talk to me about how much money Navy makes. The PLAYERS make none of that money and they have to actually PLAY the games).

Notre Dame has been poorly coached most of the time since Lou Holtz left. Holtz is a bad guy—Saturday night on ESPN he literally refused to even discuss Navy’s win when Mark May brought it up; how about giving SOME credit there coach—but he was a superb coach.

That hasn’t been true of Bob Davie, Ty Willingham or Charlie Weis. The jury is still out on Kelly who has a great resume and is clearly a bright guy but was completely overmatched on Saturday. If Kelly does what he should be able to do: go out and get great players (note to Irish fans: Navy’s academic standards are probably tougher than Notre Dame’s and there is also that little matter of military duty after graduating so don’t buy into that excuse from your school) Notre Dame should be able to start beating Navy regularly again.

Whining isn’t going to get it done. All it does is make you look like what you are: bad losers. It’s one thing to complain about Miami when you can’t compete with them but Navy? Seriously, Navy? Give those kids some credit for being tougher, smarter and better prepared. And THEN thank them for what they’re going to do after they graduate.

Observations from the weekend – Cowboys, Redskins and the rest of the East, Brett Favre, Mark Dantonio, Notre Dame and yes, The Davis Cup

Some quick observations from the weekend:

--      Question one: Am I crazy or has Jerry Jones turned into Dan Snyder? The Cowboys appear to be a fantasy league football team: lots of names and apparent stars but a lousy team. They have a field goal kicker who has trouble, well, kicking field goals. They have a quarterback who puts up lovely stats and never seems to win a tough game. They have 43 running backs but no running game.

I’m not declaring them dead after two games. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they beat the Houston Texans next week because the Texans are coming off two emotional wins—the Colts and a come-from-behind overtime win in Washington—and have a pass defense that let Joey Galloway (who is 57-years-old) get behind it for a 62 yard catch on Sunday.

So here’s my question: Does Wade Phillips last the season? I mean seriously this guy has become Jerry Manuel: he’s just good enough to keep his job but is guaranteed to never win anything that matters—which used to what you were supposed to do in Dallas until Jones decided face-lifts, selling pizza and building a monument to his ego were the keys to success in life. How much do you think Jimmy Johnson has enjoyed these last 14 years?

--      Question two: Is anyone in the NFC East any good? The Colts made the Giants look like a UFL team Sunday night. That game needed The Little League mercy rule and should have been over at halftime. Not many people would have noticed since the first half took about nine hours to play. (What is it with NBC? Their Notre Dame games take forever and so do their Sunday night games. Maybe they need the extra time so Chris Collinsworth can tell us how great the fall lineup is).

The Giants beat a bad Carolina team last week at home, then got crushed by the Colts. I’m certainly not sold on them. The Eagles, even with Mike Vick’s gaudy numbers, were lucky to get out of Detroit alive even with Matthew Stafford injured. Shaun Hill-yes THE Shaun Hill—threw for 334 yards. Let’s be honest: with all the talk about the quarterback position, the Eagles defense has not been a shadow of its-former-self since Jim Johnson’s death.

And the Redskins? Well, they had the new Mayor planning a parade route at about 6:30 last night and then reverted to their old selves. The local apologists here today are going on about Donovan McNabb’s numbers and the 27-10 lead. Certainly, the team is better if only because it is COACHED and because for the moment Dan Snyder is entertaining all his various sycophants in the owners box and not trying to tell Mike Shanahan what to do. But the game was lost because a chip-shot field goal got blocked and because the defense couldn’t make a play late and because there was NO running game.

Can the Redskins make the playoffs? Sure. Because no one in the division is any good.

--      Question three: What is the over-under on Brett Favre’s next retirement? Favre looked bad, at home, on Sunday against the Dolphins. He and the Vikings may very well bounce back from 0-2 but I think they COULD lose to the Lions on Sunday. If that were to happen things will get chaotic in Minnesota if they aren’t already. The problem with being a great athlete is you never really know when it is time to go home. Favre had a wonderful year in 2009 and that’s why—along with the money—he’s back in 2010. But the margin for error is so small, especially in the violent world of the NFL, that you never know when you are going to step off the cliff. Favre may not be there yet but he can definitely see the posse coming up behind him. It may not matter if he can swim, the fall will kill him.

--      How sad is it that Mark Dantonio’s signature moment as a football coach came only a few hours before he landed in the hospital suffering from a heart attack.

First, thank goodness, he’s apparently okay and was smart enough not to mess around and got himself straight to the hospital. Again though, this makes you wonder about the pressures coaches put themselves under. Dantonio made one of the all-time gutsy calls when he called for a fake 46-yard field goal with his team down 31-28 to Notre Dame in overtime. It was what coaches refer to as a ‘hero-goat,’ call. You’re going to be one or the other, there is no in-between. Dantonio ended up a hero because his team executed the play perfectly and Notre Dame—not surprisingly—never saw the play coming.

The shame is that Dantonio can’t really glory in the moment right now. He’s got to worry about getting himself healthy again and his doctors have to make sure he doesn’t try to go back too soon. This is serious stuff—not Urban Meyer, I’ll resign for 15 minutes and then be back the next day stuff.

--      When will the national media stop moaning about how unlucky Notre Dame is? Someone actually wrote Sunday that Touchdown Jesus should be replaced with a statue of Job because Notre Dame has been so unlucky in recent seasons.

Are you kidding me? The Irish have EARNED their mediocrity with a series of bad coaching hires and some obvious recruiting mistakes. PLEASE do not buy the, ‘our academics are so tough,’ excuse. There may be a few kids Notre Dame can’t take but most of those kids probably don’t belong at Notre Dame anyway. Lou Holtz took some of them and look where that led.

Bob Davie couldn’t coach, Ty Willingham never really got a chance to coach, George O’Leary couldn’t tell the truth and Charlie Weis couldn’t get his ego out of the way for more than five minutes at a time. Brian Kelly may be the answer and he needs time before people judge him one way or the other. But this has nothing to do with bad luck. It has to do with running a bad football program at a place where it is almost impossible—given the money, the scheduling ‘flexibility,’ (as in a total of three road games this season) the tradition and the exposure—to be mediocre. Notre Dame has pulled that off for almost 20 years now. That’s not bad luck.

Finally: Am I the only person who noticed that Patrick McEnroe ended his run as Davis Cup captain with a win—a tough one at that. The U.S. had to go to Colombia this past weekend and play on slow red clay in order to retain its spot for 2011 in The World Group—the 16 teams that play to win the Davis Cup. A loss would have meant playing their way back through the relegation group in 2011 to have a chance to compete for the Cup again in 2012.

Without Andy Roddick, the U.S. won 3-1, Mardy Fish winning two singles matches (8-6 in the fifth to wrap it up Sunday) and the doubles with John Isner. Good for Patrick and the U.S. It’s a shame no one pays attention anymore.

By the way, Serbia plays France for the Cup the first weekend in December. A ratings bonanza no doubt for Tennis Channel.

Let’s hope the rest of the weekend goes like yesterday; I didn’t listen when told about the Huskies

So, anyone out there who wants to change the NCAA Tournament after what we saw yesterday, raise your hand.

Are you kidding me? It took about five minutes to understand that this was going to be one of those days—and we can only hope one of those weekends—where if you turned your head for more than a minute you were likely to miss something spectacular.

The loudest noise I heard in the bowels of Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville was at the moment when Florida and BYU were in their first overtime and CBS switched over to the final seconds of regulation in the Villanova-Robert Morris game. A cheer went up because there were still three minutes left in the Florida-BYU overtime and everyone wanted to see what would happen in Villanova-Robert Morris.

But at the instant Scottie Reynolds appeared on the screen with the basketball, he was gone. Someone at CBS had remembered that in Florida you can’t switch away from a game involving Florida. Poof! Reynolds disappeared as screaming broke out around the TV sets where almost everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch.

Reynolds didn’t score but Villanova won in overtime, one of the few high-seeds that got into trouble and survived yesterday. Already, Old Dominion had taken down Notre Dame and as we all know the single-digit carnage continued late into the night. Even my Lehigh Mountain Hawks, the No. 63 seed in the tournament, hung with the No. 1 seed Kansas for a long time

Of course the most stunning upset of the day was Ohio taking down Georgetown and making it look relatively easy. I’m sure my three or four Georgetown ‘fans,’ (the ones who keep hacking into my Wikipedia, proving their computer skills are equal to my 12-year-old daughter) will somehow see this as a diss, but the fact is there were few teams in the country more wildly inconsistent this season than the Hoyas.

At their best, they could beat anybody. At their worst they could, well, lose to a team that went into its CONFERENCE tournament as a No. 9 seed. If this is it for Greg Monroe as a college player you would have to label his career a disappointment. Although he was brilliant at times, showing the kind of all-round court skills that will likely make him a top five draft pick, Georgetown didn’t win a single postseason game the last two years. A clearly splintered Georgetown team fell apart last year and lost in the first round of the NIT to Baylor. This Georgetown team seemed to right itself with a rout of Cincinnati and three wins in The Big East tournament only to lose to Ohio.

IF Monroe were to return next year, the Hoyas could be a preseason top five team. If not, they’re probably more middle-of-the-pack Big East.

Which, based on yesterday, isn’t as impressive as it appeared to be. Pull up a chair Pac-10 fans, this is the part you’ve been waiting for.

Mea-culpa.

Washington beat Marquette yesterday and, if you throw in Georgetown and Notre Dame losing and Villanova squeaking by a No. 15 seed—we DID get to see most of the overtime down here—it was a bad day for The Big East.

And, apparently a bad day for me too. Yup, I said there was no way Washington would beat Marquette and I ripped The Pac-10. Needless to say the Pac-10/Washington fans are out looking for me today. As they should be. Heck, even Kevin O’Neill—or at least someone claiming to be Kevin—posted that his USC Trojans would whip Cincinnati and that Syracuse would finish third in the Pac-10. One guy went even further: He said Rick Reilly picking the Huskies is proof that he’s better than me.

OUCH!

Now, if California beats Louisville tonight I will go back to the committee tomorrow and use every bit of influence I have to get the Pac-10 two more bids retroactively. (I watched Louisville practice yesterday. I know they’ve been up-and-down all year but this is a group that beat Syracuse twice this season. I think they’re a dangerous dark horse in the south bracket).

Seriously, I was warned by my friend Mike Gastineau in Seattle who sees Washington a lot more than I do, that the Huskies were a hot club. I didn’t pay attention and I got burned. Just remember one thing: this is EXACTLY why I don’t do brackets!

The real bottom line is that yesterday was just a wonderful day of basketball. Five double-digit seeds won and several others came extremely close. Montana scared the heck out of New Mexico; St. Mary’s took down Richmond; Wake Forest beat Texas in overtime in the game someone had to win. It was good stuff—even with the endless commercials and the halftimes that lasted longer than many marriages.

The guy I felt worst for if truth be told was Mike Brey. He did a terrific job of completely remaking his team’s playing style a month ago to adjust to the absence of Luke Harangody. That change produced a six game winning steak that jumped the Irish from outside the bubble to a No. 6 seed. They got a tough draw in Old Dominion, which came out of a league that didn’t have its best year but still had a half-dozen solid teams. Now, people will no doubt focus on the last loss (as often happens) rather than the great run the Irish made prior to the last loss.

Finally, even though I know this will probably fall on deaf ears, can someone with more influence than me—that would be almost anybody—please SCREAM at the basketball committee and the suits in Indianapolis to NOT CHANGE this tournament. The Super Bowl is the most popular sports event we have but there is nothing—NOTHING—more fun than this tournament. I’ve often said through the years that the NCAA Tournament is so good that even the NCAA can’t screw it up.

Except that they can. And probably will. So enjoy today and the weekend because it may never be like this again.

Moving on to Notre Dame and Serena Williams, Following a Short Rehash of Yesterday

As I’ve said before, some mornings it is hard to know where to begin.

The biggest story in sports continues to be ‘Tiger-gate.’ Yesterday, to no one’s surprise, he announced he was pulling out of his own tournament—it is really an exhibition since every player collects a big check—because of the injuries he suffered last Friday morning. What’s interesting about that is that his spin-doctors rushed out with a statement on Friday claiming his injuries were, “minor.” Now, four days later he’s too badly hurt to get on a private plane to, at the very least put in an appearance on behalf of the tournament sponsor who is putting up $5.5 million in prize money alone.

Methinks he’s not ready to let anyone see him public.

Let me pause a moment here to go back to yesterday and some of the comments that were posted here. I’m always very curious to see what readers write, especially because they frequently raise questions or issues I hadn’t thought about. Since I started the blog five months ago very few of those who have posted or sent e-mails have been especially negative or angry. In fact, one of the things that has made me happy is the thoughtfulness and, well, smartness of so many of the posts. It isn’t like reading some other blog posting areas where people scream cyber-profanities at one another and toss anonymous cheap shots around.

Yesterday, a lot of the posts were pretty much the norm: smart people agreeing to perhaps disagree on a complicated topic which very much involves how much privacy a public figure is entitled to have. But there were also some that were angry—angry with me for suggesting that Woods owes the public some kind of an explanation because there are so many un-answered questions about what happened last Friday. I also wrote that it would be best for HIM to give some kind of explanation and I think the fact that he had to pull out of his own tournament is more evidence of that. At the moment he is, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner in his own home.

What I realized reading the posts is something I hadn’t thought about in the past. I’ve always known that fans of a TEAM don’t care at all about the off-field behavior of their stars as long as they perform. Right now fans of the Yankees could care less about Alex Rodriguez’s steroids admissions last spring. All they know is he (finally) performed in postseason and the Yankees won The World Series. Fans of college football and basketball teams could care less about whether their players graduate: they want them to perform, win games, make them feel good. If you graduate, that’s fine, but it doesn’t matter. No coach—repeat NO coach—has ever been fired because he had a low graduation rate.

Woods is such a transcendent figure that many fans look at him as THEIR golfer. As a number of posts said, “as long as he entertains me with spectacular golf, I don’t care what he does off the course.” (At least one poster spelled it coarse, but that’s okay). A couple of others went the kind of tired route that those of us who report on athletes transgressions are essentially ambulance chasers and we should leave the guy alone, mind our own business, yata-yata-yata. My suggestion to them is that they not waste their time with this blog because what I write here for the most part is about people I know and have known in sports, the good and the bad. If you are looking for happy talk, go to TigerWoods.com.

Here’s the larger point: In the end most fans just want athletes to perform, to make them feel happy by winning and, in Tiger’s case, often winning spectacularly. I get all that, I have a better understanding of that today than I did yesterday because I hadn’t thought of it in those terms for an athlete in an individual sport.

I will say this: Golf Channel had a crisis-management expert on the air yesterday, a guy who clearly has no vested interest in this at all. He basically said what I had said: the longer Tiger stonewalls, the worse it gets for him—because there are LOTS of people who see a carefully cultivated image and wonder now if it’s real. That’s not going away regardless of what I say, write or think. I would add one more thing for those of you who care only about what Tiger does on the golf course: He’s not ON the golf course entertaining you this week. It may be because he’s more beat up than his people let on last Friday or it may be because he’s hiding out. Either way, it’s really too damn bad for everyone—including Tiger.

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On to happier topics: Charlie Weis got fired yesterday. That wasn’t even a little bit of a surprise to anyone but it always amuses me how guys in suits think they can spin things just by claiming they’re true. Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick, who does look good in a suit, talked about how difficult the decision was because Weis is really such a good guy. “I have never met anyone for whom there was a larger gulf between perception and reality than Charlie Weis,” he claimed and then went into all the hoo-ha about how much Weis loves Notre Dame—as if that qualifies ANYONE to coach. I love the New York Islanders. That doesn’t mean I should coach them.

Here’s some Weis reality: he swaggered into Notre Dame telling people he was going to out-scheme other coaches and bullying the media, using his opening press conference to “lay down the law,” on what would and wouldn’t be allowed and threatening reporters with banishment if they failed to follow all his rules.

More reality: he never once took responsibility for his failures. It was always the players who failed to run a route right, didn’t make a block or a tackle. The old, “I coached good, they played bad,” routine. When Notre Dame won it was because of some brilliant offensive scheme he came up with. (See last year’s Hawaii Bowl).

A bit more reality: Weis ducked the media after the Stanford game last Saturday, wasn’t man enough to stand there and accept that he had failed. Actually, it may be a good thing: no doubt he would have blamed the players for his failures. Then he went out and started leaking about all the NFL teams that were interested in him.

THAT’s the reality of Charlie Weis.

What was almost as amusing was to hear the two morning guys on ESPN apologizing for him today. Of course one has two sons recruited by Weis and is an apologist for all things Notre Dame. The other is simply an apologist for anyone who has ever appeared on-air so it really isn’t surprising.

Weis got what he deserved—except for the fact that Notre Dame still has to pay him $18 million. That part is just sad.

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One last note for the day: In a major non-surprise the folks who run the tennis Grand Slams yesterday fined Serena Williams $82,500 for her outburst at a lineswoman during the U.S. Open and gave her a stern talking to: as in, ‘do this again and you could be suspended.’

Yeah, right.

Let me allow my pal Mary Carillo, who is more worthy to comment on this than I am (or anyone else) explain exactly what happened. This is what she wrote in an e-mail yesterday to The Washington Post’s Liz Clarke:

“Serena Williams physically threatened and verbally assaulted an official during one of the most watched tennis matches of 2009 and after three months of considered cogitation the Grand Slam Committee came up with ‘Grand Slam Probation and a ‘suspended ban?’ And half of what was deemed to be her fine? Boy, that ought to show everyone.”

Carillo’s summation: “It was a cockamamie decision.”

Mary grew up in Queens with John McEnroe. She knows a “you can NOT be serious,” situation when she sees one. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Mary should be the commissioner of tennis. She’s smarter than every person with authority in the game—smarter than all of them combined.

On a Day I Hoped to Write About the Ongoing NCAA DI-AA Playoffs, Instead it's on Tiger

I was really hoping to write this morning about the Division 1-AA playoffs—or as the NCAA likes to call them the, “Football Championship Sub-Division,” playoffs—that began last Saturday. I even scheduled a trip to Philadelphia Saturday to see Villanova play Holy Cross in one of the eight first round games.

Holy Cross is a wonderful story, the kind that doesn’t get enough attention. Six years ago the Crusaders were 1-11 while their coach, Dan Allen, was dying of ALS. Tom Gilmore arrived in 2004 and, with considerable help from a quarterback named Dominic Randolph, went 9-3 this season and won The Patriot League Championship to qualify for the tournament.

Villanova won an entertaining game 38-28 but I knew by the time I made the drive to Philly that I wasn’t going to be writing today about players who compete in college football for an actual championship.

My phone began ringing sometime around 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon. Tiger Woods had been in a “serious,” car accident. That sounded scary although it didn’t take long to find out he had already been released from the hospital and his spin-doctors were putting out a statement that the accident was, “minor,” and he was already home in “good,” condition.

Okay, I thought, maybe this will pass in a few hours. I understood that a Tiger Woods fender-bender is a 50-car pileup in the golf world but even those are usually cleared in a few hours when they occur. The police said there was no evidence that alcohol played a role in the accident. End of story.

Not exactly.

Details began to emerge that raised questions. Detail 1: the accident took place at 2:28 a.m. on Black Friday a few yards from the front door of Woods’ house and he was LEAVING when it happened. Question 1: Why was he leaving his house at that hour of the night/morning? The odds are pretty good it wasn’t to get to Walmart to beat the crowds and buy discounted golf clubs.

Detail 2: His wife, Elin, pulled him from the car after smashing the back window of the car so she could get to him. Question 2: Why would one smash the BACK window of an SUV to get to someone in the front seat?

Detail 3: Elin used a golf club to smash in the window. Question 3: Did she run all the way down to the accident scene, then back to the house to grab a golf club and then back to the car? Or, did she have the wherewithal to grab a golf club after hearing the crash? Or, was neither of those the correct answer?

These were questions that needed answers. The best and smartest thing Tiger could have done was talk to the police as soon as possible—it probably would have taken five minutes: one car accident, no one else hurt, no sign of alcohol being involved—and let them write their report and perhaps charge him with careless driving and send him a bill for the hydrant.

Soon after that he should have held a press conference during which he could have explained that, yes, he and Elin had an argument. Say something like, “Any of you guys been married? Ever had an argument with your wife? Sometimes the best thing to do is just get out of the house for a while. I was frazzled and wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing and here I am.”

No need to go into any further details. If the tabloid/cyber-space rumors making the rounds are brought up, just smile and say, “come on fellas, I’m not going to dignify that sort of thing with an answer, you know me better than that.”

Talk about the football games you watched on Thanksgiving and move on. Revel in Stanford’s win over Notre Dame. You see, that’s the way you move on in these situations. You don’t move on by making the police asking routine questions into a story by avoiding them for three days and brining in some lawyer to stonewall on your behalf. It makes you look like you have something to hide.

You don’t move on by playing the “this is a private matter,” card either. It ceased being a private matter once he hit the fire hydrant. He’s a public figure and something put him in that car and on that road and out of control. He owes the public—which has helped make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams—more than the privacy card. Privacy stops at the front door.

Beyond that, supplying some kind of explanation is the best thing for WOODS. He may be able to intimidate most of the golf media but he isn’t going to intimidate the tabloids or the gossip web sites or TV joke-writers. They could care less if he cuts them off or stops calling them by name during his press conferences.

Woods is a control freak—like most hugely successful people—and he can’t stand being in a situation in which he loses any control. That’s why he gets SO angry when he hits a wayward shot. At that moment, he’s lost control of his golf game. It’s why he has fired caddies and agents who have dared speak up without his permission and why those who work for him live in fear of saying or doing anything that might make him angry.

Up until now Woods has done as good a job as any mega-celebrity has ever done in keeping his life under control. There has been nothing really serious to criticize him for. Sure, he throws clubs and uses profanity on the golf course and, a month shy of turning 34, most people think he needs to outgrow those habits. He’s let his caddy, Steve Williams, behave very badly far too often and he should sign more autographs than he does. But that’s about the list of things you can criticize him for—unless you count blowing off the media on occasion after a bad round which I know almost no one in the public could care less about.

I’ve had my battles with Tiger and his people but I have great respect for him, certainly as a golfer (it would be insane not to) but also for the way he has dealt most of the time with his fame. I’ve often said that he’s as bright as any athlete I’ve ever met and perhaps as bright as any person I’ve met.

Of course because I have been critical of him at times dating back to his rookie year I’ve been viewed by Tiger and his team as a bad guy. The fact that I wrote early on that I believed he had succeeded in spite of his father rather than because of him earned me a permanent spot on his bad list. Which is fine. As I said to him once, I’d never put a guy down for defending his dad.

I’d like to think the fact that we aren’t pals and he doesn’t use a nickname when addressing me the way he does with some other writers doesn’t affect the way I judge him. I remember doing a U.S. Open preview for National Public Radio in 2001 soon after he had completed his, “Tiger Slam,” in which I called it the greatest feat in golf history given the competition and the media pressures he’d had to deal with. Later that day I got a call from the producer of the show I was on saying, “Is there any way I can get you to stop sucking up to Tiger Woods?” I suggested she call Tiger’s agent (she wasn’t like to reach Tiger) and repeat that comment if only so we could all have a good laugh.

I’m the last person to sit in judgment of what goes on inside someone’s home and inside someone’s marriage. None of us knows the truth from the outside. But Tiger—for Tiger’s sake—needs to stop hiding out behind statements and lawyers and end this by saying SOMETHING. Until he does he’s going to be a punch line. And I know him well enough to know just how much he has to hate that idea.

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One more note from the weekend that begs for a comment: Did anyone notice that on Sunday one of those ESPN hacks who will put out any bit of information he’s fed “reported,” that Charlie Weis has been contacted by six NFL teams about a job as a coordinator next season?

Who do you think the guy’s source was—Ara Parseghian? This is so typical of Weis. Rather than just accept his likely firing at Notre Dame as his responsibility—which it is—he has to get it out there that NFL teams are just dying to hire him. No doubt someone will hire him—he’s a fine coordinator—but it really is a shame that he has no shame or dignity at all. It’s all about him all the time, which is a big part of the reason why he failed so utterly as a head coach. Record the last three seasons once Ty Willingham’s players were just about gone: 16-21. Number of times he took responsibility for those losses: zero.

The Weis Mantra

Okay, I don’t want this to turn into the “GoMids.com,” blog but it is impossible not to comment on some of the bleatings coming out of Notre Dame in the wake of Navy’s win out there last Saturday.

It certainly doesn’t come as a shock to anyone that Charlie Weis would react to the loss the way he did—claiming he would take responsibility, then throwing everyone but Touchdown Jesus under any bus he could find.

Two years ago, when Navy finally broke its monumental 43 game losing streak against Notre Dame, Weis barely uttered one word of credit to the Navy kids, talking—as usual—about the mistakes his team had made because, as we all know, when Notre Dame wins it is because he coached good but when it loses it is because the players played bad.

That’s the Weis mantra.

After Navy won the game Saturday, Navy Coach Ken Niamatalolo made the point that he thought his team had done better offensively in 2009 than in 2008 because it had seen Notre Dame’s defensive schemes in the game in Baltimore a year earlier. Niamatalolo made a point of saying, “I hope this isn’t misconstrued,”—in other words, he was NOT criticizing Notre Dame’s coaches, he was just saying his team had been better prepared because it had seen the defense the year before.

In fact, when I spoke to Niamatalolo before the game he had made a similar point. “Last year I think we were a little too amped up,” he said. “We made some mistakes, didn’t carry out some assignments. I hope today, because the kids have seen what we did wrong on film, we’ll be a little better.”

They were a lot better. Let me add this: I’ve known a lot of people through a lot of years in sports. I haven’t met anyone who is a better person than Niamatalolo. He’s the anti-Weis: When Pete Medhurst, who does the sideline reporting on the Navy radio network asked him postgame what it meant to him to come into Notre Dame Stadium as the head coach and win his answer was direct: “This isn’t about me Pete, it’s about the kids. Talk about them.”

When Navy does lose, here’s Kenny’s first comment: “We got out-coached today.”

Like I said, the anti-Weis.

Niamatalolo and his coaches very clearly out-coached Weis and his coaches on Saturday. Buddy Green’s bend-but-don’t-break defense made key plays against an offense littered with first round draft picks, all day. The offense kept picking up yards when it had to—including two fourth-and-one pickups when quarterback Ricky Dobbs simply plunged straight ahead because Notre Dame left the center un-covered. Brilliant coaching there.

Let’s go back to one basic principle here for a minute: there is NO WAY Navy should ever beat Notre Dame. The Irish are going to be bigger, stronger, faster at just about every position on the field. The only way Navy competes—or wins—is by being smarter, tougher and better-coached. End of discussion.

One Notre Dame player, Ian Williams, admitted as such, saying he though that Navy’s offense had perhaps, “out-schemed,” Notre Dame’s defense and that, “they were tougher than us.”

That’s a pretty stand-up position to take—note he did NOT blame the coaches alone, he said Navy’s players were tougher than Notre Dame’s. Kyle McCarthy, the defensive captain, stood up for the coaches by saying the players were in the right spots, they just didn’t execute. Okay, that’s the right thing to say and I don’t blame the kid for saying it, but anyone with a cursory understanding of football could see that Notre Dame’s defense was NOT in position on a number of critical plays. How else do you account for Navy’s fullbacks averaging ELEVEN yards a carry on 19 carries? Was Navy’s offensive line SO dominant that Vince Murray and Alex Teich, neither of whom are likely to ever get a carry in the NFL, ran roughshod over the Notre Dame defense?

Of course Weis couldn’t wait to rip Williams and praise McCarthy. “That’s why one kid’s a captain and the other one’s not,” he said.

You know what Charlie, that kind of comment is why you deserve to be an ex-coach pretty soon. How about saying, “Look, we’re ALL responsible for the loss—and so is Navy. They were better than us—playing, coaching—everything.”

No, that’s not Weis’s style. He rips his own player for not being in lockstep and agreeing the players played bad but the coaches coached good. What a first class jerk.

Of course he wasn’t finished. Next, he sent co-defensive coordinator Corwin Brown to rip Niamatalolo for gently saying his team might have known what Notre Dame was going to do. Why wouldn’t Notre Dame do what it had done a year ago? The other defensive coordinator John Tenuta not only said during the week that’s what they were going to do but bragged about having seen “every option offense known to man.” Really? So what happened out there on Saturday?

Brown also railed against Navy’s “illegal cut blocks.” Let’s get this straight: cut blocks aren’t illegal, CHOP blocks are. A cut block is a block below the waist, a chop block is a block below the waist when the defender is already engaged with another blocker. It is a 15 yard penalty. Brown called the play on which Navy wide receiver Nick Henderson took down Notre Dame defender A.J. Blanton after the play one of the dirtiest plays he’d ever seen.

Please. It was an absolutely stupid, dumb play by Henderson that cost his team—rightly so—15 yards. I’ve watched the tape. If Henderson makes the block during the course of the play, there’s nothing illegal about it. It was away from the play and after the whistle—a clear, dumb personal foul, the kind players make trying to impress their coaches by “playing to the whistle.” But dirty? No. Stupid, yes. No one was hurt. The Notre Dame defender jumped right to his feet and began pointing—correctly—at the official to throw the flag, which he did.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Weis sent Corwin Brown out there to be his hit man, to try to divert attention from the fact that he’s just become the first Notre Dame coach in almost 50 years to lose to Navy twice. Trying to make the Navy coaches and players into bad guys is one of the all-time stretches in bad-guy history. Someone might point out to Weis that next year, wherever he’s coaching and throwing his players under the bus and whining that nothing is his fault, the 32 seniors on Navy’s team will be Naval and Marine officers and will be helping to ensure that he can have the freedom to be the complete and utter crybaby that he is.

Am I overreacting? Probably. But unlike Weis and Brown, I have some sense of who these kids are and of how remarkable that victory on Saturday truly was. For these two losers to try to take away from that accomplishment is infuriating. If they had any pride, any soul, any sense of what’s right and wrong, they would be ashamed of themselves.

As they should be.