I don't know what he truly feels because his writing is carefully orchestrated to conform to current trends (the current trend being a near universal and justifiable condemnation of Weis' comment)
ahh, yes. a product of the sound byte age where we can conveniently pluck quotes and facts as we please, spreading half-truths and twisting the meaning until it fits our own version of what we'd like to believe. had you, or any of the fans and media that have their undies all twisted over this, actually taken the time to watch the 'infamous' press conference or read the transcript, you'd know that weis' quote is being used against him unfairly, and it's been stripped of any of it's original context.
similar to the old story about the english professor that asks his students to punctuate the sentence: "woman without her man is nothing." how did the students respond?
the men: "woman, without her man, is nothing."
the women: "woman, without her, man is nothing."
see victors? it's easy to twist meaning when you don't have to deal with context and intent. BUT, on the off chance that you actually care to understand weis' comments more fully, below is an account of the story from somebody who was actually in the room when it was spoken.
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http://www.nbcsports.com/cfb/242638/detail.html
Ted Robinson, the sportscaster and Notre Dame alumnus, was a contemporary of Weis' in their undergrad days. Robinson tells the story of how Weis never really did any extracurricular activities on campus until his senior year, when he tried out for a sports-talk radio gig at the campus radio station (WVFI, I believe). "I hired Charlie," says Robinson. "It was unusual to hire a guy who hadn't worked his way up before senior year. But nobody could stump Charlie on sports trivia."
When you listen to that story, you understand why Weis, when he feels like it, relates so well to the media. Because he comes from that background, at least psychologically. He understands the territory. He realizes, as well, that when the coach at Notre Dame says anything even close to controversial, that it's national news. Which is why he rarely flies in that airspace.
Today he did, momentarily, and it became an Associated Press story that ran on the homepages of NBCSports.com, SI.com and ESPN.com. If you just read the quotes as they ran in the story, Weis sounds as if he's ranting:
"One of the teams (Tennessee) that jumped us had the same game that we had. They're down, they're playing at home and they win by a field goal. Another team (Florida) that jumped us wasn't even playing. They were home eating cheeseburgers and they end up jumping us. That befuddles me. …"Tell me how that works? Maybe I'm just stupid. Tell me how that works?"
Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesBob Stoops has been known to voice his displeasure with certain officiating calls.
In truth, for those of us in attendance, it was a funny moment. The writer who asked the question was the AP reporter Tom Coyne. The sentence that Coyne did not include in his piece was was the next thing Weis said. The ND coach looked directly at Coyne and said wryly, "You're on the AP, tell me how that works."
Everyone in the room laughed. Which is to say that behind most coaches or players who make provocative statements, be it Bob Stoops complaining about officials or some player guaranteeing a victory, there's usually a question from a reporter.
And more often than not it's difficult to appreciate the context of the quote unless you are there or unless you hear it in its enitirety. Which is another reason why it's educational to read the entire transcript.
If you only read the AP story, you may think that Weis has an agenda, that he's bitching because the Irish are falling further and further out of the BCS championship game picture. But listen to what he said immediately after Coyne answered his question by saying, "I don't get a vote."
Here's Weis:
"Hey -- let's be very practical here, okay. Would I love for Notre Dame to play for the National Championship this year? Absolutely. Is it a chance that it happens? Remote. Is there a chance? Yeah, there's a chance because any team with one loss has a chance of playing for it.
Now, a lot of things have to happen now, okay. A lot of things have to happen. But is there a chance? I'd say there's a chance. It's remote. Would you agree with that? It's remote, but would you say there's a chance? Remote.
Other than that, what's the next thing you want? Well, you'd like to play in one of the big games. So what do you have to do? Then you have to win. That's what you have to do. If you win, things usually end up taking care of themselves."
I counted four remotes. I don't think for a moment that Charlie Weis, the encyclopedic football coach, the former college sports-talk deejay, believes that his team deserves to play in the national championship game or will play in it. I know that I don't.
On the other hand, there's still nearly half a season left to play, so why toe-tag the patient while he still has a pulse? There's no benefit to Weis or the team that he's paid to coach in announcing a time of death on Notre Dame's national championship hopes on Oct. 23.
More importantly, the news conference/AP story is a sweet lesson in the news cycle. If I hadn't been there, if I'd only read the AP story, I would have thought Weis was a ranting crybaby who had blinders on as to where his team really belongs
(in fact, when someone asked him if in his opinion the Irish were a top-10 team, he replied, "I think we'll know that in about five weeks." And, after all, that's the only time when the ranking will really matter).
But if you were there, you know that the whole exchange was light-hearted and that Weis harbors no delusions about whether the Irish will be playing in the national championship game. At least not unless some bizarre things transpire. Remember, he had a good view of the game back on Sept. 16.
