<p>Charley Weis has exacted his revenge against Notre Dame for his well deserved firing. With the Irish football program reduced to playing Western Michigan, Army and Tulsa next season, Weis lashed out at Pete Caroll's personal life yesterday in a below the belt comment. The Irish depserately need to keep the USC game and the relationship with the Trojans. By continuing to play Notre Dame these days, USC is actually doing the Irish an enormous favor. It is the one game, whose rating can carry the other six turkey games on NBC, or at least give NBC, some justification for keeping the contract. </p>
<p>Now, Weis, after being paid $18 million, has raised the volume so much that the animosity with USC might make the playing of next year's game very problematic. </p>
<p>Weis should apologize immediately and cheerfully go out and cash his large buyout check.
What he is doing to the program is reprehensible.</p>
<p>Five media reps were at the same session. What Charlie said was off-the-record, evidenced by the fact that none of the other four legit reporters repeated it. Also, it was used as an example of the “higher standard” that applies to ND coaches. Perhaps a bad choice of examples, but the idiot award goes to the reporter who doesn’t have a clue what off-the-record means. Gee - I wonder when he’ll get his next scoop…!</p>
<p>The writer, Tim Prister, is a respected writer who has covered ND for over 25 years. His son currently attends ND and Tim would have been the baseball coach for Charlie’s son, had Charlie Jr. attended Marian H.S. instead of South Bend St. Joe. Tim cares deeply for ND and has no reason to attack ND. If you read Tim’s comments, he verified the comments with one of the other four writers. Tim’s story was published first, and at that point, the University asked the other four reporters not to publish the comment. The point is, Tim knows Charlie well, and presumably would have known after five years if Charlie was on or off the record at the time of the comment.</p>