Teddy Greenstein of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE reports that Charlie Weis is backtracking on his previous coaching approach now that the Irish program is in ashes.
Among other things, Weis plans to “meet with various alumni groups he has cheesed off with his arrogance. … he’ll use the extra time to make nice with Notre Dame’s grumbling alums. I’ve seen Weis walk away from conversations with people in mid-sentence. Harder to do that when you’re the first Irish coach since Hugh Devore to lose to Navy.”
Weis’ new attitude adjust isn’t just limited to those annoying alums though (we’d actually give anything to see him blow off a ND blowhard in mid-sentence).
Weis also admits that he was too overbearing with players in the past, so he plans to spend more time letting them know that he wants more open communication.
Excerpt: “More significant is his plan to bond with his players. Beginning Monday, Weis will hang with them during their 6 a.m. workouts and “see if I can’t start being more — I won’t say open — but more approachable. Especially the young guys, [they] get so intimidated, they don’t know that you can come in and talk about everything.”
So Weis’ life now consists of hearing out bloviating ND alums on the rubber chicken circuit and a occupying a fogged-with-sweat weight room at 6am? We’re wagering Navy might be in trouble this season.
4:10 pm on February 11th, 2008
Brooks, editorialize for a minute if you will and give us the straight scoop on your feelings for Charlie Weis. Do you think he’ll last a long time at ND? What about his coaching ability, do you think he has it in him to be a good coach?
Something about that guy just irks me, and I have sort of always hoped he would fail, especially considering the way ND treated Ty Willingham and Bob Davie. It seemed to me that any self respecting coach would have told ND to screw off after the way they’ve acted for a while. Ol’ Chuckles jumped at it and pretty much insulted as many people as possible in the process (and continues to).
9:19 pm on February 11th, 2008
If Weis wins, he’ll get to stay. Simple as that.
To his credit, he is changing his ways. It’s easy to dump on the guy for his flawed past methods, but appears he’s trying to make changes. Then again, his comments could be for PR purposes. You never know.
Personally, I don’t think he can get ND to the level of success the alums expect. But we’ll see.
9:23 pm on February 11th, 2008
Thanks for the reply. I don’t know that anybody can truthfully get to the level the alums expect. It seems as if they expect a championship game every year.
With their standards, I don’t see much success coming their way. They’ve already proven that playing an independent schedule doesn’t seem to prepare them for bowl games.