Charlie Weis’ buyout number is getting to be like the Loch Ness monster … the more ridiculous the claims, the more you wonder if it exists at all.
The latest report comes from WNDU: a figure on the wrong side of $20 million. Although no one knows for sure, that number would be consistent with the rumors that swirled when Weis first signed that ridiculous contract extension — that the buyout was a one-to-one dollars-owed total and resulted in virtually the entire contract being guaranteed. My ND education enables me to multiply $3 million per annum to the seven years remaining on the deal and get a product in WNDU’s ballpark. The guys at WNDU have a pretty good rep and sources when it comes to stuff like this, too, so I’m inclined to give what they’re saying some credence.
I’m also inclined to find whoever put this extension in front of Weis and toss them into Stonehenge Fountain on a 20-degree day. If you have ever written a tuition or donation check to the University of Notre Dame, things like this should have you boiling the tar and gathering feathers while looking for the appropriate target.
One might be tempted to target Weis in all this, and to be fair, it’s reasonable to wonder why a coach who professes his love for his alma mater would need an eight-figure love letter less than a year on the job. But this is business. Just because Weis or his agent made the offer doesn’t mean ND had to accept it. It would say a lot about Weis’ position in and attitude about the ND family if he let the school off the hook here, and let’s face it, that family is the reason Gerry Faust is accepted on campus these days and Bob Davie is not. But that’s not Weis’ job or responsibility, and while it’d be nice, it isn’t required.
We know the name of at least one of the guilty parties. He’s currently ensuring Mike Krzyzewski has fresh towels in his private steam room at all times, and when Notre Dame played a football game about 20 miles from his office earlier this season, he took great pains to be out of town so as to, and this is a direct quote, “not run into any of those Notre Dame people.”
And people wonder why Chamberlain LeBlanc was so reviled on NDNation and why it pole-axed us that so many on campus thought he was a “great guy”. That gutless wonder gave a man with no experience the keys to the Notre Dame football program, made him one of the highest-paid coaches in the nation, and then locked the school into a dollar-sign-walled prison and swallowed the key five games into that coach’s inaugural season.
I am about as surprised Kevin White so totally and spectacularly mismanaged Notre Dame’s interests in this as I am calm that Notre Dame didn’t fire him for it. But that ship has sailed, and I’m forced to be satisfied he’s no longer in a position to harm my school, at least directly.
Some people are in that position, however. I’m now looking beyond the Empty Suit and wondering who else’s imprimatur was on Weis’ golden handcuffs. I find it very hard to believe White, who couldn’t manage something as innocuous as a press breakfast without tripping all over his tongue, had a loose leash in doing something like this. There’s a reason you don’t put the good china on the kiddie table.
Was John Affleck-Graves, revenue hawk extraordinaire, aware Notre Dame was going to be on the hook for this amount of money if Weis failed? Did Fr. John Jenkins realize he was promising Weis money that could have financed a high-quality basketball practice facility or the new ice rink the hockey program so richly deserves? Was Richard Notebaert or Philip Purcell in the loop when, in an atmosphere of rising tuition and pressing academic and athletic projects, scads of money was locked in for an unproven coach?
What did these men know and when did they know it? And how soon should they be removed from their positions after Weis if it’s shown they did? These are the things the Notre Dame family should be asking itself right now. If Weis is still Notre Dame’s coach next year, the buyout may be a major reason why.
Do I think they’ll find a way to pay it? Of course, they always do. But that’s not the point. They’re going to be going to deep pockets for those millions, and those deep pockets could be helping get Jeff Jackson his new rink or Randy Waldrum his new stadium or Mike Brey and Muffet McGraw a practice facility and arena renovation that doesn’t look like a Barnes and Noble. It’s a waste of money and opportunity no matter how much it is.
Accountability and transparency are key. The days of “Pay, Pray and Obey” are long in our rear-view mirror thanks to the sheer arrogance and maladroitness of the Monk Malloy administration. It’s time the true stakeholders of Notre Dame got an explanation for this waste of funds, no matter if it’s eight figures or eight dollars.