Charlie Weis is An ASS

Charlie blinks, and peace is restored to the jungle.

Well done, Jeff Carroll.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...i-sportscolumnistfront-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

 

Granted I wasn't there nor do I know the particulars, but why did it take the South Bend Duo 48 hours to go back and start asking questions? In that situation, large school, whatever, you MUST go back at the NEXT opportunity and stand your ground.

 

Whatever became of the story a couple months ago, that Weis was directing his senior players with NFL aspirations to select agents before the season started -- an absolutely breathtakingly flagrant violation of NCAA rules, which would render most of his starters ineligible?

They swept that one under the rug in a BIG hurry.

 

You can decide who you want to use. You just can't enter into any kind of agreement or accept anything from one. Technically it's not a violation.

 

If you "decide" and don't tell anybody, what the hell's the point?
If you "decide" and tell the agent in question, that constitutes a verbal agreement.

 

A verbal agreement is non-binding. As long as contract isn't signed and, more importantly, you don't accept anything from an agent or one of his runners, you're fine.

 

I should stay out of this because I'm an ND fan. I will say there are a half-dozen ways Weis could have handled this better.

That said, ND posts the video of his post-practice press conferences, and I watched Monday's (the day before he backed off the ban).

For the most part I cover news and not sports, but I've been to a few coaches press conferences. Weis struck me as being pretty open, quotable, engaging and going far beyond the usual cliches.

I can definitely see where he's got the Parcells macho thing going on -- and that would be tiresome to deal with -- but he does seem to give good press conference.

I don't see Weis as a god -- it's going to be pretty interesting watching what happens if he loses a few games from now on -- but I survived the Holtz years without being a fan of his act, so I can survive Charlie.

 

A verbal agreement is, indeed, a legally binding contract.

 

In what court? Unless you put pen to paper and sign, you've got nothing. That's why all these players making "verbal commitments" end up jumping schools -- because they can. I'm no lawyer, but I guess where a "verbal agreement" could be seen as binding is if the agent performed specific services for a player. But generally, verbal agreements, as they say, aren't worth the paper they're not printed on.

I'm guessing Weis' advice is to keep players from being harassed by other agents, just like a lot of players make verbal commitments in the hope they're not harassed by other schools or the collective staff of Rivals.com.

 

Just wait until some of these players decide they want to start reneging on the supposedly "informal" verbal agreements. Amazingly, the agents will magically start producing signed documents, and bang zoom, off to court you go.

Players will not make "verbal agreements" with any agent unless they're already receiving services or more likely, goodies, from the agent, anyway. What's the motivation?

Weis' advice is to keep players from being harassed by other agents -- MAYBE. It also may be to build up goodwill and a good reputation among NFL agents, with whom he will be dealing on a first-hand basis within another season or two, anyway.

It's just amazing and amusing how the coach of the most self-righteous, pompous and sanctimonious of ALL college football programs engages in activity which would immediately be ruled a flagrant NCAA rules violation, except a) there may be no direct written evidence to prove it; and b) if you interpret it really technically, it is possible to argue it isn't a violation.

Yeah. When accused of a violation, first claim "you can't prove it" and "technically theoretically according to the dictionary definition it might not be a violation." You can always try that, if the first defense -- "I didn't do it" -- is inapplicable.

 

Agents continue to harass players long after they've signed with someone else, and throughout their entire careers. That game never ends.  A verbal agreement would be zero deterrent to an agent in the hunt.

A 'decision' is pointless. The 'chosen' agent will still find a thousand ways to let it be known he's the guy...'so, adidas, if we were to represent Joey, what are we talking about here, just hypothetically of course?'  Then: 'Hey Joey, talked to adidas, just poking around, no question we can get you this...hypothetically, of course. But you don't have to think about that, you just go be the best damn player out there and let us think about the rest of your career....Love to your mom, tell her I dream about that lasagna!'

And God help the kid who has an unexpectedly tremendous season...that verbal agreement with Dad's frat brother who played D3 and now is a lawyer suddenly doesn't seem so solid.

Either you treat the players as future professional and let them sign while they're still in school, or you pretend they're just kids and continue to look the other way.

 

The whole point of having star players go through this process now is to keep the shady agents away. Look at all the problems USC had with agents hanging around all the time. It's not a NCAA violation to speak with agents, consider agents and narrow down your choices for agents while you still have eligibility. It is an NCAA violation to accept anything from an agent, sign contracts or even make a verbal agreement. The whole point of Weis' advice was to keep agents away from Quinn during the season. What has happened is Quinn's family has met with agents, narrowed down the list and told certain agents they are no longer being considered. As long as they don't tell any agent "you are the one", sign anything or accept anything, they are fine.

Is it playing with fire to some degree? Of course. If any athlete is stupid enough to tell an agent, yeah, you're going to be my agent, ND is screwed. But at the same time, this plan COULD reduce the shady agents and their runners hanging around the program. Is it a good plan? I don't know. But it's not a violation as long as the players are very careful.

It would be better if agents just weren't bottom feeding dirtbags, but that's not possible so this strikes me as an OK way to maybe reduce the problem.