"I thought I would stand here like this so you could see if I was really as big a son of a bitch as you think I am."
- George C. Scott, Patton
It's one thing for us in the Notre Dame family to have an internecine squabble about the future of the Weis regime. But when those in the college football world who have nothing but blinding irrational hatred for Notre Dame start to pile on, things have too far.
The recent struggles of the Irish have given birth to heady times for usually subjects. Jason Whitlock, this week, takes Charlie Weis to task for being, among other things, fat. Hilarious! A fat joke. After 4 years of coaching in the national spotlight. By a man whose waist size likely exceeds his IQ. Yes, he mocks the physical condition of a man who nearly died on an operating table a few years ago, and who now will likely be permanently partially disabled from blowing out both of his knees.
You. Stay. Classy.
Then you have equally responsible Teddy Greenstein, who today writes that Weis's arrogance cost the Irish a recruit by the name of Terrelle Pryor. Apparently Weis was "arrogant as hell," according to Pryor's high school coach. While it would surprise me that he would be haughty, it would useful to remind the reader that this was spring of 2007 and Weis had just come off consecutive BCS bowl appearances. He had yet to experience the pain of last season.
But as you might expect, the logic of Greenstein's column begins to break down like, well, Jason Whitlock in front of a Krispy Kreme. If Weis's arrogance really does cost him recruits, then please explain to me how in the hell he has managed to bring in one highly ranked class after another, including the best in the nation last year?
In one of the hallmarks of good reporting, Greenstein cites to anonymous source who we are assumed is a "prominent alum" that "Alumni are fearful that if they speak out against Weis, they might lose their football tickets or their parking spots, or hinder their kids' chances for admission to the school."
Really? Has Greenstein strolled over to, oh, let us say… NDNation lately? Did alums have a problem speaking out against Davie for fear of retribution? Or that other guy who used to coach here?
Among Weis's other offenses, he "screamed at a referee for a "bull----" call and yelled at one of his coaches to get the "[expletive]" off the field." My mother has said worse things… to her son!
Then there's this: "Notre Dame is a special place, with a mix of football tradition and academic excellence matched perhaps only by Michigan and USC." Well, if not graduating your black players and giving houses away to your running backs amounts to excellence, then I guess we're not that special.
There's the usual spiel about Weis winning with Will… that other guy's players. Well. We already know that the other guy's players have yet to post a victory in 2008, including one against Weis's.
I could go on, but I'd rather go see the new Bond flick than to continue to discuss the fecal matter that passes for journalism these days. In sum, I hope that Jason Whitlock eats Teddy Greenstein, and that the latter, being nothing but a ball of hate, poisons the former once he has been digested.
In the long and storied history of Kelly Green's most famous sometime-weekly award, only a single person has enjoyed the privilege of donning the Asshat on more than one occasion. (Brownie points if you can guess who it is without looking!) Besides that, no one has ever won the award twice in the same season.
But it is only fitting, in this week of historical firsts, that this blog, too, should make history. I give you, for the second time in 2008, ESPN's ACC blogger, Heather Dinich:
Notre Dame Is Also Responsible for the Sub-Prime Meltdown
By Emperor Dan
As the weather in northern Indiana deteriorates from mildly intolerable to permanently gray and electron-stopping cold, talk of the bowl season begins to be heard from those tongues not currently affixed to flagpoles. True, after personally witnessing last year's loss to the Naval Academy, I readily admit that nothing is for certain. However, with upcoming contests against a now-weakened Navy team and the Greg Robinson death-watch formerly known as Syracuse, it appears almost certain that the Irish, even in the most pessimistic of scenarios, will be playing in college football's version of the NIT: a non-BCS bowl.
Unless something miraculous were to occur in Los Angeles, Notre Dame will most likely find itself in Jacksonville, Florida on January 1st, playing in the Gator Bowl against the ACC numero dos. This is so because Gator Bowl gets to choose between the Irish and the runner-up in the Big East conference, a spot currently occupied by Connecticut. I doubt that there would be much, if any, agony over that decision on the part of the selection committee.
WWL Big East blogger Brian Bennett has already started contemplating the hissy-fit to be thrown by conference fans upset that Notre Dame would be "stealing" one of "their" bowl bids. Bennett offers the justification for Notre Dame's inclusion in the Big East conference bowl tie-ins given by commissioner Mike Tranghese:
"What we've found is that, by bringing Notre Dame into the mix, that gave us an opportunity to make much better deals," Tranghese said. "When we made our last agreement, people didn't even know who was going to be in our league, because Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami had just left. If we didn't include Notre Dame in our contract, the games that we currently have don't exist. I know fans and sometimes our own coaches don't want to hear that, but it's true."
So the logic, then, is fairly simple: ND keeps its football independence while still getting a shot at a New Year's Day bowl during non-BCS years, and the Big East gets more prestigious bowl slots. It's an arrangement that has worked out pretty well for a conference that is only tenuously designated as BCS-grade. Notre Dame hasn't "stolen" a bowl from the Big East since 2002. And that fact was probably something the conference had in mind when it signed the arrangement. They figured that a traditional power like Notre Dame will be competing for a BCS bowl game most years, and thus Big East teams would only rarely be squeezed out of the Gator and other bowls.
Of course, simple logic eludes simple minds, as the comments following Bennett's post evince. A sampling:
"Notre Dame SUCKS!!!!! They should be treated like any other Independent. Work for their bids."
"You know what, It's damn time to either get Notre Dame in all the way or kick them out all the way. I fail to see what exactly the Big East has to gain from the current arrangement. It always seems that Notre Dame is on the winning side of the deal."
"Notre Dame needs to poop or get off the pot."
You can't argue with such people. You can only crown them as asshats, and pray that they don't poop on the carpet.
In keeping with the maxim, "Know thy enemy", I've been following the WWL's conference blogs each week in preparation for our opponents. (Yes, I abhor ESPN, but these blogs are usually great for links to primary sources of information). With North Carolina stepping up to the plate, this week I've started reading the ACC blog for the first time, written by Heather Dinich.
Heather's bio states that she went to school at IU, has covered the Big Integer and the ACC for five years, and joined ESPN in November of last year. One would think, then, that she would be above mistakes like this:
"Notre Dame coach Charile Weiss has toned down his sentiments regarding UNC running back Greg Little's decision to decommit. 'Any time you're involved in recruiting…, the toughest thing to do is to get a guy to leave his home state,' Weiss said at his weekly press conference."
That's right. Not once, but twice. Weiss. It wasn't a typo.
This is way beyond my being a grammar Nazi; this about journalistic incompetence. Weis is in his 4th college season right now, at the most high-profile school in the nation. Before that, he won multiple Superbowls. Some have praised him, others have damned him, but one thing is certain: he is nearly omnipresent in sports media. How does someone who professes to be a sports reporter still not know how to spell his name?
Butchering "Samardzija" or "Ndukwe" (or hopefully one day "Shaquelle") I could understand, but come on, it's four letters! Even Michigan fans know four-letter words (take our word for it!). But really, you cannot be expected to be taken seriously as a journalist with sloppiness and laziness like this.
The only conclusions I can come to are that either Heather has the memory of a Commodore 64 or that she has never actually read a single article about Notre Dame in the last 4 years.
Congratulations are in order for this week's Asshat, Bob Kravitz of the IndyStar. By my recollection he's the first repeat Asshat in the blog's long and storied history.
And he certainly deserves the honor... again.
His summary of the ND-Purdue game? "This was a game with Sun Bowl-like ramifications and nothing more."
Interesting foresight there, Bob. Care to take a look at the rest of ND's schedule?
Kravitz then spends a few paragraphs bashing Purdue--perhaps he was trying to insure against an Asshat award. Too bad. Because he follows that with this: "The Purdue defense, in particular, is shockingly weak. It's one thing to get worked over by Oregon. But Notre Dame? The team that couldn't get out of its own way for a season and three games?"
We all know that the Irish were weak last season, but Kravitz foolishly throws the first 3 games of this season into that quote. As I explained last week, ND's offense was palpably better than last season even in the loss to MSU. And in the Michigan game, the Irish showed they have a serious long-ball threat to be respected by all. Kravitz' attention to the actual game of football was probably about as thorough as Michael Rosenberg's last week.
"Neither one of these teams is going to be playing on or near New Year's Day, and so, on a national scale, this game barely moved the needle."
It sure would be nice for the Irish to prove him wrong.
This week's asshat is Michael Rosenberg for his crapfest of a column on FoxSports online. Seriously, what's the point in writing pablum like this? If you don't know ND is struggling, then you've obviously lived in a box the last several years. The only reasons then to write this stuff are sadism and/or some sort of bigotry.
The biggest problem with the column, though, is its only discernible argument: that the Irish are just as bad this year as last. He makes this sweeping conclusion after admitting in the first paragraph that he barely even watched the ND-MSU game.
Now I can't say with certainty at this point that the '08 squad will have a better season than last year's team, but I've definitely seen areas of improvement. The defense is more than respectable, with better coverage and linebackers actually impacting the game. On the offensive side, Jimmy can now throw the long ball and Golden Tate provides him a star of a target. The offensive line has improved its pass blocking, now letting up fewer sacks and incurring fewer holding penalties.
But of course Rosenberg couldn't notice these things while "...watching three college football games simultaneously — one and a half with each eyeball, the way the good Lord intended."
Wow, what a week it's been for the Asshat award. The competition has been fierce, but it all boiled down to five clear-cut finalists:
Finalist # 1: Pat Forde, for writing this week's obligatory "Irish suck" article for ESPN.
Finalist # 2: Michigan safety Stevie Brown, for getting torched all day and still claiming his team was better after getting blown out.
Finalist # 3: Tom Hammond, for saying the Irish were "clinging" to the lead when we were up by three touchdowns late in the 3rd quarter.
Finalist # 4: Michigan tight end Carson Butler for getting ejected from the game after attacking a Notre Dame player.
Finalist # 5: Sam McGuffie, for looking like Vanilla Ice.
Congratulations to all of the finalists. You would all make tremendous asshats, but unfortunately there can only be one. Ladies and gentlemen, your Asshat of the Week goes to....................... STEVIE BROWN! Congratulations douche bag!
Stevie Brown (middle) watching Golden Tate go 60 yards after Tate broke his womanly tackle.
It takes a special kind of asshat to claim his team is still better than the team that just dominated his own team, but what really put him over the top was the fact that he was among those Michigan players most responsible for Michigan's BEAT DOWN at the hands of the Irish. Brown was burned time and time again by Notre Dame's receivers, and in the play pictured above, Golden Tate made Brown look like he's playing the wrong sport.
So congratulations, asshat. For one week, there is no bigger douche than you.
I came across this gem at ChicagoSports.com. Just couldn't resist tearing it to shreds. Greenstein's quotes in bold…
Weis, whose head-coaching experience before Notre Dame had been limited to one season at Franklin Township (N.J.) High School, nonetheless intimidated some players enough to keep them in a shell. Maybe that helps to explain the rash of transfers and player arrests - four that we know of - under his watch.
Look, say what you will about Charlie's on-field performance… I certainly can't defend him after an abysmal 3-9 season… but give me a freaking break! In today's college football environment, four arrests in over three years is nothing short of a miracle! And it's not like we're talking serious offenses here either. We're not dealing with players dealing ecstasy (USC), firing automatic weapons in crowded areas (Florida), or even anything as simple as getting into fights (like pretty much every other team in the country). Let's take a look at this "rash" of player arrests…
1) RPN pulled over for DWI. Stupid? Yeah, but college students are nailed for this all the freaking time. Hardly a sign of an out of control program, unless you want to classify the entire student body as out of control.
2) Will Yeatman also pulled over for DWI. Whoop de flippin doo.
3) Jimmy Clausen cited… and not arrested I might add… for violating an ass-backwards Indiana law that says a minor literally can't ride in a car if there is unopened booze in the trunk, even if the adult who legally purchased the alcohol is in the car too. Jimmy is one badass mofo.
4) Darrell Hand arrested for solicitation. He obviously put himself in a bad situation, but no charges were filed and it appears from his punishment, or lack thereof, that this was a case of entrapment. Either way, by far the worst thing any player has done under Charlie's tenure.
Truly, the above list constitutes a veritable crime spree… perhaps even a concerted attack perpetrated by Charlie's band of renegades against the very foundations of our society. Give me a freaking break. Our almost unbelievably low crime rate, coupled with our 100% graduation rate (excluding transfers) and the fact that our team has maintained at least a 3.0 GPA since Charlie arrived, make Charlie's Notre Dame a candidate, if not the obvious choice, for the cleanest program in the country. My dorm had far more legal incidents over the same time period, and it was filled with a bunch of lame, rich white kids. To classify four minor incidents in three years as a "rash" is nothing short of disingenuous.
Now on to the transfers…
Weis chalked up the departures to playing time issues, but it can't help when some of your own recruits are scared to talk to you, allowing small problems to fester into major issues.
Utter crap! Ty recruited poorly and Charlie recruited well. Transfers happen when younger players are better than older players. It's that simple. Every top-tier program with plenty of talent experiences transfers every single year. But hey, I'm sure that's not the case at Notre Dame, a team that just pulled in three top-10 recruiting classes. Our players must be scared of Charlie. Not being able to retain four quarterbacks who were all four stars or better on the roster at the same time must surely be a sign that something is wrong with the head coach.
This next bit is directed at most Notre dame haters, not just Greenstein.
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.
Why the hell do we get so much shit for playing the Naval Academy?! They're better than over half of the teams in the Big-10! We got blown out by frigging Air Force, but all these misinformed jackasses want to talk about is an overtime loss to a somewhat respectable team that has beaten much, much, much better teams than the 2007 Notre Dame squad. It's disrespectful to Navy, and shows just how little the so-called "experts" really know about college football. The streak against Navy had to survive a multitude of close calls and lucky breaks to last as long as it did. This hack doesn't even mention the bajillion point loss, at home, to a miserable Air Force team, or the fact that we were tied with Duke… FRIGGING DUKE… at the half. I'm not defending our season or making excuses for the loss to Navy. We played like crap and Charlie shat the bed with his playcalling. I'm just pointing out that Navy is not an awful team, and if this guy knew even a tiny bit about college football, he'd have much better ammunition than "omg you play Navy every year lol they're a service academy lol."
Teddy Greenstein is a complete hack. How this tripe gets passed off as sports journalism is beyond me. I know Notre Dame bashing sells, but this stuff doesn't even make sense! Also, what kind of a name is Teddy for a grown man? There are two types of people named Teddy in this world... former presidents and fat eight year olds with freckles. Grow up, hack.
I present to you this week's Asshat: Coach Pete Carroll of the USC Condoms!
The man's been a coaching success--in college. That much can't be denied. But his smugness is simply incomparable. As evidence, look at what greets you when you go to his website.
I realize that thing autoplays every time the site loads. I also realize that it's extremely freakin annoying. But maybe that'll give us some extra passion towards our opponent this Saturday--as if we needed any extra. If anybody can tell me how to keep it from autoplaying, please let me know. Until then, we all suffer (or Sean makes me take it down).
Okay, I took that down. It was simply too annoying to bear any longer.
I present to you this week's Asshat: Boston College. Okay, so an institution as Asshat is a bit of a stretch, but this week didn't present any obvious asshats. And we are the blog that awarded a country the Asshat honors.
And don't think for a moment that I was too uncreative to think of a real Asshat and thus chose this week's opponent. (Okay, that's partially true). Boston College deserves this infamy more than most other opponents. Why?
Well who can forget 1993. I'd like to, but can't. Also, what a goofy and stupid mascot they have. Finally, come on. They're the JV team as far as Catholics go.
This week's Assclown is Dave Begel, writing for "Milwaukee's Daily Magazine" OnMilwaukee.com... Thanks to a KG reader for bringing this douche to my attention. In a column he wrote last week, Begel managed to showcase his hatred for Notre Dame, his complete insensitivity (see the part about Weis' surgery), and his 4th-grade level grammar. If Bob Kravitz had not already been selected as Asshat, Begel would have been the shoe-in.
His reason for openly hating Notre Dame?
The next thing I hate about Notre Dame is it's [sic--this is a error he repeatedly makes] holier-than-thou attitude. The Irish act like it's some kind of honor close to beatification to go there, play for them, play against them and be the Notre Dame network. I mean, how do you think NBC feels about that exclusive contract with Notre Dame?
Well even when Notre Dame does poorly, they still kick other teams' asses in TV ratings, so I'd bet NBC isn't feeling all that badly right now.
But I've said it before and I'll say it again, usually people who charge ND with a "holier-than-thou" attitude are just using code for their anti-Catholic bigotry. I can't say for sure that this guy holds such a bias, but it seems more probable than not. He continues:
The other part of this attitude thing is the refusal of Notre Dame to join a conference. I mean, even Penn State joined a conference. Notre Dame just thinks it is too special to mingle with the mere mortals in a conference.
Hey Asshat, ND doesn't join a conference in football because that would not be in its (notice my proper grammar there) economic interests to do so. What's so wrong with that? And what obligation does ND have to anybody to join a conference?
What seals the deal for Mr. Begel is this:
Then he became the head coach at Notre Dame and found out a big part of his job was convincing young men to move to South Bend, Indiana and play football for a guy with a crew cut and a body that can best be described as chunky. I mean this guy sued his gastric bypass doctors for malpractice.
So either Begel's ignorant of the fact that Weis sued his doctors because the surgery almost killed him (!) or he chose to misconstrue the reason for the lawsuit on purpose in order to make fun of Weis. So either he's an idiot or a complete jerk, or both.
So congrats to this week's Asshat: Dave Begel!
With eyebrows like those, he certainly looks the part of the Asshat.
This week's Asshat is Indianapolis Star sports columnist Bob Kravitz. As an Indianapolis-area native, I am already quite accustomed with Kravitz' lame columns. He's nearly always wrong in predictions he makes, he often makes completely illogical arguments, and in regards to Indy sports personalities and teams his positions are as fickle as the romantic interests of a 13-year old girl.
Kravitz' "argument" is this: since the Weis-led Irish aren't doing well this year, Notre Dame fans owe Tryone Willingham an apology for firing him after three years (oh yeah, and ND was racist for firing him in the first place). Makes complete sense, right?
Unsurprisingly, Kravitz doesn't actually use the word racist in regards to Notre Dame, but he's none too subtle in making the accusation either:
The Domers fell in love with the idea of Weis, a former Notre Dame guy who sounds like them and looks like them, coming down from the NFL summit to scheme Notre Dame's way back to glory.
Excuse me Mr. Kravitz, but what the fuck do you know? Excuse the curse, but it's more than well deserved in this case. I am sick and tired of columnists reading the collective minds of Notre Dame fans and administrators and magically divining racism through their crystal balls of punditry. Racism is a serious problem and a serious charge, and every time somebody levels the charge without even a shred of evidence that person belittles the charge and the problem.
To further support his contention that ND fans owe Ty an apology, he says that Willingham is a pretty good coach who "is starting to restore the University of Washington to its old luster..." Really? Ty nearly had a meltdown on his hands last season at Washington and this season he's 2-1, with one of the wins coming against powerhouse Syracuse. He might be leading them to a good season this year, but it's certainly too early to tell.
But his performance at Washington is hardly even relevant. The facts are, as Sean pointed out, that Weis would have to lose every remaining game this season to match Ty's 3-year winning percentage and that Weis' recruiting has blown Ty's recruiting away.
If Weis keeps losing, his time will come, but his performance should have no bearing on the argument as to whether or not ND treated Willingham properly when they fired him.
So congrats to this week's Asshat: Bob Kravitz!
Oh, and if you don't appreciate being called a racist by a man who doesn't even know you, you can e-mail Kravitz at bob.kravitz@indystar.com
Jesus tap dancing christ! Jeff Carroll won’t lay the hell off Jimmy Clausen! What is his problem with this kid? Quotes from his latest diatribe are provided below, with my commentary in bold.
“It would be nice if people would stop at 'bad judgment' in regards to Clausen's summer transgression. That phrase covers it adequately. But the quarterback used the same language as his coach – ‘wrong place at the wrong time.’ That implies an accident. He was the driver of a fairly hearty beer and liquor run. Common sense should tell you that authorities don't smile upon that.”
First of all, Jimmy explicitly stated that he did in fact use bad judgment! His exact quote was “in regards to my recent legal issue, I used bad judgment.” What more do you want?! Second of all, of course he was in the wrong place at the wrong time! If he wasn’t, how would he have been caught? Every criminal who has ever been caught doing anything illegal was by default in the wrong place at the wrong time, you hack! Finally, I would hardly classify a case of Natty and a bottle of bottom-shelf vodka as a “hearty beer run,” unless of course I was trying to skew the facts to make the offense sound much worse than it actually was.
“Which flows nicely into the next point -- references to the ‘state of Indiana.’ The spin, taken up with gusto by fans with access to e-mail and the Internet, is that Clausen was clipped by an arcane law in a backward, overexuberant [sic] red state.Yet a minute of research reveals the existence of California vehicle code regulation 23224(a), which reads that, ‘No person under the age of 21 years shall knowingly drive any motor vehicle carrying any alcoholic beverage.’”
So let me get this straight… because there is a similar law in a state that elected a cybernetic assassin from the future to its highest office, we’re supposed to take that as proof that this law is not ridiculous? Did you know that another California law states that “no vehicle without a driver may exceed 60 miles per hour”? The kid was given a citation for having a case of beer in his car, even though the 23 year old who legally bought it was in the car with him! If that’s not arcane, then what is?!
Jeff Carroll, you sir are an asshat of the highest degree. I’m simply amazed that you’ve been able to bite the hand that feeds you for so long without any serious repercussions. I can’t imagine that Charlie will allow you to continue your vendetta much longer before cutting you off entirely.
Well, better late than never. Per the suggestion of a KG reader, I present you this week's Asshat: Michael Vick.
Right, he's not been convicted. But KG, like the NFL, reserves the right to hold professional athletes to a stricter standard than that of a court of law. Indictments don't usually come lightly, especially when the person bringing the indictment is a federal prosecutor as opposed to a North Carolina yahoo. Also, Vick's co-conspirator has agreed to testify as to both's participation in the dog-fighting operation.
Finally, let's look at his only possible defense: that this dog fighting was done on one of his many properties without his knowledge and permission. Even under the remote possibility that this defense is real, Vick still deserves the Asshat award. Gotta be responsible for what happens on property you own, don't you think?
I don't even need to go into detail on what Vick allegedly (and probably) did. Forcing dogs to fight and severely injure each other; executing in gruesome ways dogs who refuse to fight; and so forth. It pisses me off to even think about it. In fact, I was reluctant to even group him in with the blog's other Asshats, none of whom have done stuff like this. Michael Vick's an Asshat and quite a bit worse.
I’ve been pretty silent regarding Kevin White because I really don’t know exactly how I feel about his scheduling philosophy. I guess I’m somewhere inbetween the absolute nutjobs over at NDNation who want to play the top-12 teams every year and Dr. White’s bastardization of the term “barnstorming.”
Sadly, the college football ranking system has evolved such that championships are scheduled every bit as much as they are earned on the field. Take Ohio State’s schedule for example. If they can handle Michigan and Penn State, they’re championship bound unless Akron pulls off the upset of the millenium. Don’t even get me started on West Virginia. Let’s just say that if I were a WVU fan, I’d already be looking for airfare to New Orleans. I’d also have about six teeth and a broken down car in my front yard, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, the pollsters won’t penalize them for their pathetic schedules. Dr. White has the right idea. If we want to win a championship, we have to keep up with the joneses and schedule a bunch of crap teams like all the other powerhouses are doing. At least he hasn’t scheduled any DII teams (I’m looking at you Michigan, OSU, and the entire SEC).
Now, what I don’t understand is why the man can’t find us patsies from the BCS conferences. Why are we playing Nevada and San Diego State when pretty much the entire Big Ten is god-awful? I suspect this has something to do with the 7-4-1 model, which forces us to find teams that won’t demand a return date. Having more home games is nice and all, but I think home-field advantage is vastly overrated. Personally, I’d rather have less home games that are more interesting. Alas, Notre Dame knows that we’ll still pay to come watch Duke get ass-raped, so they’ve got us by the balls on this one. I don’t blame White for the 7-4-1 model any more than I blame Guinness for selling me the beer that I demand.
So like I said, the only real problem I have with White isn’t that he’s scheduling patsies. My problem is with which patsies he’s scheduling. It also bears mentioning that I think he does a tremendous job with the olympic sports. I have heard from one of his neighbors that he and his wife are tremendous douchebags, but as long as that doesn’t effect his job performance, who really cares.
After reading all that, you’ll probably come to the conclusion that I’m a Kevin White supporter. Given the recent internet furor directed at him, being only partially dissatisfied with his performance probably makes me Dr. White’s biggest fan. That was yesterday. Today I came across the following quote at BGS, and now I’m ready to join the raving lunatics at NDNation who are calling for his head.
“If you look at the long-standing relationships we've had, we've got USC, now Stanford and Navy.”- Kevin White
So when Dr. White thinks of the long-standing relationships Notre Dame has developed, the following three institutions pop into his head: Southern Cal, Navy… and… Stanford? Not Michigan. Not Michigan State. Not Purdue. STANFORD. Let that sink in for a moment. Our athletic director ranks our relationship with Stanford (you know, the relationship with them that we don’t have) up there with USC and Navy. Is this some kind of joke? How could he possibly have such a limited understanding of Notre Dame’s traditions? This is like the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Jeff’s brother recites the four best presidents in the history of the United States as follows: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and George W. Bush. No, I take that back. White’s statement is not like an episode of CYE because it wasn’t funny. Not funny at all. Horrifying, in fact.
This week in our "classic asshat" series, we honor supreme wanker Matt Leinart. Former USC quarterback and current pro quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals. Matt's asshatery is firmly established by the following incontrovertible evidence:
He remained in college to play football by taking, exclusively, a one-credit class: ballroom dancing. Hardly a student, and certainly not getting an education off-the-field that year. It makes one wonder what he was doing with all that time outside of practice, but I'm sure it was ethical.
The too-well-maintained scruff-beard. Seriously.
Leinart parties with Nick Lachey (I think at one point they were reported to live together) and dated Paris Hilton. I don't even want to think about the kind of airborne STDs that would produce in a person. Though I do think it tells you something when the guy hangs out with people who are famous for, essentially, being famous.
Finally, and the most football-related example of asshattitude: Leinart's conduct after the USC-Texas national championship in January 2006. For those of you who remember, ESPN had been fellating the collective Trojan ego for months: Long since had they stopped predicting how Southern Cal would match up with actual teams, and had started a series of fantasy matchups between the Leinart-and-Bush led Southern Cal against the best college and pro teams of all time. I'm sure at one point Ivan Maisel had them challenging the Klingons for interstellar domination and winning by at least 3 touchdowns. As it turned out, the unthinkable happened: Southern Cal wasn't the best of all time--they weren't even the best of that year! And when interviewed after the game, Leinart couldn't come up with one compliment to make about Texas. He just said, "well, I still think we're the better team" and walked off. Utterly classless.
In keeping with the spirit of Independence Day, I present to you the Kelly Green Asshat of the Week... England! That's right, the entire country.
Congratulations!
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
OK, so we’re a little late, but we’ve got a tremendous asshat to recognize this week. In keeping with our new “classic asshats” theme, I’m proud to present this week’s award winner… a blast from the relatively recent past… Chandra Johnson!
Congratulations!
Yes, Chandra Johnson, the secretary who shaved her head in protest after Notre Dame exercised its contractual right to replace a losing football coach by paying him a mutually agreed-upon sum of money. Chandra fervently believes that only a truly racist institution would dare pay a black man millions of dollars to not work. Jesus Chandra, if only Notre Dame hated me that much.
In any case, Ms. Johnson has vowed to remain bald until Notre Dame wins a national championship. Thanks to this awesome display of asshattery, Chandra Johnson has forever cemented her legacy as Kelly Green’s Asshat of the Week.
Congratulations Chandra! You've reached the top... the pinnacle of douchedom.
This should be fun. Every week, KG will feature an “asshat of the week” in the upper right-hand corner of the site. Potential asshats could be journalists, coaches, players, or anyone else really. Asshat recommendations are encouraged, but the final asshat decision will be up to the KG writing staff.
The very first asshat was a tough decision for us. The media haters have been relatively quiet lately, and we had to make sure that the first asshat to merit this distinction truly deserved it. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the very first Kelly Green Asshat of the Week… Brian Cook.
Congratulations!
There were plenty of reasons to select Mr. Cook, who is the undisputed king of Michigan bloggers. He’s a huge Notre Dame hater, and constantly claims that we are irrelevant, despite the fact that he has posted more at AOL’s Notre Dame Fanhouse blog than any other author. He’s also the guy who fervently claimed that this photograph proves that Chad Henne was in the endzone in 2005 before he fumbled. Clearly, only a true asshat could possess such a limited understanding of a little concept known as “the third dimension.” Like I said, there were many reasons to select Brian, but what really pushed him over the edge was his recent claim that Michigan’s lower graduation rate translates to higher academic standards than Notre Dame. If that doesn’t scream asshat, I don’t know what does.
Congratulations Brian… for exactly one week there is no bigger douche than you.
