"But most of all, thanks for making me feel for Notre Dame football again."

That one sentence says it all.

Thanks Charlie.

A Grateful Graduate '72
Soapbox | Email | Homepage | 12.21.05 - 4:46 pm | #

you're a helluva writer. i think ever true fan that reads this will immediately notice it's exactly the way they feel too. thanks for putting up for us to remind ourselves (especially since we have so little else to discuss right now)
fan since birth | Email | Homepage | 12.21.05 - 4:53 pm | #

I couldn't have said it better. Great post!
scott | Email | Homepage | 12.21.05 - 5:01 pm | #

If you think you feel bad about having to graduate, imagine having toyed with the idea of taking a 5th year and deciding against it...
Tom | Email | Homepage | 12.21.05 - 5:03 pm | #

And Charlie, if you are still reading. Just one more thing please? Make sure that Our Lady creates the same kind of transition/succession plan that you appear to have ready when you lose an assistant coach, player or water boy.

I'd just hate to see all this go down the drain in 10 years after your retirement as the U panicks and tries desparately to coerce Gary Barnett to return to coaching.

Merry Christmas,

Love, Yago

P.S. - The cookies and milk will be set out at the usual place Saturday. Fly safe.
Yago | Email | Homepage | 12.21.05 - 5:38 pm | #

Nice post and its exactly how I feel.
greg bachand | Email | Homepage | 12.21.05 - 8:23 pm | #

Agreed. Thank you, Charlie. Its been a helluva year -- one no Irish fan will ever forget.
KL | Email | Homepage | 12.21.05 - 9:03 pm | #

Great letter.
Jeff | Email | Homepage | 12.21.05 - 11:40 pm | #

Not only are you as a current student glad that we are no longer irrelevant in college football, but so is this member of the Class of '74. We lost six games in my entire four years (as opposed to the six losses last year alone). We got killed once (Nebraska in the Orange Bowl) but even then, no one said ND was finished (as opposed to getting killed several times last year alone, i.e., Purdue USC, Oregon State). The respect is back!
Bernie P. | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 12:30 am | #

Frame this...this is the story of the 2005 season.

Best. Entry. Ever.
Heath | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 12:48 am | #

Now you have an idea how the class of 87 felt after 3 years of Gerry and a glimpse at what Lou could do.
JohnF | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 8:37 am | #

And thank you for half time adjustments.I honestly believe that we will never be beaten "mentally" again.
dfjlaw | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 9:01 am | #

Frickin' amen.
Osvaldo Mandias | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 9:21 am | #

My first year was Faust's last. My last year was the National Championship. I 'felt' your entire letter. I hated leaving, but those years following '89 were lots of fun regardless of where you were!!!

GO IRISH!!!
Chris | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 10:55 am | #

Dost mine eyes deceive me? An ESPN reporter who is NOT trashing ND, but praising them? Finally...
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/p...=bayless/ 051222
Brad | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 1:27 pm | #

Pitch-perfect post.
(I appologize for the alliteration.)
It summed up exactly as I felt after the USC loss. Hurt, hell yes! But strangely excited and expectant of what we still had to come in the following years.

As for Skip Bayless- he just loves getting under the Luckeyes skin - does it every chance he gets on Jim Rome's show. He's still a hack.
Tony | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 1:40 pm | #

...and I come crashing back down to reality.
Brad | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 1:54 pm | #

Let me put one more spin on this: Thanks, Coach Weis, for making my KIDS into Irish fans, and proud of it--for taking the time to chat and have your photo taken with my older son at your camp, and then for showing him that his new hero is both a good & decent man AND one hell of a leader of young people, of hardworking and smart men who will themselves to exceed at the elegant and cruel game that's your passion and his; for bringing me and my younger son (who like your daughter, Hanna, struggles with autism and developmental delay) together on the sofa on Saturday afternoons to root for "the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame"; for bringing my little girl into the loyal fraternity (and sorority!) of ND faithful, in which role she joins us boys on Saturday afternoons (both on the couch and for her post-game re-enactment role as Tom Zibikowski) with her half-dozen "Hanna and Friends" wristbands firmly in place. These are gifts that well befit a family man like you Coach, and they're very much appreciated both by this alumnus and, I'm sure, many others.
Mike | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 2:35 pm | #

So when does the debate start? Which students had is worse, '81 to '85 or '97 to '04.

My vote goes to '04.

Although poor Gerry was a very nice man, he was one of the most unexperienced coaches to ever hit the college ranks. Hella of recruiter though. NFL stars still come out of Gerry's program.

Wait, now that I think of it, my vote goes back to '81 to '85. The food in the cafeteria was criminal. Cereal three meals a day trying to avoid the Noodles Krugle - whatever that was. Dorms, cold and drafty -- no cable. Try getting WNDU on a tin foil antenna. Wait, I didn't have a TV. No computers. Typing endless fricking papers on my dad's manual Royal typewriter with a squeeze tube of White-Out at my side. Hey and trying to do research on ANY subject without the Internet. Only the Civil War section had the lastest text books.

I had one date in four years and it was one too many. Screw Your Roomates? What the -ell is that? Drove back to Chicago weekends for some semblance of a normal social life. Then Digger Phelps would hop from dorm to dorm on his "Kiss my _ss" tour trying to explain why no one touched DAnny Ainge and how poor little David Rivers could carry the whole team to the Final Four.

Yep, you '97 to '04ers, you had it sweet.
Yago | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 3:22 pm | #

Excellent, EXCELLENT summation, Pete. Two words of advice for your dilemma: grad school. Real-world employment is vastly overrated.
c-stone | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 4:12 pm | #

Pete,
Bill Craig | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 4:18 pm | #

Pete, For weeks after the USC Game, I have putting together in my mind the kind of letter I wanted to write to Coach Weis. I never could put my feelings on paper. Then you come along and say exactly the things that I have been thinking these many weeks. The loss to USC didn't crush me. Not at all!! we witnessed a team that had indeed arrived, played their hearts out, and almost got the best of the"Nat'l Champs". It bought back the feelings of elation that I hadn't experienced in four years. Notre Dame is BACK. And today's team
doesn't have to take a back seat to anyone.
I look forward to the next ten years with pride and anticipation. Thank you, thank you Coach Weis.
Bill Craig, Rancho Palos Verdes, Ca
Bill Craig | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 4:29 pm | #

yeah, it sucks to graduate now. I think I am going to accidently "forget" to sign up for one of my requirements.
Jon | Email | Homepage | 12.22.05 - 5:00 pm | #

I was 97 to 01...got all of the Davie years, but at least the Fiesta Bowl blowout happened in our time (other than the game, it was a great trip) and we went from not caring at all about basketball to the Doherty defection to Brey's first year. South Dining Hall was being renovated, so it was either a long walk to North or eating food shipped over from North on syrofoam plates with plastic utensils. Hmmm...tough arguement.
ND Alum | Email | Homepage | 12.23.05 - 12:25 am | #

I was at ND from 2000-2004... brutal.
'04 alum | Email | Homepage | 12.23.05 - 2:31 am | #

All of you folks sound like a bunch of old codgers sitting around the retirement home muttering "You think you got it bad? In my day..." sorta like that grumpy old man character Adam Sandler used to play on Saturday Night Live.

And Yago, please get your ND history straight. University Food Service's combination of raisins with noodles and some mystery cabbage-like substance was called "noodles kuegel", not "krugle." Age and alcohol can really mess with a person's memory ;-)
The Contrarian | Email | Homepage | 12.23.05 - 11:18 am | #

'96-'00 here... We got just a *taste* of what the program was like in early '96 before it all came falling apart. Holtz left on our watch. We got to deal with most of the Bob Davie era. Someone already mentioned the South Dining Hall renovation. I live
d in O'neill, right behind SDH, and I *still* walked over to North every night for dinner, that's how bad it was... cold food served on styrofoam.

For us freshmen of '96, our Notre Dame Stadium football experience began with Allen Rossum running back the opening kickoff against Purdue, bringing it back to right in front of the student section. We were ranked #6. It ended with a 31-29 loss to Boston College when we were already unranked going into the game. The taste of glory is what made it so painful for us.
Paul '00 | Email | Homepage | 12.23.05 - 11:45 am | #

Indiana University, Class of '05.

So you can all f*@% off.
Brad | Email | Homepage | 12.23.05 - 11:57 am | #

I'm a domer too, but that letter was sickening. ND had a good year against some pretty weak competition. Let's not pull out the hankies and start dabbing our tears of joy while immortalizing Coach Weiss just yet. Get a life.
Steve Rodgers | Email | Homepage | 12.23.05 - 4:36 pm | #

Well. On the surface, I suppose Steve is correct. But as someone who's watched at least 90% of ND's games dating back to the death throes of the Faust era, Steve's "reality check" strikes me more as someone trying to be a hard-ass contrarian than anything else.

Yes, some of our praise of Cdub is a bit over the top. But anyone with an ounce of football knowledge can see a profound difference, both on the field and on the recruiting trail. As to the weak opponents charge, there's some truth in that. That's one reason why I am almost besides myself w/excitement waiting for the Fiesta bowl, as I think OSU poses an even tougher matchup than USC. It will be a great "Final Exam".

Last but not least, dating back to the infamous 93 loss to Fredo, ND has lost a sickening number of games to the same type of "weak competition" Steve belittles. It seems pretty naive to me to make such a dismissive comment about ND's victories against these teams, considering such victories haven't been anywhere near a sure thing, dating back to the last 3 years of Lou (12 consecutive years!). Anyway, that's the end of my rant.

Merry Christmas everyone!
scott | Email | Homepage | 12.24.05 - 9:52 am | #

I'm sorry, Steve, but comments can not be taken seriously when the submitter can not even manage to spell Weis correctly. If the Weiss-enheimers had ever watched a game in its entirety or read an espn/foxsports/cnnsi/cbssportsline article about the team or the games, then said weiss-enheimers would know how to spell the name of The Great One.

I wasn't there at the lowest point in our history (97-2001), since we got a fiesta bid in my last year, but seeing us shalacked by the beaver juco-nation wasn't exactly a "high point."
flydan | Email | Homepage | 12.24.05 - 1:45 pm | #

Steve, you are NOT a Domer. You can't even spell our coach's name. Charlie rules. Now, Merry Christmas.
Loretta | Email | Homepage | 12.24.05 - 6:57 pm | #

Did I over-react?

I sent the following email to Steve by clicking on his name, not thinking that I could just put it here.

Steve,

I just read your response to a Notre Dame blog in which ND alumni were singing the praises of Charlie Weis.

You wrote:

“I'm a domer too, but that letter was sickening. ND had a good year against some pretty weak competition. Let's not pull out the hankies and start dabbing our tears of joy while immortalizing Coach Weiss just yet. Get a life.”

While trying to remain respectful, I don’t think “get a life” was the best thing you could have said to your fellow ND fans – even if you disagree with them. Where is your sense of family to your fellow alumni? That aside, perhaps you missed the little tidbit of information that floated around the college football world in 2005 that listed Notre Dame’s schedule as the toughest schedule in the country – hands down. No, I didn’t make it up. That fact was documented all over ESPN and the rest of the college football world. Notre Dame played 6 top 20 teams. How in the world you can say that we had pretty weak competition totally escapes me. I don’t think you could be more wrong.

Lastly, maybe you should reconsider your loyalties. Anyone willing to stab at their own brethren like that should be wearing a large maize “M” on a dark blue background, not the proud ND symbol.

Just my thoughts.

Dusty
Dusty | Email | Homepage | 12.30.05 - 3:53 pm | #