When Ty Willingham was fired by Notre Dame, pundits from all sorts of media outlets cried, "They aren't honoring their contract with Willingham!" They claimed this was the first time ND didn't honor a contract with a head football coach. They claimed ND was racist. They claimed that ND was no longer special and winning was now all that mattered at ND. They claimed a lot of things because, in more ways than one, they don't have a clue. That, or they, being paid columnists, were just hoping that "honoring a contract" means "continuing to employ someone despite gross inability to perform their job." They were wrong, of course. Honoring a contract simply means living up to one's end of a bargain. Consider ND living up to theirs.
Notre Dame fired former football coach Tyrone Willingham after the 2004 regular season. Three years later, the school was still paying him.
The school paid Willingham $650,000 from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008, the third straight year they've paid him that sum since his firing.
Contacts have buyouts. And when you decide you want to end the relationship defined in a contract, you have to honor the contract and live with the penalties. In this case, as with most cases involving good contracts (and good lawyers), the penalty was a buy-out clause.
I dunno. Maybe columnists just don't have good contracts. Then again, from their employers perspectives, maybe columnists have excellent contracts.
By Herman May 28, 2009 - 12:44 pm
One could argue that they also did damage to his reputation by vilifying him, despite Ty being better at being UND’s coach than Sir Weis has been. And it’s hard to put a price on rep. Maybe the unfair, “not living up to it” part was not giving him even the amount of time Charlie has had.
Just saying.
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By domer.mq May 28, 2009 - 1:19 pm
Herman,
One could argue that if one were an idiot of the sort such that they would do the rest of humanity a great deal better if he or she would simply walk off into the woods, get mauled by a bear, and cease to feed off the planet’s natural resources rather than continue to annoy the crap out of the non-idiots of the world.
But nice support of the argument with the under-used, “just saying.”
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By The Biscuit May 28, 2009 - 3:14 pm
Herman, if 0-11 at UW didn’t convince you, nothing in the world will.
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By david May 28, 2009 - 3:25 pm
So Domer.mq, one could argue that your response was both directed at Herman and Ty. And both could be correct right? “just saying” of course.
Herman,
How did they vilify Ty when they said he was a terrific coach Sunday through Friday but couldn’t get it done on Saturday? Sounds like every coach who would get fired in college that could be said about. The vilifying was not done by ND, it was done by Ty who basically said ND was racist and by leaving the program in the toilet. Just saying.
And Herman…..that would be SIR Charlie who on the other hand had recruited agressively against the big boys of college football and held his own, over performed with Ty’s recruiting classes, had a terrible year and still recruited well, and appears to be returning ND back to respectability ON the field. So even though the records may be close in W/L’s, it’s not even close on what is happening talent wise and the “feel” of the direction the program is going. “just saying”
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By brendan May 28, 2009 - 3:51 pm
Given that the contract was to coach football, one could argue that Ty didn’t honor the contract. And David’s exactly right about Ty doing more damage to ND’s reputation that vice versa.
just sayin’.
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By BJGator May 28, 2009 - 5:18 pm
There are a few main differences between Charlie’s situation and Ty’s.
1) Charlie’s buyout would probably be much greater than Ty’s, given the greater length of the contract and what is likely a larger total compensation package for Weis. But I doubt this is the biggest reason he was retained.
2) Charlie Weis is an alumnus. He is the first alumnus to coach Notre Dame in 40+ years. I think the higher ups like what Charlie brings in the “getting it” department.
3) He came into the job with little college experience and little head coaching experience. Those who would make the decision to fire Weis are giving him time to adapt. Whether such an inexperienced man should have been head coach in the first place is another argument.
4) Weis’s recruiting has been consistently excellent. And the program looks to be on the way up, whereas with Willingham, the future looked ever more bleak.
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By tjak May 28, 2009 - 6:50 pm
I think the less said about Tyrone Willingham the better; let’s move on. We are rising from those ashes.
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By irish64 May 29, 2009 - 6:35 am
I remember being in Cleveland on business listrening to sports talk radio back in Lou’s first year. The team was struggling against top flight opposition, and this radio jock was ragging that ND shouldn’t have fired Faust.
We all remember how that turned out.
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