As I recounted some of Weis’ moments from my manager days in the Brandon Newman piece, I mentioned one of my personal favorite speeches/ass-chewings that he would give out. Weis, in what he would call his “eloquent New Jersey vernacular”, had two particular weapons of choice, dubbed by the managers as (now is a good time to warn everyone this post is going to have some salty language…) “getting motherfucked” or giving the “you have one fucking job to do” speech.
“Getting motherfucked” should be rather self-explanatory. This particular dose of venom involved Weis using the the term “motherfucker” in a variety of ways. However, the “one fucking job to do” speech was a whole other animal. If this speech was fired off, Weis stopped down everything going on during practice so everyone could hear the victim have it. While the bulk of the speech consisted of a variety of ire, it would always conclude with “you have one fucking job to do–is that so hard?!”
One day, I found myself on the wrong end of said speech.
Now, you have to realize that Weis rarely ever said anything to the managers. He appreciated the work we did and would only say something if what we were doing was severely dragging the pace of practice or getting in the way which was a very rare occurrence. You had to seriously screw up to get his attention, much less that speech.
I managed to find a way.
In my defense, it wasn’t completely my fault. We were running a two-minute drill inside the stadium and I was a part of the chain-gang and responsible for the down maker (the box that marks the line of scrimmage and gives the current down). Usually, we have a play script on hand that tells us down, distance, and the play. This time we didn’t.
Now, I figured if it was a two minute drill, we should start 1st & 10; however, we had refs on hand for this practice and I wanted to make sure I didn’t screw it up. So I asked them to confirm if we were starting 1st & 10. I was told no, we were starting 3rd & 10. It seemed a bit odd, so I asked again if they were sure and they swore they were.
Whatever, the drill was about to start and it wasn’t like I hadn’t seen a strange down & distance to start a drill before. So 3rd & 10 it was.
Brady Quinn threw a quick incomplete pass, brings the team back into the huddle, I flip the marker to “4”, and then Weis blows his whistle repeatedly: “Hey Brady, hold on a second–HEY YOU OVER THERE ON THE SIDELINE!”
Have you ever had a moment, when you knew all eyes were on you and you just knew that you were about to unwillingly become the center of attention? Yeah, that happened here.
“This isn’t hard,” Weis continued, “We are starting a new drive, ok. That means it’s 1st & 10. Now that pass was incomplete and that makes it 2nd & 10, not 4th & 10. You have one fucking job to do–is that so hard?!”
I sheepishly turned the marker back to “2” embarrassed to all hell. I look back to the ref standing next to me that dug the hole I gleefully jumped into, “So 3rd & 10, huh? Thanks a lot for that one.” Which got the response of pure silence.
I take solace in knowing that I was not the last manager to receive that speech. Plus, I end up with a funny story–one that is at my expense, but funny anyways.
The Roundup
Anyone associated with Penn State, I have a job for you. Shut up and move on. That’s means you Mrs. Sandusky. At least the Board of Trustees seems to have finally gotten the message.
Your job is football, not Twitter. So says Florida State.
Law & Order: He’s just doing his f*@&ing job. Tennessee quarterback, Tyler Bray, wasn’t trying to do anything illegal, he was just practicing.
Your job is to recruit in Penn State’s parking lot. Spencer Hall has your guide for navigating these strange waters.
Seems like the ACC’s new job is to woo ND. Yeah, that whole “all or nothing” line in the sand the ACC drew got kicked.
Keith Arnold gave me and others a job. Our task, rank the top 25 on the Irish roster. Here are the first ten on the list.
Herring Bone got himself a new job. He’s now with the gang led by the Subway Domer. Be sure to check out his first entry.
I’m running out of job puns. So here is a link to One Foot Down breaking down the recruiting class of 2013.
Fans, be aware, this is not your job. Leave recruits alone. Let the coaches do their job, they’ll be just fine on their own:
The Beer
For this week’s beer, I’m heading back home to Texas and Shiner.
Now, I am no fan of grapefruit, and never really considered having it as a prominent ingredient in a beer. However, Shiner Ruby Redbird pulls it off. The blend of grapefruit and ginger give this summer brew a sweet start and the aftertaste of clove gives a fantastic kick of spice to balance it out.
- Epilogue - January 3, 2022
- HLS Podcast Finale - January 2, 2022
- The Final Fiesta: Notre Dame vs Oklahoma State NCAA ’14 Sim - December 31, 2021
The Subway Domer
Really regretting not offering you a gig much sooner than HLS. No such disclaimers are neccessary at Subway Domer, Tex. 😉
The Biscuit
You say that now Bc of all the F bombs in this piece.
NDtex
Yeah and I’m not even sure I could really pull off this much profanity in a normal piece outside of quoting someone.
Then again, get back to me later if we have an awful loss and I’m sure I can figure it out.
kyndfan
Glad he’s with HLS. We need this site as a counter balance to the orneryness of TSD. Not that I don’t enjoy that too, but I need balance.
TheRef
Tex, as an official I can sympathize with you. I’ve never screwed up something like that in major college, but spring football has ample opportunity to screw crap up like that. They’ll run 5-6 plays and say, “Ok, it’s 4th down” and they fail “Ok, 4th down again!” That H sure screwed you over though. Do you know if he was a conference official or a young guy getting a chance to showcase and move up?
On the beer, Im not a fan of the Red Bird, personally. Im frankly kind of concerned about the direction Shiner seems to be moving. Most of the seasonals coming out lately are getting lighter and lighter and it appears that the brand is trying to make itself into the next Budweiser. It’d be great for them, financially, but bad for the consumer who craves a great home-town beer.
NDtex
I’m not sure of the refs affiliation. My assumption would be local high school refs.
I’m actually a fan of the majority of Shiner’s seasonals. The Redbird really surprised me. Most summer seasonals are some kind of lemon/orange blend so it’s nice to see something outside the box.
Blog Davie
Great insight as always, Tex. Dying to try that beer.
NDEddieMac
Glad the compliance department made that video. Maybe THAT will be enough to convince the morons on twitter that can’t seem to get the message.
Bayou Irish
I don’t know about anyone else, but the idea of communicating with a 17 or 18 year old total stranger is enough reason to avoid talking to them. It’s beyond creepy.
kyndfan
I got cussed out on twitter a couple o weeks ago because I tweeted at some idiot to stop tweeting at recruits. Can’t remember the dudes name now. He blocked shortly after dropping a handful of F bombs. Some people are just plain stupid.
Ska
Sat at a bar with Charlie and some of his coaches a day or two after he got canned at ND. Every third or fourth word out of his mouth was the F bomb and loud. ( lotsa other stories of Charlie’s adventures in northern IN, sometime). The slight upside was he bought everyone sitting at he bar a drink in a FU kinda way. He could afford it, ND is still paying him $600,000+ a year.
ColeND28
NDTex,
I remember that practice. Good times. I was one of the only managers that Coach Weis knew by name. More often than not this was a good thing because I actually got to have normal human interaction with him before and after practice.
The downside of this was that whenever the managers made a mistake and it wasn’t painfully obvious whose fault it was I got to hear “COLE, YOU GUYS GOT ONE FUCKING JOB. IT ISN’T THAT HARD.” After which Coach Parmalee (since I was assigned to the Tight Ends) would reassure me that I did not make the mistake.
NDtex
Great to see you see you here, Cole!
Yes, I definitely remember hearing that more than once during practices. To let everyone in on how practices were arranged, I was usually with WRs so I was either on the opposite sideline as the TEs or right by them if QBs were doing drills with them on the field.
Weis was definitely great to interact with outside of the practices on the rare chances I got to do so. But hey, if there’s a screw up during practice, someone has to hear it!