Happy Hour

My previous post on the personnel changes in the Office of Residence Life at Notre Dame generated a few comments. Some reminded me that the folks at "Res Life" are good Notre Dame people who are just trying to do their jobs enforcing the rules. That's fair enough, but while I am not questioning the good intentions of the recently departed, I do reserve the right to question the manner in which they exercised their discretion and their authority.

Other comments were more in the nature of dancing in the streets. The recently retired Notre Dame Leprechaun (no, really) asked if students got "res-lifed" in my day? In "my day"? What the heck is that supposed to mean junior? I'm not THAT old. Am I? Get off my lawn you dang kids. By the way, you should check out the Leprechaun's new blog, Irish Creed, when you get a chance. Great perspectives from a couple of newly minted ND graduates and one current senior.

But seriously. Yes, students did get "res-lifed" back in my day. But you had to try just a little bit harder than today's students to get in serious trouble back in the early eighties. The story below should help contemporary readers understand where I and my peers are coming from when we bemoan the draconian approach the Administration has recently taken toward discipline generally, and alcohol in particular. The story is taken pretty much verbatim from a post I wrote several years ago over at Verminnet.com, a web page for Carroll Hall alumni. I'll admit that our experiences in Carroll Hall were not necessarily in the middle of the mainstream back then, but we weren't that far out of the norm either.

The story is called "Happy Hour":

I arrived at Notre Dame and Carroll Hall in August of 1982, having come all the way from California, alone. The bus from O'Hare dropped me and my trunk at the main circle, and I needed some help to find out where Carroll Hall was. I had seen it on the campus map the University sent me, and it seemed like it was sort of far from the rest of the buildings on campus. I didn't know the half of it. I was literally living a dream being able to attend Notre Dame, but I was a little bummed with the dorm I got.

No worries. I carried/dragged my trunk from the main circle all the way to Carroll, and the RA's greeted me and showed me to my room. It was a big cube of a room on the first floor, right across from the rector's office. My roommates were three New Yorkers (geeeeeez). John "Basil" Hayes and Jock Brody Mutschler were both from the Rochester area, and Scott Kiley was from Long Island. Basil, Jock, and myself were Navy, Army, and Air Force ROTC respectively. Scott was not the military type. Neither was Jock for that matter, but that's another story.

The most striking feature of our room was the plush wall-to-wall whorehouse-red carpet that we had inherited from the previous occupants. Those previous residents had dubbed the room "The Love Palace" and the name stuck, although I'm not sure we really deserved the tag. With four of us living there, and the rest of the Vermin wandering through because of our central location, it wasn't really a quiet place for getting to know that special someone. It might have been called the Insomnia Palace. I swear we never got a wink of sleep before 3:00 a.m. that whole year.

At any rate, I settled in with my new roomies. Before long, a couple of big bruisers came through the door and started demanding money from each of us. Turns out these were some seniors in the dorm, and they were collecting cash for the Happy Hour set for that Friday. I don't recall exactly, but they wanted $5 or $10 from each of us. At the time, that was a lot of money for me. My parents had me on a $50 per month allowance, and I hadn't been picked up on my ROTC scholarship yet. Plus, I wasn't much of a drinker, and I wasn't sure I wanted to go to some party. How naive I was. But these guys weren't taking "no" for an answer. After the shake down was over, some other dorm vets clued us in on what the Happy Hour was all about.

Here's the premise: On weeks of home football games, all during the week in classes, etc... you invited every desirable (or near-desirable, or at least breathing) girl you met to come on out to Carroll on Friday afternoon for our Happy Hour. Good music, free booze (and lots of it). A good time to be had by all. Chicks come, chicks drink, chicks get happy, maybe guys get lucky. The Carroll Happy Hour had a good reputation in some of the girls' dorms, and amazingly enough come Friday afternoon, the dorm was rocking! When you walked back up the drive to Carroll after Friday classes, the music was blasting across the lake. Inside (and often out on the front lawn as well) the kegs had been tapped and the beer was flowing. Inside, there were at least two bars set up. One was usually serving blender drinks (Sea Breezes made with ice, vodka, 7-up, and some sort of juice concentrate), the other was something else (I can't remember because I was usually working the Sea Breeze bar, and performed quality control as well.). These parties started at maybe 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon. They would die down a bit as dinner hour came, and then as people left for the pep rally. But they usually went on at least at a low level until about 2:00 a.m. on Saturday morning (I think Parietals kicked in at 2:00 a.m. on the weekends, so the ladies had to leave at that time). Although the first floor was the epicenter of the action, the Happy Hour really encompassed the entire dorm. Some partied in big groups downstairs, other partied in more intimate groups on floors two through four.

I remember vividly one scene from my first Happy Hour. I was standing in the party room on the first floor, just down the hall from my room, talking to one of the RA's. He was drunk off his ass, leaning against the wall to hold himself up. He was looking a little ragged, and was quite a bit overweight. And he was passing on a little bit of wisdom. "I used to be like you. In shape, great high school athlete. But before long, you'll look like this too." He was commenting on the crop of young, naive, fresh-faced, super-fit freshman that had just joined the Hall. We thought the guy was pathetic and crazy and bitter. Little did we know.

The Happy Hour was the focus of social life in Carroll Hall, and it gave us our identity. It wasn't always pretty. Lots of guys (especially the freshman) got way too drunk and out of control or sick. Hijinks were common (water drops? Pizza heists? Often post-Happy Hour entertainment). Nicknames were earned. The best example of this from my group of friends was Steve (Last name withheld to protect the sloppy drunk), who was from Texas. One Friday afternoon, during a particularly good Happy Hour, a group of us decided that we wanted to go to the pep rally, and Father Steve was going to take us over to Stepan Center in his van. At any rate, sometime between leaving the dorm for the rally, and returning afterwards, Steve got very sick and blew chunks everywhere. Chunks. The name absolutely stuck. While people later meeting him might assume that "Chunks" got his name from being kind of chunky (he was a big guy), we all knew how he really got the name. Do you remember the show Cheers? When Norm walks in? "NORM!" everyone shouts. Everywhere Steve went for four years, his fellow Vermin would greet him with a chorus of "CHUNKS!"

Many of the stories posted on VerminNet have some connection to the Happy Hour. Of course, nowadays the University would consider our behavior reprehensible. Well, they did then too, but we were pretty much out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and Father Steve was very lenient with us.

I believe it was in my Junior year (1984-85) (Father Steve's last year as rector) that the University killed the Happy Hour. New University policy that year essentially prohibited any alcohol consumption by students under 21 (although they would tolerate drinking in your room behind closed doors if you didn't draw attention to yourself). Alcohol consumption at dorm parties was limited to 21 and older, and was relatively strictly enforced.

It was the end of an era. We held a funeral for the Happy Hour. Father Steve let us borrow some vestments, candles, etc.. from the chapel. We had a last party, and then we laid the Happy Hour to rest. We had a funeral procession, some words were said. And a couple bottles of booze along with some mementos were buried in a hole out behind the dorm. We even had a headstone with "R.I.P." on it. I don't know if the headstone or the grave is still there. I doubt it. But I know there are people out there in cyberspace with pictures of the event, and I think I've got a commemorative button in my trunk somewhere (the same trunk after all these years).

Is it over yet?

3
20
38
35

Those are the margins of loss for the Fighting Irish against USC over the past four seasons. Those numbers are not trending in the right direction. USC is a very good team. Losing to the Trojans is not a reason for despair. But getting embarrassed on national television year after year is a situation which calls for correction. And it has become clear to me that Charlie Weis cannot be relied upon to make that correction.

I just got back from the game. Beautiful evening. Found a nice parking spot that only cost $30. Went to the IrishFest event put on by the Notre Dame Club of Los Angeles, and was totally stoked that the Band of the Fighting Irish made the trip to L.A. and put on a great show.

But the game stunk. Again. I have been to the last three Notre Dame games against USC, and have been disappointed almost to the point of humiliation the past two years. Who would have thought in 2005 that in 2008 I'd be wistfully remembering the days when we only lost to USC by 20?

Just a few quick thoughts on tonight's game.

1. The defense played a great game. They really did. Only a few breakdowns, usually after the offense left them in very untenable positions. If the offense had shown any competence at all, the defense played well enough to compete for a win tonight. Unfortunately for Charlie Weis, he has almost nothing to do with the defense.

2. The team actually played with some pride tonight. Starting with a pre-game near-brawl, it was clear that the Irish were not going to be intimidated and were not going to back down from anyone. You don't want to encourage fighting or thuggery, but I was actually very glad to see the Irish players giving every bit as good as they got all night. Where the hell has that kind of confidence been?

3. The offense was pathetic. No first downs in the first half. No first downs until the very end of the third quarter. It was so fun to sit in the Coliseum surrounded by USC fans who cheered and mocked the Irish when they finally got a first down. Good times. Too bad Notre Dame doesn't have an offensive guru for a head coach. Oh, wait a minute ... we do! Or do we? USC was begging Notre Dame to run the ball all night, dropping guys back in coverage and playing with 7 or fewer in the box. Why did it take the offensive brain trust 3 1/2 quarters to test the middle of the defense with James Aldridge?

4. Jimmy Clausen is killing us. Normally this is the part of the post where I criticize the offensive line. But I'm giving them a break this week. Clausen badly hurt the team again tonight by throwing the ball to guys who were blanketed in coverage. Do I have to explain this? INTs cost the team the chance to score points or, at the very least, to manage the field position battle. They put the defense in a nearly impossible spot, practically gift-wrapping scoring chances for a USC offense that doesn't need any more encouragement. Memo to Jimmy: Kyle Rudolph is still NOT open. Duval Kamara is open, but he isn't 8-feet tall.

The only question in my mind is whether Charlie should coach the team in whatever lame bowl game actually invites us.

Classy moment of the evening in the Coliseum: The USC fans chanting "Ten more years! Ten more years!" when Charlie Weis came out of the tunnel and onto the field before the game.

Top two rumors in the Coliseum men's room at half-time:

1. John Gruden to Notre Dame.
2. Pete Carroll to the San Francisco 49ers.

I'm Done Defending Charlie Weis

Regular OC Domer readers know that I have been a supporter of Coach Weis. I have applauded his recruiting, and made excuses for last year's 3-9 embarrassment. I've gone to numerous dinner parties full of USC alumni and I've talked about how young this team is and how they're going to do great things in the future. And I believed it.

But I'm not sure I believe it anymore.

Coming into this 2008 season I looked at the schedule and I genuinely felt that the Irish were capable of beating 11 of 12 teams on the schedule. Accounting for some youth and inexperience I allowed that this team would probably lose a couple of games it should win, putting us around 9-3, give or take a game. Looking back over the schedule today I still feel that going into this week's contest against USC the Irish could be, in fact probably should be, 9-2 or 10-1.

Notre Dame has lost five games to the following teams: Michigan State, North Carolina, Pitt, Boston College, and Syracuse.

In three of those games (UNC, Pitt, SU), the Irish had the lead and control of the game at halftime (or later), and then vomited all over themselves. Does anyone really dispute that Notre Dame should have won those games?

Clearly Michigan State was a better team than Notre Dame. And we were never really in the Boston College game due to numerous costly turnovers, although I still cling to the belief that we should have found a way to win that game.

But if this team had only won the games where they had significant second-half leads they'd be 9-2 today.

What the heck happened? Why were the Irish badly outplayed in the second half of each of those games? What the heck is going on the Notre Dame locker room at half-time? Are they all taking a nap? Stuffing themselves full of pizza and warm milk? Or are we just getting seriously out-coached?

When we lost to North Carolina and Pitt, I was deluded enough that I could eventually console myself with the thought that although the losses were total nightmares, at least we were competing and losing very close games to pretty good football teams. But then 2-8 Syracuse came to town.

Just to be clear: Yes, the loss to Syracuse does supplant the loss to Pitt as the worst loss of the Charlie Weis era. I don't care how young this team is, or how cold it was, or how close were were to hitting a late field goal to win the game. There is no way a Notre Dame football coach in his fourth year at the University should bring to Notre Dame stadium a team and a game plan incapable of beating a 2-8 Syracuse squad.

When Notre Dame is playing freakin' Syracuse, Coach Weis should be able to win the game with Nate Montana at quarterback leading our scout team against the Orange. There is no way that Notre Dame offensive linemen should be pushed around by players from Syracuse. Yet that is exactly what happened.

After the Michigan State loss I had thoughts about the Irish running game that I think are still relevant today:

But I don't get, I don't get, I don't get, I don't get, I don't get, I don't get, I don't get WHY THE FIGHTING IRISH OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME STILL CAN'T RUN THE FOOTBALL!!!!!?????? I just don't understand it. I'm not going to analyze match-ups and videotape and break down the X's and O's of why. That shouldn't be necessary because I hold it as an article of faith that NOTRE DAME SHOULD BE ABLE TO RUN THE FOOTBALL!! We should be able to recruit talented, large, smart football players and teach them to consistently push around the smaller, less talented, less smart players from other schools. That our offensive linemen can't consistently win the battle at the point of attack is a FAILURE.

And this is not new for 2007 and 2008. Even when the Irish were having great offensive success and winning a lot of games in 2005 and 2006, they could not consistently run the ball. I've been saying since the Brady Quinn era that if your best short yardage play is the quarterback sneak you have a real problem. Even when Darius Walker was putting up decent numbers, he wasn't doing it via the power run game. It was mostly draw plays, and it was mostly on his own after dodging defenders in the backfield.

I don't know if it's Coach Weis' system, or offensive line coach John Latina's ineffectiveness, or the players we've brought into the program - but Notre Dame football will not be a credible Top-10 team until we can line up and reliably run the ball for 3 or 4 yards even when the opposition and everyone in the stadium knows it's coming.

Our starting five offensive line consists of three juniors, one senior, and one freshman. That isn't really a very young unit. If they can't win the battle at the point of attack against Syracuse, we have a serious, serious problem. What I don't know is (1) Is Coach Weis' scheme just totally neglectful of the power running game? (2) Is offensive line coach John Latina simply incapable of teaching our players how to run block? or (3) Are our players really just less talented than the players at schools like Michigan State, Boston College, and Syracuse?

What is clear is that something has to change. Either the scheme and offensive philosophy has to change to place more value on the power running game so that we can control the ball and the clock to protect a lead, or we need to find a coach or coaches that have proven themselves capable of teaching large young men how to run block. I called for John Latina to be fired last season after the Irish lost to Boston College, when I wrote:

Well, unlike Coach Weis, I am not an offensive guru. But I can see pretty clearly that our offensive line can't block. Run blocking or pass blocking we are playing very, very poorly. Often our guys are just getting beat. But it seems that just as often our guys are missing assignments and letting defenders go completely unblocked. True, there are some young guys on the line getting their feet wet. But Sullivan, Duncan, and Turkovich are veterans of the system and Sam Young now has roughly twenty starts under his belt. If those guys can't figure out who to block by now and at least put a helmet on them, then they are not being coached very well. And this is not a new problem. Under Coaches Weis and Latina the Irish have NEVER been able to run the ball with authority. Our best short-yardage play for two years has been the QB sneak. Even when our running game has worked, it has usually been Darius Walker running draw plays. [...] Coach Weis certainly bears his share of the blame, but so does offensive line coach John Latina. Notre Dame may not have the best talent along the offensive line, especially in the upper classes, but there are MANY, MANY teams across the country who are getting far better play from lesser talent than Notre Dame has. The difference is coaching. If for no other reason than to show he takes the problem seriously, Coach Weis has got to give John Latina his walking papers. A new offensive line coach is certainly not going to make matters worse.

I was right in 2007 that Coach Weis needed to find a new O-line coach, and it's painfully obvious that I'm still right. Only now, Coach Weis needs to make that change (and probably other changes) if he is to have any chance to save his job. I don't envy Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick. He's been on the job for all of four months and he has a very tough decision on his hands. He will either cut Charlie loose and be faced with the job of finding a suitable upgrade, or he'll keep CW and spend the next year having to defend the poor performance of his predecessor's hire. But that's why he gets paid the big bucks.

If it was my call, I'd give him another year, provided he could present a serious plan for addressing the team's glaring deficiencies (i.e., at the very least getting a new offensive line coach). After all, as ugly as it is, this team really is close to being 9-2 right now.

If Swarbrick decides to keep Weis I'll support him, if Charlie is let go I'd be okay with that too. However it goes, the Irish are my team, Notre Dame is my University, and I'll be sending in my Sorin Society donation at Christmas time.

But I'm done defending Charlie Weis. How can you defend the indefensible?

Somewhere, George Orwell is Smiling

Via Matt Drudge we learn that an appeals court in California has ruled that parents can only homeschool their children if they hold a valid teaching credential. Forget, for now, about the incredible infringement upon individual liberty this is. Or the hubris of those who assert that only WE know, and only WE have the right to dictate, what your child should be taught. Forget the objective evidence that homeschooled kids get an actual education at least as good as, if not usually better than, that doled out by the public school system. Forget what this means for kids who are being homeschooled because the public school in their neighborhood is a drug and gang infested sewer where no actual education takes place.

No, I want you to focus instead on one particular line from the court's opinion. You'd better sit down first. And put down that drink - I don't want you ruining your computer by spewing coffee all over it. Here we go:

A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare[.]

Wow. Now this isn't the whole opinion. And it doesn't say that the above reasons are THE primary purpose of the education system. But how can any judge who is socially aware pen those words? Any person who is socially aware, any parent who is paying attention, knows that liberal political correctness is destroying (has already destroyed?) public education in America, and one of the most important tools in the liberal PC arsenal is to pervert the meaning of the phrase "good citizenship" and to strip our children of their patriotism and loyalty to our nation. To have a court assert that kids must be taught by credentialed teachers, against the will of their parents, in order to further the "good citizenship" and "patriotism" of those children is an absolute joke. It would make me laugh if it weren't so damn sad.

I'm sure President Hillary or President Obama will fix this. Won't they?

Al Gore Makes Me Sick

We interrupt our normally scheduled Irish football blogging to get sick to our stomachs.

Sorry about that. It seems that Al Gore has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It is not exactly clear which region of conflict and strife in the world he has brought peace to. Or even a glimmer of a hope for peace. He should have been awarded the Nobel Scare-Mongering Bad Science Propagandizing Self-Important Hypocrite Award. But then, I didn't get a vote.