Thursday Observations

Before I get to observations, I'd like to address a question left on the comments, one that seems to have been misconstrued within the past week. It belongs to mikes1160:

Mike,

Were you to do it all over again, would you have waited for a more formalized response from the University? And, do you think you were right going to the NCAA before UND did?

mikes1160,

If I were to do this all over again, I would not wait for a more formalized response. In the end, the investigation turned up a secondary -- albeit, minor, which was stated in the initial story -- violation. Part of this job is investigation and that is what I did. Investigate. I reported what I discovered, which obviously caused enough concern within Notre Dame to launch an investigation of their own.

To your second question, I did not turn in Notre Dame. I don't know where people are really getting this from. There are other stories out there which say I immediately called the NCAA after talking with Todd Bella. That, as I've said again, is not the case. I spoke with Notre Dame and with the NCAA. The NCAA is the governing body for these rules and have more knowledge of them than you, I, or Notre Dame's staff. So to not call the experts on something like this is silly.

Imagine if you were a businessman and came across something you were unfamiliar with. Would you not call someone who is an expert in the matter for help or clarification?

On to practice observations on a cloudy day:

• The only person on the bike for the majority of the media viewing session was wide receiver D.J. Hord.
• Charlie Weis spent time jabbing playfully with practice stalwart Keith Penrod. Among the things he said "You got nothing better to do at night than think about this stuff?" Who knows what the rest of the conversation entailed, but Weis was clearly joking around with the die-hard Notre Dame fan.
• During a defensive line strip the ballcarrier drill, Derek Landri took a page out of "Necessary Roughness" and character Sargie Wilkinson. The last guy to go on the drill, he roundhouse kicked the tackling dummy. Trivia side note, Wilkinson was portrayed by Marcus Giamatti, the older brother of fabulous character actor Paul Giamatti.
• Defensive lineman Derrell Hand is fully dressed these days and even had his helmet on. He also participated on a limited basis in drills.

-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette

Comments

[Andy]

Mike,

Your original article said:

When reached Friday, John Heisler, Notre Dame’s senior associate athletic director for media relations, said he didn’t know about the spots.

“I am not aware of what you are talking about,” Heisler said. “I’m telling you what I know. I’m not even aware that this happened.”

This is what you need to come clean about, Mike. It is one thing to "investigate" --- it is quite another to prematurely report. By broadcasting a "potential" issue before the University even knows the facts, is low brow. Period.

And, the businessman analogy doesn't help you. You, like your fictional businessman, are certainly entitled to "call" anyone "for help or clarification."

However, you are missing the point. The businessman didn't publish anything. He doesn't go running to the board of directors with a "maybe" issue.

Please be more careful the next time.

Thank you.

[Hal]

Mike,

The issue isn't whether you should have asked ND about this. Of course you should have. It's your job to dig for news.

The issue is that you published an article before there was anything substantial to report. If this were 1982, little harm could have come of it, beyond some readers in your local market coming away with a bad impression of ND. But I don't need to tell you that when you publish something negative about ND, it's going to get picked up on the wires and blasted out to the world toot sweet.
This raises your level of responsibility for what you report.

I'm not in any way discouraging you from following leads at ND, be they negative or not. In fact, I happen to believe that a high level of scrutiny from the press is something that will keep ND on its toes for fear of looking hypocritical. This is a good thing.

As Andy said, though, please think twice.

Thanks, and good luck.