Sportswriters had a hard time complaining about covering Notre Dame football under Lou Holtz.
Players were available as late as Thursday before a Saturday game, Monday practices were open, and Holtz could fill up a 600-word notebook with one answer.
Bob Davie had similar policies, but Tyrone Willingham discontinued the practice of hosting Sunday teleconferences. You almost couldn’t blame Willingham for not wanting to rehash all those losses. Almost.
Still, Notre Dame was viewed as a media-friendly program, following a tradition that helped produce the kind of publicity that made Notre Dame the most famous football school in the country, complete with its own TV contract with NBC.
So it was jarring to many when new coach Charlie Weis announced in the spring that all interview requests had to go through him. Some reporters were told that questions had to be submitted in writing.
Weis appeared to take it a step further last week when he indicated that he would not permit freshmen to speak to the media. Penn State’s Joe Paterno is alone in traditionally taking that stance.
But Weis, in an interview after a Chicago luncheon sponsored by radio partner Westwood One, left the door open for freshmen to speak.
“When the freshmen have done something, they can talk to the media,” he said. “Until they’ve done something, they have nothing to say.”
So they’re off limits?
“You can ask them,” Weis replied. “They can speak for themselves. I’m sure if you asked them if they had something to say, they would tell you: `Until I’ve done something, I have nothing to say.’ You can request anyone you want, but I can tell you what their answer is going to be.”
Weis said too much was made of his policy of reviewing all interview requests.
“The purpose of that was misconstrued,” he said. “People forget that a lot of times these young people have not been schooled in dealing with the media and can say things that can be detrimental to the team and to themselves.
“The media has a job to do. At the same time, my job is to protect the players. All I was trying to do was to get a sense of order so the media could do their job–but not at the expense of someone who didn’t know they were saying the wrong thing.”
Weis said he hired a consulting firm from North Carolina to tutor his players in dealing with reporters. He wouldn’t name the company.
Weis said that while interview requests for players and coaches still have to go through him, “I’d say I’ve gotten about 500, of which 50 have been turned down, so maybe 10 percent. If they want to ask about a subject that I don’t want them to talk about it, it’s going to be rejected.”
As an offensive coordinator under Patriots coach Bill Belichick, Weis was rarely permitted to speak to the media. But Weis said he would make his assistants available on certain days. “It will be one day offense, one day defense, one day special teams,” he said.
And Weis plans to restore the Sunday news conferences.
“Charlie has made it very plain that he is going to be the spokesman for Notre Dame football,” said John Heisler, the school’s associate athletic director. “It’s part of a master plan of how you run a football program.”
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tgreenstein@tribune.com
