Weis says, "Clausen is Ignorant!"

In case you missed it, the newly anointed "Golden Boy" of Notre Dame (Jimmy Clausen) was issued a citation by the Indiana Excise Police outside a liquor store back in June. According to the police report, Jimmy was observed waiting outside the liquor store in his car while a 23 year old passenger from Jimmy's car went inside to purchase alcohol at 10:00 PM on a Saturday night. The police then waited for the passenger to return to the car before they (the police) approached the vehicle and asked to see everyone's I.D. Jimmy was then issued a citation for illegally "transporting alcohol as a minor."

As it turns out, Jimmy is claiming ignorance of the law. Jimmy apparently is claiming that the alcohol wasn't for him and he was just giving a friend a ride to the liquor store. He claims he didn't know that it was illegal for a minor to transport alcohol in a vehicle.

Yeah, I'm sorry but I'm not going to buy that story. It might have been more believable for me if Jimmy's friend hadn't purchased 2 bottles of vodka, 1 bottle of whiskey, and 1 case of beer. That sounds like someone was planning a party. And I'm guessing that Jimmy was probably invited. Hell, it was probably Jimmy's party. The 23 year old passenger was probably doing Jimmy a favor, not vice versa.

I'm not knocking Jimmy Clausen here. He's in college, after all. I drank alcohol in college. Everybody I know drank alcohol in college. I don't think I could trust anyone who didn't drink alcohol in college. That "giving a friend a ride to the liquor store" story is pure genius, though.

I once hired a guy because he admitted on his application that he had been arrested for public intoxication way back when he was in college. To make a long story short, it came down to two finalists for the job. Both of them were equally qualified. One applicant listed all his church volunteer work in the "additional qualifications" section on his application. The other applicant put the Public Intoxication incident in the "prior convictions" section of his application. When all was said and done, I decided I would rather spend 8 hours a day with a guy who likes to drink occasionally than 8 hours a day with a guy who wants to talk about his church. I made sure I told the winner that this was probably the only time in his life where that PI conviction would be a benefit to him. That's a true story.

The reason I'm mentioning the Clausen story on my blog isn't because Jimmy got caught breaking the law. I'm mentioning the story here because of Charlie Weis' decision to try to defend Jimmy to the media. Don't get me wrong, I do respect Charlie Weis as a football coach. I wish my college coach would have defended me a few more times. But this is one of those instances where I think the appropriate way to handle the media would have been for Charlie to simply state that "it is a disciplinary issue and it is being handled internally." But, that is not what Charlie said.

No, Charlie chose to reiterate Jimmy's story by stating, "I think it's out of ignorance -- and by ignorance I mean lack of knowledge. I don't think he was defiantly trying to get himself into trouble with the law." Weis went on to say that he himself didn't know it was illegal for someone who's underage -- Clausen is 19 -- to drive someone who is of legal drinking age to a liquor store to buy alcohol. He used the analogy of a friend of his son's driving the coach to a supermarket to buy a six pack of beer.

Of course Jimmy wasn't defiantly trying to get himself into trouble with the law. What kind of idiot would do something like that? Charlie Weis should have kept his mouth shut when he was asked about the incident. That's all I'm saying. I just don't think Charlie came out looking too good with this story.