THAT’LL TEACH YOU TO IMPUGN CHARLIE WEIS’S MASCULINITY
Breaking news out of Honolulu, and obviously important enough to merit its own post: Hawaii head coach Greg McMackin has been docked a month’s pay for his uncharitable, sexual-preference-based characterization of Notre Dame’s pre-Hawaii Bowl rug-cuttin’. Officially, McMackin will be coaching the team for the next 30 days on a “volunteer” basis, with the money he would be getting paid instead being detoured to fund an intern for a campus LGBT group.
(Pre-emptive righteous-indignation stifling: McMackin’s free-speech rights aren’t being violated by any of this. The 1st Amendment prevents the federal government from prosecuting you for something you’ve said; it doesn’t bar your employers from fining you for making them look like a bunch of troglodytes. Thanks, carry on.)
With that out of the way, all that’s left is to sweep up the pieces. Can we expect an Obama-style “beer summit” between McMackin, the UH president, and Charlie Weis? Or would a “cosmo summit” with McMackin and the head of the Human Rights Campaign be more appropriate? We’re confident that any institution whose athletic teams were once nicknamed the “Rainbow Warriors” can be trusted to do the right thing here.
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1
zzgator says:
“Cheeseburger Summit” post haste.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:35 am
2
Crabapple Buck says:
McMackin to Weis at beer/cosmo summit, “would you like me to push in your stool?” McMakin says he was misquoted, he meant to say … aw fuck it, just print it.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:39 am
3
MaconDawg says:
with the money he would be getting paid instead being detoured to fund an intern for a campus LGBT group.
I’d been wondering what Brady Quinn was doing during the offseason.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:07 am
4
Reed says:
I initially misread what you had written as a “Corso summit,” with my understanding being that the summit would be handled by Corso himself. Clearly this would be a teachable moment. The big question – what would Corso end up putting on his head at the end?
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:40 am
5
brady quinn, medicine woman says:
I was going to go on here about that portion of Pickering v. Board that survived Garcetti, but then I remembered I do enough douchebag lawyering at work.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:49 am
6
Josh M says:
Jesus, how much does an LGBT intern make? I’m putting in an application.
(Seriously, though, I’m 100 miles to Obama’s left on gay rights issues, but I still think “faggy” is a funny word. Sue me.)
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:01 pm
7
PW says:
I agree with brady quinn, medicine woman’s questioning of your explanation of First Amendment jurisprudence, but like the right honorable QB, I don’t feel like looking into it either. Since McMackin probably agreed to give up the pay, it’s a non-issue anyway.
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:03 pm
8
I R A Darth Aggie says:
The 1st Amendment prevents the federal government from prosecuting you for something you’ve said; it doesn’t bar your employers from fining you for making them look like a bunch of troglodytes.
Nit: UofH is a public university, and state entities are restricted by the 1st amendment. They also pay lip
service to the notion of academic freedom. That said, he offended a protected group, and as
member of the athletic department his academic freedom is not as good as a tenured professor.
And he probably has contractual obligations in representing the University and not embarassing it with
ill-considered remarks.
Now, had he called Notre DOH! a bunch of little Eichmann rejects from The Sound of Music, UofH
would now be circling the wagons, and noting their defense of free speech and academic
freedom. You gotta pick your targets judiciously.
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:24 pm
9
TheDeuce69 says:
Way to stand behind your coach Hawaii…you didn’t seem too concerned a few years back when June Jones dropped the “Rainbow” out of Warriors because it sounded too “faggy”
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
10
beckett says:
I still fail in the grand scheme of things to honestly see anything wrong with trying to fire a team up and using the language McMackin used. I mean seriously, political correctness is, as Rich Brooks said, BULLSHIT.
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
11
Sam says:
I’ve got it! You get McMackin, Charlie Weis, Ian McKellen, and hell, Al Sharpton for good measure, and you have them congregate over a bottle of White Zinfandel. That way, McMackin has to really work to offend people in the future; I’m talking about burning giant lowercase-Ts on someone’s lawn while prancing around in modified bedsheets. That would at least win hearts and minds in the city of Boise.
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
12
The Gurgling Cod says:
FWIW, the sum he’s giving up is pretax $91,667, roughly, which is more than most profs at Hawaii make, I would guess. That’s going to be one pretty popular internship. I think the punishment is too harsh, though not as harsh as it seems.* He did immediate realize he’d said something inappropriate, and tried to backpedal from it. The first amendment question, however, does not seem to wash, in that he was speaking as a representative of the university, and not on his own behalf. In the last analysis thought, fine or no for McMackin, it does not make CFB a welcoming place for gay people. Is there a single out, gay player or coach on any D1 team? Statistically, it seems like there should be a few.
*A cut from 1.1 mil to 1 mil/year is not a lifestyle changer. And, I’m not an employment lawyer, but this “suspension” is actually a fine, in that there would be lega/workers comp issues if he showed up for work when suspended. Ask any university employee who’s been furloughed this year.
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
13
General Disarray says:
“With that out of the way, all that’s left is to sweep up the pieces. Can we expect an Obama-style “beer summit” between McMackin, the UH president, and Charlie Weis?”
No way that meeting happens unless Charlie get’s a full buffet and an open bar.
Just sayin’ . . . . .
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
14
NCT says:
@ Sam: white zinfandel? Oh, hell no. If those bitches want to get truly “faggy” with a summit, there’s gotta be hard liquor involved. Or poppers and E. Or blow. Or all of the above.
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:43 pm
15
witless chum says:
Gay people haven’t done anything to deserve being compared to Notre Dame football.
August 3rd, 2009 at 4:52 pm
16
landshark says:
NTTIAWWT, but be honest……
How would you
a. describe “Riverdance”
b. being performed on any day other than St. Patricks Day
c. by anyone other than someone of the caliber of Kate Winslet, Elizabeth Hurley, Kate Beckinsale and Catherine Zeta-Jones
d. especially after your team has performed the ha’a?
I realize none of the aforementioned ladies are Irish, but indulge me.
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:41 pm
17
Nate says:
@beckett:
Had he been saying it in a locker room to fire up his team prior to the Hawaii Bowl, maybe they could have stopped Golden Tate. However, he was saying it to reporters at WAC Media Day. There was no “firing up your team” involved. Regardless of what you think you should be able to say or not say in private or off the record, this was most definitely ON the record, as a representative of a public institution, in a public media forum. Dropping the “F@ggot” bomb was nothing short of stupid–much like he looked after getting torched last Christmas Eve.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:29 pm
18
JJ Gator says:
Greg McMackin’s mommy should have told him to stop talking gay smack when he was forced to trade in his training pants for BVD’s. Only little boys talk shit like that and bawl their eyes out on national TV after they get punished for it (Guys, where’s the You Tube vid of that? Shame on you for not posting it!)
August 4th, 2009 at 6:50 am
19
Wooderson says:
Since there seems to be plenty of ripping on ND here, you shoudl know that ND didn’t file any complaint or make any sort of fuss over this. Their only respone so far has been “no comment”. If the Irish don’t care and are past this, then I don’t see whatthe huge deal is.
McMackin got in hot water because he’s already run afoul of the UofH president before, and he also ran off a volunteer assistant who was disabled, and had been brought in by June Jones as a sort of team mascot. That didn’t go over well with fans or alums. McMackin won’t last past next year.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:49 am