Robert Hughes returned to practice today after being excused from the team to return home and be with his family in the wake of the shooting death of his older brother.
Weis plans to drive Hughes home to Chicago after practice on Thursday and meet with his family. Weis didn’t want Hughes driving home by himself after practice Thursday in such an emotional state. A relative drove him back to Notre Dame Tuesday.
He got back right before practice. He’ll go to class tomorrow and then he’ll practice and then I’m going to take him back tomorrow after practice to go spend some time with Robert and his family. Then on Friday morning, we’ve worked through compliance, and through our faculty board and the NCAA, we’re going to take at least one bus if not two buses up there for the service on Friday morning. We’re going to kind of split the staff. Some of the staff will be going up then and like I said, I’m going to be taking him home tomorrow after practice.
Weis also said that Robert intends on playing this weekend.
He’s gonna try because he thinks it will be the best distraction for him. I’m not encouraging him one way or another. I’m just kind of leaving that with him. One of the reasons why he came back is first of all is because he doesnt want to fall too far behind academically and secondly, he thinks that his best way to get things off his mind is to be here at school.
Weis also spoke about why he will be driving Hughes back home Thursday.
I just don’t think that, you know, a kid that right now is in an emotional state should be driving behind a car because you don’t know, we all have kids, you know all of a sudden they’re going back at 90 mph not paying attention or things like that. I think there’s a couple things precautionary that as any father slash dad would be concerned with that I think that’s just a precautionary measure. Plus, it gives me an opportunity to spend a little one on one time with the family.
If he does indeed play this weekend, I’d love to see him reach the end zone and would love to see the captains take Hughes aside and have him run the team out of the tunnel after everything is he going through right now. Whatever Robert decides to do with regards to this weekend, we wish him all the best and send our thoughts and prayers to him and his family.
frank,
1. another excellent story.
2. at virtually every other schools, what charlie, corwin, and their staff,by robert hughes’ teammates on this 2007 team, and by the entire notre dame have done in response to the tragic death og robert’s brother community all over the world would be nothing more than a cheap publicity stunt.
3. at notre dame, this has always been the way such matters are dealt with. every notre dame student athlete lives with the rest of the students, not put up in some fancy living quarters and, in most cases.
4. when robby parris went down with what the entire world thought were athletic career ending injuries in his senior year of high school and his mother became concerned that his scholarship would be pulled, the response from charlie weis was that the commitments were mutual, whether robby ever played football again or not.
5. notre dame 2008 verbal commit de ethan johnson was the victim of an illegal chop block and suffered some very severe injuries. since charlie and corwin and their staffs have put in writing what a mutual verbal commitment means, ethan and his family are secure in the knowledge that his full scholarship and his notre dame education are there for him even if he is never able to play football for notre dame.
6. while we are certain that ethan will recover and have a stellar career in football at notre dame, whether he does or not will never affect his full scholarship and his ability to get a fine notre dame education and the character building that goes with it.
7. if there is any other school in this nation that does things like this in the ordinary course of business, we are unaware of any.
8.notre dame does not handle these matters in these ways because notre dame wants good publicity, but because it is the right thing to do for all notre dame students, whether or not they are athletically gifted.
9. sure, charlie had some changing to do coming from the new england patriots to coaching at notre dame.
10. however, any doubts about whether charlie and corwin and their staffs would make those changes have been resolved this season.
11. we will all enjoy the fruits of their labors with many national championships.
12. in the meantime. we will not miss one second of the 4 remaining games for the players on this 2007 notre dame team, including the road trip to stanford.
without the courage and never say die attitude of every member of this 2007 notre dame team, the future would not have been possible.
john carlson, who will not be back at notre dame playing football next season, but somewhere in the nfl, said so much in his video interview at und.com when he was asked what in his career so far at notre dame he was most proud of. his response- the manner in which this 2007 team has played through what looks like a very ugly season on paper.
we rank this 2007 notre dame team no 1 in the nation in all of those qualities which are much more important than wins or losses on paper, not that it will ever not hurt us as much as it hurts the members of this 2007 notre dame team to lose any game, but because, unlike the doom and gloomers and the nd coach and player bashers both within the notre dame community and in the enemy camps, we can see the future very clearly and we are immensely proud.
we thank you for your inspiration and for your eloquence,
bob gilleran