LOU HOLTZ

How on earth did he do it?

How did this bespectacled, craggy-faced wispy blade of a human, this pipsqueak posterboy of an undersized kick-sand-in-your-face Joe Weider candidate continue to get it done?

I mean seriously.

This disguised carnival barker has been yapping and fooling folks for years, for decades.

He takes his lickin’ and he keeps on tickin’ (credit to Timex).

He continues to bob like a buoy in a choppy sea.

Wobbles but won’t fall down (Weebles?).

It’s nothing short of a miracle really. Mystifying.

Or is it?

Read on.

Lou Holtz must have been born with his tongue wagging, never mind the piercing shrill of his cries. The eighty-year-old Follansbee, West Virginia native has forever been quick with a quip, a wordsmith nonpareil with a specialty in dispensing his homegrown philosophies tossed with more than a dash of sage advice. And a bit of humor.

His ability to motivate and inspire players was considered a great strength, along with his razor-sharp wit. Hard to believe he was also known as a taskmaster and strict disciplinarian until delving a bit deeper.

Holtz somehow managed to play ball at Kent State University as a linebacker and he earned a commission as a Field Artillery Officer in the United States Army Reserve at the time of his 1959 graduation.

So maybe he learned when he was still wet behind the ears not to write a check with his mouth that his body couldn’t cash.

And boy could he run his mouth.

To wit:

“I was born January 6, 1937, eight years after Wall Street crashed and two years before John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the plight of a family during the Great Depression.”

“Our cellar home had a kitchen and a combination bedroom and half bath, which meant we had a sink next to the bed. We had no refrigerator, no shower or tub, and no privacy. My parents shared the bedroom with my sister and me.”

“Virtually nothing is impossible in this world if you just put your mind to it and maintain a positive attitude.”

“I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care.”

“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”

“See, winners embrace hard work.”

“If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.”

“I think that we have opportunities all around us — sometimes we just don’t recognize them.”

“I can’t believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary.”

“You aren’t going to find anybody that’s going to be successful without making a sacrifice and without perseverance.”

“No one has ever drowned in sweat.”

“A lifetime contract for a coach means if you’re ahead in the third quarter and moving the ball, they can’t fire you.”

“Coaching is nothing more than eliminating mistakes before you get fired.”

“You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.”

He’s just warmin’ up.

In a storied and peripatetic coaching career which spanned 44 years — he accepted his first check as an Iowa assistant in 1960 — Holtz compiled a college Head Coaching record of 249–132–7; (.642 Winning Pct.) and was 12–8–2 in Bowl appearances.

Taking a 1976 sabbatical to stick his toes in the water as Head Coach of the NFL New York Jets, Holtz posted a 3–10 mark, resigning almost ten months to the day of his hiring and with one game remaining on the schedule.

He was astute enough to recognize that his schtick was falling on the deaf ears of grown men…and he understandably didn’t care for that. “God did not put Lou Holtz on this earth to coach in the pros,” he parried lamentably at the time.

The #1 man at no fewer than 6 institutions of higher learning (William & Mary; NC State; Arkansas; Minnesota; Notre Dame; and South Carolina) knew himself and which side his bread was buttered on.

His tenure on the sidelines was not without controversy however, nor was his time behind the microphone for that matter.

He ruffled some feathers at Arkansas (as was his wont; there was little middle ground with Holtz. You either loved him or…) and was dismissed in 1983 following a disappointing 6–5 campaign. His career record with the Razorbacks was an impressive 60–21–2 overall; 37–18–1 in the SWC; and 3–2–1 in Bowl Games. AD Frank Broyles remarked then that Holtz had resigned because he was “tired and burned out,” denying that he was fired.

Twenty years later Broyles conceded that he had in fact fired Holtz because he was alienating and losing the fan base with his words and actions. Holtz confirmed his firing but allowed that Broyles never told him why. Reports circulated indicating that his political bent had ultimately cost him.

Taping two television spots from his coach’s office endorsing the re-election of his buddy, North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, precisely when Helms was spearheading the effort to prevent Martin Luther King Day from becoming a national holiday was the coup de grace.

Coincidental? Perhaps. Premeditated? A possibility.

Nobody had ever accused Lou Holtz of being a dope; maybe he just wanted out.

At Minnesota in 1984 and 1985 (10–12 overall; 7–10 in the Big Ten) he inherited a program which had won all of four games in the previous two seasons but piloted them to a winning record in ’85 (6–5) resulting in an invitation to the Independence Bowl.

Minnesota defeated Clemson 20–13 in the extravaganza and a fellow by the name of John Gutekunst is credited for the victory on his coaching resume.

Holtz did not coach the Gophers in that bowl game as he had already accepted the head coaching position at Notre Dame. Written into his contract was a “Notre Dame clause” permitting him to leave if that coaching opportunity arose.

He left rather unceremoniously.

At Notre Dame (1986–1996) Holtz achieved his greatest coaching successes: 100–30–2 overall; 1988 National Champion; School record 23-game winning streak; Back-to-back 12-win seasons for the first time in ND history; and Bowl Game appearances in nine consecutive campaigns, still a Fighting Irish record.

But in 1999 the NCAA placed Notre Dame on probation for two years targeting extra benefits extended to football players between 1993 and 1999 by Kim Dunbar, a South Bend bookkeeper involved in a $1.4 million dollar embezzlement scheme at her place of employment. Separate and distinct was one case of academic fraud found to have occurred under Bob Davie, Holtz’ successor.

The NCAA determined that Holtz and his staff learned of the violations but stood pat, failing to make appropriate inquiry or to take prompt action. The governing body deemed Holtz’ efforts “inadequate.”

With the signed, sealed and delivered guarantee of a lifetime contract in his hip pocket Holtz retired after the ’96 season. He walked away.

Maybe Broyles should have asked Holtz if he was ‘tired and burned out’ then, thirteen football seasons later.

It would be retirement #1.

Whippets like Holtz never feel fatigue or pressure in such a way that it may derail them from their laser-focused goals. Unless the obstacles are insurmountable. This becomes the case when the overbearing weight and cumulative effect of such accusatory rhetoric becomes too much.

For Holtz, due to whatever host of reasons, it did not and never would. Maybe it had something to do with growing up and seeing only one-quarter of a carefully placed pot to piss in. He needed a little bit of time and even less space. In fact, it was reported that in 1996 Holtz fielded an offer from the Minnesota Vikings ownership board to replace Dennis Green as Head Coach but the quintessential opportunist respectfully declined.

Holtz came out of retirement in 1999 after two seasons working as a commentator for CBS Sports to return as Head Coach of the University of South Carolina where he had been an assistant in the 1960s (1966–1967).

In typical Lou Holtz fashion he remained undaunted in the face of inheriting a 1–10 outfit and subsequently posting an 0–11 mark in his first season.

That imposing double-whammy might have signalled the beginning of the end for some but for Holtz it represented the beginning.

In year two his squad was 8–4, a turnaround from the previous season that was the nation’s best in 2000 and the third most dramatic improvement in NCAA history. In the New Year’s Day Outback Bowl Holtz’ Gamecocks spanked heavily favored Ohio State 24–7.

Both Football News and American Football Coaches Quarterly named Holtz their National Coach of the Year.

In his next season piloting the Garnet and Black their record was 9–3, the victory total then the second-highest in program history. An Outback Bowl dream rematch with the Buckeyes on January 1, 2002 resulted in a 31–28 Cock victory.

The best two-year mark in school football annals stood at 17–7 overall and 10–6 in Southeastern Conference play.

After consecutive 5–7 finishes in ’02 and ’03 Holtz went out a winner in his final season posting a 6–5 mark in 2004.

He had put Gamecock Football on the map with a pair of Top 20 seasons (#19 in 2000; #13 in 2001) and first-ever consecutive New Year’s Day Bowl appearances.

But as usual, all was not well.

In 2005 the NCAA brought the hammer down on the Holtz regime yet again saddling the program with three years of probation and two scholarship reductions for ten admitted violations, five of which were characterized as major. Improper tutoring and unallowed off-season practices as well as an overall institutional control deemed lacking were cited.

Holtz did a poor job in his attempt to lend clarity or demonstrate remorse when he remarked after the sanctions were announced that “…there was no money involved. No athletes were paid. There were no recruiting inducements. No cars. No jobs offered. No ticket scandal.”

Wow. Talk about living in a bubble.

In the wake of his second retirement Holtz remained in the public eye working for CBS Sports and ESPN as a college football analyst. He was knowledgeable, insightful, engaging and funny, usually partnering with Rece Davis and Mark May but all too soon found himself neck-deep in hot water — not an unfamiliar place.

Somehow he thought it appropriate to issue an on-air reference to Adolf Hitler while appearing on College Football Live in 2008.

Critiquing Michigan Head Coach Rich Rodriguez, Holtz wise-cracked, “Ya know Hitler was a great leader, too.”

Apologizing for his insensitive comment the next day during halftime of a game between Clemson and Georgia Tech, he no doubt wished that — for once perhaps — he had kept quiet.

A Head Football Coach from 1969–2004, Lou Holtz is the only one to take six different schools to bowl games and lead four different programs to Final Top 20 rankings. He was inducted into the Coach’s Wing of the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008. He has authored or contributed to no fewer than ten books. Not surprisingly he has been a sought-after motivational speaker.

While his mouth has made him plenty of dough it has cost him too.

His reputation is hardly pristine and his interest in that, at age eighty, appears to be waning.

While speaking at the luncheon hosted by the Republican National Coalition for Life in July of 2016 he waxed philosophically, a touch eugenically and highly questionably about immigration.

According to The Daily Beast, “Holtz said the high number of immigrants coming to the U.S. constitutes an ‘invasion.’ And he said new immigrants need to assimilate better. Holtz added that his grandparents learned English after immigrating to the U.S. from Ukraine, and insisted his family learn it as well. New immigrants to this country, he continued, need to learn and speak English and ‘become us.’”

In case his position needed further amplification and due to his profound inability to bite his tongue Holtz proclaimed, “I don’t want to become you. I don’t want to speak your language, I don’t want to celebrate your holidays, I sure as hell don’t want to cheer for your soccer team!”

How on earth does he do it?

How did he do it?

Maybe he should have kept that unfortunate Hitler reference on the back burner, opting instead for a stark and honest bit of quiet, contemplative self-appraisal.

Now that would have been something new and different.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in March 2017.]