The Lou Holtz the World Didn’t Always See
· Yahoo Sports
There are so many Lou Holtz quotes that I use all the time, I’m pretty sure my kids can recite them back to me. Over the years, his words have stuck with me — not just because they’re memorable, but because he truly lived them. Some of my favorites are …
“I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care.”
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“Don’t tell your problems to people: eighty percent don’t care, and the other twenty percent are glad you have them.”
“Don’t ever promise more than you can deliver, but always deliver more than you promise.”
“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.”
“Everybody needs four things in life: something to do, someone to love, someone to believe in, and something to hope for.”
“If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.”
“If you want to be happy for an hour, eat a steak. If you want to be happy for a day, play golf. If you want to be happy for a week, go on a cruise. If you want to be happy for a lifetime, put your faith in Jesus Christ.”
“I can’t believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary.”
And of course, one of the most famous of all:
“To those who know Notre Dame, no explanation’s necessary. To those who don’t, no explanation will suffice.”
But what made Coach Holtz so special wasn’t just the quotes — it was the way he lived them every single day. I was lucky enough to experience that firsthand.
I first met Coach when I was in college. He came to our dorm, Siegfried Hall, and did a little meet-and-greet with us in a common area in the basement. The one thing I vividly remember him saying was that his door was always open. If we needed someone to talk to about a test we were stressing about, or a bad breakup, we should stop by — his door was always open.
How many Division I head football coaches do things like that? At the time we thought it was normal, but in hindsight, it sure wasn’t.
Flash forward to 2013. I was writing my first book, Echoes From the End Zone: The Men We Became, and Oscar McBride suggested I ask Coach to write the foreword for the book. Since I didn’t know Coach personally, Oscar offered to ask him on my behalf.
Oscar sent Coach’s assistant, Jan, an email explaining the book I had written. He included the first five chapters and asked if Coach might be willing to write the foreword for me. Jan sent a polite response saying that Coach was busy, but if we could send over a draft, Coach would put his touch on it and send it back.
I then asked Oscar to help me with the draft, since he knew Coach’s voice better than I did. Before we could even finish the draft, Coach had read the five chapters, written the foreword, and sent it back.
I have never been so shocked in my life.
I screamed. I cried.
I never in a million years thought Lou Holtz would not only like what I had written, but endorse it just like that. Incredible.
The book was published in August of 2013, and I was at Notre Dame for the home opener. Late that night, my phone suddenly started lighting up with text messages.
TURN ON ESPN!
LOU IS USING YOUR BOOK TO DEFEND HIS POINT IN AN ARGUMENT WITH MARK MAY.
Wait… what?!
Again, I was completely blown away. He would always pop up when I least expected it.
That fall of 2013, I was on a podcast, and midway through the interview the hosts said they had a surprise guest who wanted to speak with me …
AND IT WAS LOU HOLTZ.
He started talking about my book, about how proud he was of me, and rattling off stats about my book that I didn’t even know. He said he had read it forwards and backwards. It was surreal.
He would randomly call me and ask how he could help me. I am not a favor asker, so whenever he called I would thank him but tell him he had already done so much for me. One of the guys eventually told me, “He’s asking because he wants to talk to you. You need to have something ready for him to do.”
The next time I knew I was going to see Coach, I arrived at the event early so I could get a few minutes with him.
I walked up to him and told him I needed a favor.
He immediately lit up.
I told him my daughter was going to be a freshman at the University of Arkansas. He responded that he had a grandchild there, too. I told him that when I was at Notre Dame, my dad wrote me a letter every Sunday. I planned to do the same thing for my daughter, but I wondered if he might also send her a letter.
He said, “Of course!”
He asked me to send him her accomplishments, and he wrote the most beautiful letter.
When he told me he had mailed it, I let my daughter know she would be receiving a letter that week from a “guest letter writer.” She assumed it would be from Grandpa, since he had started the tradition. When she opened the envelope and saw that it was from Coach Holtz, she called me screaming.
In that moment, I realized something I had suspected all along — the man the world admired as a legendary coach was even more extraordinary as a person.
I never imagined that I would get to know him as well as I did. Any time I asked for help, he always said yes. Always. Coach Holtz didn’t just talk about leadership — he lived it. He cared deeply about people, he lifted others up, and he reminded all of us to aim higher than ordinary.
As Skip Holtz said last week, his dad was significant … and that he was.
He was truly one of a kind, and he will be greatly missed.
Rest in peace, Coach.
Lisa