Lou Holtz, 1937-2026

Lou Holtz has died. I will be (by my standards) brief, because I didn't like him:

Louis Leo Holtz was born on January 6, 1937 in Follansbee, West Virginia, not far from Wheeling, or from Pittsburgh. He grew up in nearby East Liverpool, Ohio, and attended nearby Kent State University, where he played linebacker. He was an assistant coach at Iowa, William & Mary, Connecticut, South Carolina, and on Woody Hayes' staff when Ohio State won the National Championship in 1968.

His 1st head coaching job was at William & Mary, from 1969 to 1971. He went just 13-20 with them, but he did get them into the 1970 Tangerine Bowl. This game, which became the Citrus Bowl, was then for what would now be Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) teams, or (before that) Division I-AA. In 1972, he was named head coach at North Carolina State. He coached them for 4 seasons, winning the Atlantic Coast Conference title in 1973, and getting them into a bowl game every year, including winning the 1972 Peach Bowl and the 1973 Liberty Bowl.

In 1976, he got his 1st NFL job. It turned out to be his last. It was with the New York Jets, and Holtz tried to install the veer offense, a run-oriented offense. And the quarterback was Joe Namath. This was not the 1969 Namath with the cannon arm and the swagger, it was the 1976 Namath with 7 added years of pounding and two bad knees. He couldn't run it.

I think we should all be glad

this picture is not in color.

It was the 1970s, after all.

He wasn't the first college football coach to bomb out in the NFL, and he wouldn't be the last: The Jets went 3-10, with 2 of the wins being by 5 and 7 points. On December 9, with one game to go, and one step ahead of the law, Holtz quit, saying, "God did not put Lou Holtz on this earth to coach in the pros."

Frank Broyles retired as head coach at the University of Arkansas. Since he was still their athletic director, he chose his successor, and he chose Holtz. In that 1st season, 1977, he took them to 11-1 and victory over Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. Their only loss was 13-9 to Texas, costing them the Southwest Conference title. In 1979, they won the SWC title, but lost the Sugar Bowl to Alabama. They won the Hall of Fame Bowl in 1980, and the Bluebonnet Bowl in 1982.

In 1984, he left Arkansas to become head coach at Minnesota. In just 2 years, he got a program that had been doormats for a generation to victory in the 1985 Independence Bowl. It was the program's only bowl game win between the 1961 and 2002 seasons.

That got him hired by Notre Dame in 1986. In his 2nd season, he got them to the Cotton Bowl, but they lost. Like George Gipp, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian and Dan Devine, Lou Holtz led Notre Dame to the National Championship in just his 3rd season, going 12-0, including their Number 1 vs. Number 2 "Catholics vs. Convicts" game against the University of Miami, the defending National Champions. They capped it by beating West Virginia in the 1989 Fiesta Bowl.

They nearly did it again in 1989, losing only to revenge-minded Miami on Thanksgiving weekend. Their win in the Orange Bowl cost Colorado the National Championship, throwing it to Miami. Colorado avenged this loss in the next season's Orange Bowl, winning the National Championship.

Notre Dame won the Sugar Bowl in the 1991 season, and the Cotton Bowl in each of the next 2 seasons. But losses to Stanford in 1992 and Boston College in 1993 -- just 1 week after a Number 1 vs. Number 2 "Game of the Century" with Florida State -- cost them the National Championship both times.

His next 3 seasons were not as successful, and he retired after the 1996 season. The Minnesota Vikings offered him their head job, but he turned it down, and took a studio analyst job with CBS. In 1999, he took the job at South Carolina, going 0-11, before going 8-4 and 9-3, and winning back-to-back Outback bowls. He retired after going 8-4 in 2004, and went back to ESPN before retiring after the 2015 season.

His college coaching record was 249-132-7, including a 10-8-1 record in bowl games, for a winning percentage of .651. He won an ACC title, a SWC title, and the 1988 National Championship. He was beloved among college football fans, as both a coach and a broadcaster.

He was also a horrible person, supporting horrible people. In 1990, he supported the successful re-election campaign of race-baiting homophobic Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. In 2016, he spoke at the Republican Convention, endorsed Donald Trump, and criticized Colin Kaepernick for his kneeling in opposition to police brutality.

In the 2020 campaign, he again spoke at the Republican Convention, again endorsed Trump, made multiple appearances on Sean Hannity's Fox News Channel show, supported Amy Coney Barrett's nomination for the Supreme Court, and said -- remember, he had been the head coach at the University of Notre Dame, a towering symbol of American Catholicism -- that Joe Biden was "a Catholic in name only." This statement was so foul that Notre Dame released a statement distancing itself from it.

Trump gave Holtz the Presidential Medal of Freedom, something he absolutely would not have done if Holtz had supported Democrats. Holtz was also elected to the Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame, the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, and the Indiana Sports Hall of Fame. Notre Dame does not have an intra-university Hall of Fame.

Lou Holtz died today, at age 89, in Orlando, Florida. He was predeceased by his wife, Beth Barcus, and was survived by 4 children, including 3 Notre Dame graduates.

One of those is Louis Leo Holtz Jr., a.k.a. Skip Holtz, who has been an assistant to Bobby Bowden at Florida State, offensive coordinator to his father at both Notre Dame and South Carolina, and head coach at Connecticut, East Carolina, South Florida and Louisiana Tech. For the last 4 seasons, he was the head coach of the UFL's Birmingham Stallions.

With the death of Lou Holtz, the earliest living former head coach of the Jets is now Bruce Coslet (1990-93); and the earliest living former Notre Dame head coach is Holtz's successor, Bob Davie (1997-2001).

I will close with a joke I heard while Holtz was still in South Bend. A man walks into a bar, and announces that he's the world's biggest Notre Dame fan. Nobody believes him. He tells the bar, "I've got a tattoo of Paul Hornung on one side of my ass, and Joe Montana on the other!" Both had been quarterbacks at Notre Dame. The bartender says, "Prove it!" So the guy drops his pants and moons the bartender. Talk about a "South Bend." The bartender says, "I don't see Hornung, and I don't see Montana, but that's definitely Lou Holtz in the middle!"