lit a candle 5h agoMy dad had us watch Notre Dame highlights every fall growing up in Minnesota just because of Holtz, even though he barely coached here. Found out on my lunch break and texted my dad before anyone else. 89 years old, that man gave people decades of Saturdays.
Their story
Louis Leo Holtz, known to generations of college football fans simply as Lou, was born on January 6, 1937, in Follansbee, West Virginia, the son of Anne Marie (Tychonievich) Holtz and Andrew Holtz, a bus driver. His father was of German and Irish descent, and his mother's parents had emigrated…
Louis Leo Holtz, known to generations of college football fans simply as Lou, was born on January 6, 1937, in Follansbee, West Virginia, the son of Anne Marie (Tychonievich) Holtz and Andrew Holtz, a bus driver. His father was of German and Irish descent, and his mother's parents had emigrated from Chernobyl in Ukraine. He grew up across the Ohio River in East Liverpool, Ohio, graduating from East Liverpool High School in 1954.
He walked on to the football team at Kent State University, played linebacker in 1956 and 1957, and paid his way partly by working at the East Liverpool Review. He trained in Kent State's Army ROTC program, was commissioned as a field artillery officer in the United States Army Reserve, and graduated in 1959 with a degree in history. In 1961 he earned a master's degree in arts and education at the University of Iowa, where he had started coaching as a graduate assistant the year before. That July he married Beth Barcus.
Holtz spent most of the 1960s as an assistant at William & Mary, Connecticut, South Carolina and Ohio State, where he was on Woody Hayes's staff for the 1968 national championship. His first head coaching job came at William & Mary in 1969, and his 1970 team won the Southern Conference and played in the Tangerine Bowl. At North Carolina State from 1972 to 1975 he went 33-12-3, won the 1973 ACC title and took the Wolfpack to four bowl games. A single season with the New York Jets in 1976 ended with his resignation before the final game, and with one of his most quoted lines: "God did not put Lou Holtz on this earth to coach in the pros."
He went back to college football at Arkansas in 1977 and immediately produced one of the great bowl upsets. With key players injured or suspended, his Razorbacks beat Barry Switzer's Oklahoma 31-6 in the 1978 Orange Bowl. In seven seasons at Arkansas he went 60-21-2 and reached six bowl games before being let go after the 1983 season. Two years at Minnesota followed, and his contract there famously allowed him to leave if Notre Dame ever called.
Notre Dame called in late 1985. Holtz inherited a struggling program and rebuilt it with discipline and theatre in equal measure. He took the names off the backs of the jerseys to make the point that the team came first, a tradition Notre Dame still keeps in regular season games, and the "Play Like A Champion" sign became a fixture of the Irish locker room in his era. His 1988 team went 12-0, beat top-ranked Miami in the game remembered as "Catholics vs. Convicts", defeated West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl and won the consensus national championship. From 1988 to 1993 his teams went 64-9-1, including a 23-game winning streak and back-to-back 12-win seasons, and he took the Irish to nine straight bowl games. He left after the 1996 season with 100 wins at Notre Dame, then the second-most in school history behind Knute Rockne.
After two seasons as an analyst for CBS Sports, he came out of retirement in 1999 to coach South Carolina, a program that had gone 1-10 the year before. His first team went 0-11. His second went 8-4 and beat Ohio State in the Outback Bowl, the best turnaround in the country that year, and his third went 9-3 and beat Ohio State in the Outback Bowl again. He retired at the end of the 2004 season with a college record of 249-132-7. He remains the only coach to take six different programs to bowl games and the only one to lead four different programs to final top 15 rankings.
For a decade from 2005 he was a fixture on ESPN, trading opinions with Rece Davis and Mark May in the studio, and he became one of America's best known motivational speakers. He wrote or contributed to ten books, including Winning Every Day, his autobiography Wins, Losses, and Lessons, and Three Rules for Living a Good Life, built on the idea he repeated for decades: do what is right, do the best you can, and treat others as you would like to be treated. He played himself in The Blind Side and was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008, the same year Notre Dame unveiled a statue of him on campus.
His career also drew criticism. NCAA investigations led to sanctions involving programs during or connected to his tenures at Minnesota, Notre Dame and South Carolina, and some of his remarks on air and in politics caused controversy, including a 2008 Hitler comparison he apologized for the next day and his 2020 Republican National Convention speech, after which Notre Dame distanced itself from his comments about Joe Biden. In December 2020 President Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Away from the field, Lou and Beth Holtz were generous supporters of Notre Dame, funding scholarships, residence hall chapels and, in her memory, the Beth and Lou Holtz Family Grand Reading Room in Hesburgh Library. Beth survived a rare cancer diagnosed in 1997, when she was given a five percent chance of survival, and the couple became advocates for cancer research. She died on June 30, 2020, after almost 59 years of marriage. Former players created Holtz's Heroes to support teammates in hardship, and the family's Holtz Charitable Foundation carried on his work in the community.
In late January 2026, weeks after his 89th birthday, his family said he had entered hospice care in Orlando. He died on March 4, 2026, in Orlando, Florida, surrounded by family, at the age of 89. His family remembered him for "his enduring values of faith, family, service, and an unwavering belief in the potential of others." He was survived by his four children, Luanne, Skip, Kevin and Liz, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. His family announced a Mass of Christian Burial at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and he was laid to rest in Cedar Grove Cemetery on the Notre Dame campus.
Biography adapted from University of Notre Dame (fightingirish.com, March 4, 2026), Holtz family statement via Hindustan Times, ESPN, The New York Times, Wikipedia. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“God did not put Lou Holtz on this earth to coach in the pros.”
On leaving the New York Jets in December 1976
“Isn't it a heck of a note, Lou Holtz is going to be remembered along with Woody Hayes for having a fight at the Clemson game.”
At his last press conference as South Carolina coach, 2004
“There was no money involved. No athletes were paid. There were no recruiting inducements. No cars. No jobs offered. No ticket scandal.”
Statement after NCAA sanctions on South Carolina, 2005
“I think we proved we belong here.”
Classic Holtz line shared by Notre Dame Football on the day he died
“Do what's right, do the best you can, and treat others as you'd like to be treated.”
His three rules for living, the basis of his speeches and his 2019 book Three Rules for Living a Good Life
Photos
2President Ronald Reagan hosts the national champion Notre Dame team in the Rose Garden, January 18, 1989
Jan 1989 · by People Forever
Lou Holtz in July 2007
Jul 2007 · by People Forever
Same, my grandpa would quote him constantly