BY KEVIN DI CAMILLO
Lou Holtz is many things: a Hall of Fame football coach, a best-selling author, a former ESPN analyst, an ardent Roman Catholic, a man devoted to his family, and a motivational speaker. But to many people he is revered for one thing: giving University of Notre Dame football its last national championship in 1988.
Catholic Digest spoke with Holtz, whose new book, Three Rules for Living a Good Life: A Game Plan for After Graduation (Ave Maria Press), was published last year.
Q: Coach Holtz, describe your new book.
A: The one word I would use is the word choice, because whatever happens to us is basically based on the choices we make. And in the book I just tried to put down three “rules” that will help you make good choices.
Q: Do you consider this more of a “spiritual” book?
A: I’ve written three New York Times bestselling books, and the publishers came to me with the idea of writing a book for millennials graduating from college, so that’s how this new book came about. I don’t try to separate my religious beliefs from my books — it’s just the way I try to operate my life.
Q: Speaking of religious beliefs, you’ve often spoken of the impact the nuns who taught you had on your life. How did they?
A: I was taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame, and I still remember most of them very vividly and by name to this day. The sisters were the best teachers I’ve had of any group, and I often ask myself why. And the logical conclusion I came to is: their life is God and teaching. Period. They don’t have a social life, they don’t have a family life, they don’t have a public life — they spend their lives dedicated to the Lord and to their students. The normal teacher will have seven or eight different priorities, as well as their students — at least that’s my observation.
Q: As a Notre Dame graduate student, I was in the stands — and after the game on the field — on Nov. 13, 1993, when No. 2 Notre Dame upset No. 1 Florida State in South Bend. Was that perhaps your greatest on-field victory, since even at home the Fighting Irish were 14-point under dogs? Do you remember that game?
A: I remember almost every game going back to my time at the College of William and Mary. That win over Florida State was a great win — but we expected to win. I told the team before we left the locker room: “Hey, this game doesn’t have to be close. We have no ‘obligation’ to the TV to keep it interesting.” So we expected to win. As a matter of fact, the margin of victory should have been much higher than what it actually was. [The final score was Notre Dame 31, Florida State 24]. But the bottom line was we expected to win that game.
Q: As you get older —with age comes wisdom, but also failing powers — what is the biggest challenge you face daily?
A: I think that when you are younger, everything you believe — religiously, politically, socially — are all basically what your parents believe. Then you go to college, and you start making those choices on your own. And you think that you can accomplish everything on your own when you are younger. As you get older, you realize that you are not going to be here forever, that there has to be some acceptance of death, and that’s when you need your faith. As they say, “There’s no atheist in a foxhole.” So the older we get, the more and more we realize that life does end. And to me those are the different stages you go through.
Q: Do you recall the 1993 ESPY Awards where coach Jimmy Valvano, who was dying of cancer, called out to you from the podium when he accepted the Arthur Ashe Award?
A: I remember that. I was there; I was a candidate for coach of the year and I was sitting next to Regis Philbin when Jim pointed to me. I knew Jim quite well. My wife has stage 4 cancer. But like Jim, she’s marvelous, she’s upbeat, she has a strong faith in God. Illness is just a part of life, really.
Q: Why were you successful at coaching?
A: The ability to communicate with other people. You define a goal, you get the team to believe that they can achieve that goal, and you show them a way to accomplish that goal. I never thought that I was just coaching football — I always thought that I was coaching life.
Q: It’s significant that you mention “communication” because — as some people know but many don’t — you had a speech impediment, and yet you overcame it to become a great public speaker and coach. What was that challenge like?
A: I remember quite vividly — one of my most vivid memories of being a youngster — that my mother told me I was going to have to have surgery because the doctors said that I was “tongue-tied.” And I slurred my Ss badly. I still recall a 1946 Catholic high school football game: The game ended in a 6-6 tie. And all my friends — or my so-called friends — kept asking me after the game, “What was the score in that game?” and I would answer “thixth-thixth.” And then 10 minutes later they would ask me the same question again: “What was the score of that game?” And I thought, “What’s wrong with these people? They can’t remember the score!” But they just wanted to laugh at me because of the way I slurred my speech.
But ultimately the doctors decided not to do surgery — to this day I can’t roll my Rs — but I just tried to speak a little more slowly. The doctors thought of having me practice talking with marbles in my mouth, but my mother was afraid that I would swallow them, so we didn’t do that either. It just comes down to this: You are what you are, you live with what you have, and then you try to maximize the abilities you do have and minimalize your liabilities. It’s common sense.
Q: So you just persevered with the speech impediment?
A: I guess so; people seem to understand what I’m saying!
Q: My favorite saying of yours is: “Don’t be the best team in the country; just be the best team in the stadium.” Do these aphorisms just come to you or do you have to really work on them?
A: No, no, they just come to mind, such as “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.” I once was on a flight where I sat next to a gentleman for four hours. When the flight was over, I went up to him and said, “Would you like to take a picture with me?” He didn’t ask me, I asked him. So it is more important to be nice. But these sayings just come back to my mind: “Play like a champion today — LIVE like a champion today.” Whenever I’m asked to autograph a book about my quotes, I usually write: “The smartest thing I ever said was ‘no comment.’”
Q: You often remind viewers of college football games that these players are barely grown-up “kids” (ages 18 to 22) playing a game, and they are bound to make childish errors. How did you find the patience to put up with “dumb penalties” that put your teams at jeopardy without breaking the spirit of the offending player?
A: When a player makes a foolish penalty, you try to emphasize to them that it hurts the team! And if you want to fail, you have the right to fail — but you don’t have the right to make other people fail because of your penalty. And when you join a team, or a business, or the military, you have obligations and responsibilities, and if you make some dumb, stupid penalty, it hurts all of those around you. Again, it’s commonsense, really.
Q: What’s it like for you to return to Notre Dame and see a statue of yourself there? You’re next to legends such as Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, and Ara Parseghian. Can you describe what that feels like?
A: That statue is there not because of what I did, but because of what other people did. Of course I’m honored and I’m humbled, but by the same token, it’s a tribute to the unselfishness and hard work of countless others. It reminds me that God had a plan for my life and hopefully I used the talents and abilities he gave me. I loved coaching; I had fun coaching; I never made that much money coaching, but it’s really what other people did that made my success possible.
Q: Do you mean other people gave you the opportunity to become successful?
A: Yes, but you have to be persistent. Life can treat you unfairly, but you don’t quit — quitting is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. So you continue to persist, you continue to believe, and I can guarantee that you will not succeed if you do not believe in yourself.
Q: As you get older, do you find that the faith journey is harder to follow?
A: You come to the realization that you don’t go to church to honor the priest or to honor the pope. You go to church to maintain and deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ. I go to church to grow my relationship with Jesus Christ.
