Lou Holtz has never faced an opponent who couldn’t beat him. After all, he’s amassed nearly 250 wins and a national title, cementing himself as one of college football’s most endearing yet unlikable figures – a unique iconoclast filled with unique professions.
A diminutive force who restored Notre Dame’s greatness and demanded it wherever he went has died in Orlando, Florida, Notre Dame announced Wednesday. He was 89 years old.
Spokeswoman Katie Lonergan said the family did not disclose the cause of death.
“Notre Dame mourns the loss of Lou Holtz, a legendary football coach, beloved member of the Notre Dame family, and devoted husband, father and grandfather,” Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd said in a statement.
His son Skip, who followed Holtz into coaching, said in a post on X that his father had passed away and was “resting peacefully at home.”
“He was successful, but more importantly, he mattered,” Skip Holtz wrote.
Holtz went 249-132-7 in a career that spanned 33 seasons and included stops at Minnesota, Arkansas, South Carolina and, most notably, Notre Dame.
In 1988, he won his lone national championship, a victory over West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl, but also a 31-30 win over Miami earlier in the season. This was one of the notable encounters in the so-called “Catholics vs. Prisoners” rivalry of the 80s.
Of all the celebrities who attend college football games during the day, none is bigger than Holtz. He was only 5-foot-10, but he commanded the sideline like a much taller man. Leading the big game was sometimes his best theater.
Armed with an unpretentious brand that can veer into cliché but always contains a kernel of truth, Holtz has lit up billboards and motivational posters with dozens of memorable quotes and pithy observations. In fact, they are all designed to provide inspiration.
—“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.”
—”When all is said and done, more is said than done.”
—“When you win, you’re never as good as they say you are, and when you lose, you’re never as bad as they say you are.”
He can make any team, from Akron to Army to Alabama, beat the world in any given week. Often, his Fighting Irish found a way to win.
Restoring Notre Dame to greatness
Before Holtz arrived in South Bend, Notre Dame was mired in mediocrity, a mere shell of a program built around Knute Rockne, Ara Parseghian, the Golden Dome and Touchdown Jesus. Holtz quickly turned things around, leading the Irish to the Cotton Bowl in his second year and winning the national title the season after.
His 1988 and 1989 teams won a school-record 23 consecutive games and beat three No. 1 teams: Miami in 1988, Colorado in 1989 and Florida State in 1993.
The Irish finished second in the 1993 AP poll. Holtz left South Bend after the 1996 season with a record of 100-30-2.
“Lou and I shared a very special relationship,” said current Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman, who led the Irish back to the 2025 national title game. Holtz attended the contest and spiced things up by trolling the Ohio State program that beat the Irish that day. “Our relationship meant a lot to me because I admired the values he used to build the foundation of his coaching career: love, trust and commitment.”
Detour to NFL after fast start
Notre Dame was the highlight of a head coaching career that began at William & Mary and North Carolina State and also included a one-year break in the NFL.
Like many who have mastered the college game in their careers, he failed there in 1976, resigning with one game left in a 3-10 campaign with the New York Jets and declaring, “God never put Lou Holtz on this earth to be a professional coach.”
That opened the door for Arkansas, one of four schools he ranked in the AP top 25. His team played in 18 games there. Eight of them were in the top ten.
After Notre Dame, Holtz transitioned to the TV booth with CBS and promised never to coach again.
“I said, ‘You could put it in granite.’ I have a granite stone,” Holtz said. “It wasn’t very good granite.”
He held a public position at South Carolina, where he once served as an assistant coach. Despite posting a career-worst 0-11 record in his first season with the Gamecocks, Holtz went 17-7 over the next two seasons, beating No. 9 Georgia in his second game of 2000 and beating Ohio State twice in the Outback Bowl.
He left the sidelines for good after the 2004 season, then returned to broadcasting and worked for ESPN for 11 more seasons.
Core values of trust and making the most of players
Each program he led in the field reached new heights in part because he never wavered his core values: trust, commitment to excellence, and consideration for others.
“I think you have to go there with a vision of where you want to go and a plan for how you’re going to get there,” Holtz said. “We have to hold people accountable and believe that it is possible.”
Although unconventional methods were sometimes used, the results were impressive.
He once tackled quarterback Tony Rice after a botched play in practice, and was widely criticized in 1991 when he grabbed the player’s face mask and dragged him to the sideline, yelling at him the entire time after the player committed a personal foul. Holtz later apologized.
Holtz stopped his leading rusher, Tony Brooks, and his leading receiver, Ricky Watters, in 1988. Because the night before Notre Dame faced then-No. 2 Southern California, I was 40 minutes late for a team meal. Ireland still won 27-10.
At Arkansas, he once suspended three starting offensive players for disciplinary reasons before facing then-second-ranked Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. Arkansas, an 18-point underdog, still won 31-6.
But as picky as he was, Holtz used his charm and eye to find good players and recruit the best. Notre Dame’s 1990 recruiting class included five future first-round NFL draft picks, and he found a unique way to motivate his team.
“Every time I went to practice, the first thing I said was, ‘Oh, what a great day to work,’” Holtz recalled. “It could be raining. It could be anything. I want to say, ‘Honey, I’m glad you’re here. There’s no better place than here.’ I used to tell them, ‘I’ll go around the world and talk to every major company and they’ll pay me. I talk to you for free and you don’t have to take notes.’”
Born in West Virginia, he dreamed of becoming a high school coach.
Louis Leo Holtz was born on January 6, 1937 in Follansby, West Virginia and aspired to become a high school football coach. His future wife broke off their engagement in 1960. That’s when Holtz, a 150-pound linebacker at Kent State, took a graduate assistant job at Iowa. A year later he married Beth Barcus, and they remained together for more than 50 years.
She inspired Holtz again in 1966, when she lost her job eight months pregnant with her third child. Beth bought him a book on goal setting, and Holtz made a wish list of things he wanted to do. That means attending a White House dinner, appearing on “The Tonight Show” and meeting the Pope.
Holtz said there were 107 items on the list: “She said, ‘Oh, that’s great. Why don’t you get a job?’ So I made it 108,” he said.
In 2008, Holtz was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and Notre Dame Cathedral erected a statue of him outside its home stadium.
He said several times that he also planned to be buried on that campus. He thought it was a perfect fit, as he said in 2015: “The alumni buried me here every Saturday.”
