From the 1981 Gator Bowl to a blurry selfie — a tribute to the coach Lou Holtz who just passed
Remembering Lou Holtz: What I Saw (and Couldn’t See) of a Legend From the 1981 Gator Bowl to a sports collectors convention — a fan’s tribute to the coach who just passed
Lou Holtz passed away on March 4, 2026, at the age of 89, and the tributes have been pouring in from across college football. Most of them focus on the championships, the records, the legacy. I’d like to offer something a little different — the perspective of a fan who kept running into the man at odd moments over the years, and somehow never quite managed to see him clearly. Or so I thought.
A Coaching Career Unlike Any Other
Before I get to my own stories, it’s worth appreciating just how remarkable Lou Holtz’s career was. He served as head football coach at William & Mary, North Carolina State, the New York Jets, Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame, and South Carolina, compiling a career college record of 249–132–7. He used to joke about his time at William & Mary that they “had more Marys than Williams” — which tells you everything you need to know about the roster he was working with and the sense of humor he brought to the job. He is the only coach in NCAA history to lead six different programs to bowl games, and the only coach to guide four different programs to final Top 20 rankings. The crown jewel was Notre Dame: his 1988 Fighting Irish went 12–0 and were crowned consensus national champions.
Before any of that, though, he was a young assistant learning his craft under Woody Hayes at Ohio State. That relationship would come up, memorably, the one time I really got to hear Holtz hold a room.
The Gator Bowl, 1981 — Sort Of
My first Lou Holtz sighting, if you can call it that, was at the 1981 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville — Arkansas versus UNC, two coaches who couldn’t have been more different. Holtz was demonstrative, intense, always working an angle. Dick Crum of North Carolina was steadier and more methodical, content to grind out wins and let the defense do the talking. The showman versus the stoic. The game itself was a thriller — a 31–27 UNC victory.
The problem was the fog. It rolled in thick off the St. Johns River until you genuinely could not see the sidelines from the stands. I watched one of the more compelling coaching contrasts in bowl history, and I saw approximately none of it. The scoreboard was visible. The coaches were not.
The Dinner Speech — When I Finally Heard the Man
Years later, I had a much better encounter at a USC-Notre Dame pregame fundraiser dinner. Holtz wasn’t even the keynote. That was fromer president Ronald Reagan. But as the coach of the FIghting Irish, his turn as a speaker was everything his reputation promised — funny, sharp, self-deprecating, and disarmingly wise. He mentioned his time as Woody Hayes’ assistant, and one story in particular brought the house down.
During a game against USC, O.J. Simpson broke loose on an lengthy touchdown run. Hayes, furious on the sideline, turned to his young assistant and demanded, “How come he got 80 yards?” Without missing a beat, Holtz replied: “That’s all he needed, coach.”
The room was still laughing when he moved into his next story — a joke I’ve never forgotten. It may be politically unpopular these days, but it might be worth repeating. Two men at a bar get into a debate about a Native American chief who supposedly had a perfect memory — remembered everything he’d ever seen or heard. One of them bets the other it’s a myth, and they track the chief down on a nearbyreservation. The first man steps forward and asks: “What did you have for breakfast ten years ago?” Without hesitation, the chief says: “Eggs.”
The men argue the whole way home. “Eggs? That proves nothing. Everybody ate eggs for breakfast.”
A year later, they’re still arguing. Finally they make the trip back to the reservation. The man walks up to the chief, raises his hand in greeting, and says, “How?”
The chief looks at him and says: “Scrambled.”
What made both stories land wasn’t just the punchlines — it was the way Holtz told them, with perfect timing and that offhanded grinning look that said he knew exactly what he was doing. That was his gift: he could be the funniest guy in the room and still make you feel like you’d learned something.
The Selfie That Wasn’t Blurry
Which brings me to my third and final Holtz encounter, at a sports collectors convention. I spotted him, made an approach, and asked for a selfie. He was gracious about it — put his arm around me, flashed that famous grin, and we got the shot.
For years I’ve been telling people the photo came out blurry. It’s become my go-to punchline: three encounters with Lou Holtz, couldn’t see him in the fog at the Gator Bowl, too far away at the dinner, and then finally got close enough for a photo and fumbled it.
Recently I dug up the actual picture. It’s fine. Completely fine. Both of us smiling, much more in focus than I recall.
It turns out the only thing blurry about my Lou Holtz memories was my memory itself. Which, when you think about it, is exactly the kind of story he would have appreciated — the punchline landing years after the setup, when you least expect it.
What He Left Behind
Here’s the thing about Lou Holtz: his actual philosophy was remarkably simple, and he never stopped repeating it. He distilled it to three rules — do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care. He had his “WIN” strategy — asking “What’s Important Now?” — as a way to stay focused on the present moment. And then there were the one-liners, delivered with that same Woody Hayes-worthy directness: “Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.”
Simple stuff. But he meant it, and you could tell — whether he was coaching a national championship team, working a fundraiser dinner crowd, or being patient with a fan at a card show who would spend the next twenty years misremembering the photo they took together.
Rest well, Coach.
Cover photo courtesy of the author — and yes, it’s in focus.
