Holtz offers a simple game plan for living a ‘good life’

By Doug Bean
Catholic Times Editor

Spring commencement season has passed, but Lou Holtz’s message to graduates – or really, to anyone – in his new book remains timeless.

Earlier this year, Ave Maria Press released Holtz’s Three Rules for Living a Good Life: A Game Plan for after Graduation. A significant portion of the book’s contents came from a commencement address the former University of Notre Dame football coach and retired ESPN college football analyst gave in May 2015 at Franciscan University of Steubenville, not far from where Holtz grew up in East Liverpool, Ohio.

The quick-witted and often self-deprecating Holtz, a practicing Catholic, distills his keys to a successful life into three simple ideas:

Do what is right.

Do everything to the best of your ability.

Show people you care.

“It’s a small book, it’s simple, but yet it’s so accurate,” Holtz said. “All my life I’ve never needed a fourth rule, and I’ve shared this with every major corporation, etc., and nobody has come back and said they needed a fourth rule.”

Holtz expands on those concepts in the 96-page book, which is available at bookstores and online through Amazon and other outlets. It’s an easy read that almost anyone could work through in a few hours. And his message should resonate with students because it’s practical and spiritual, but not preachy.

The 82-year-old Holtz, who lives in Orlando, Florida, uses his experiences in East Liverpool, at Kent State University and later when he entered the coaching profession to provide a relatable, real-life game plan for tackling the challenges of today’s complex world.
“We took the (speech) transcript and I added a few things to it,” Holtz said. “I could have added a lot more, but we didn’t want it to be too big. We just want to teach young people how to make good choices, particularly millennials, whose experience is everybody gets a trophy and there are no valedictorians, but all of a sudden when they get into the world they find out it’s a little different. If you follow those three rules, you’ll always make good choices.”

Holtz began coaching as a graduate assistant at the University of Iowa in 1960 under coach Forest Evashevski. He describes in the book how that opportunity came about and jump-started his career. He made stops as a full-time assistant at the College of William & Mary and the universities of Connecticut and South Carolina before landing at Ohio State University in 1968 to work for legendary coach Woody Hayes.

After one year in Columbus, Holtz returned to William & Mary as head coach for three seasons. From there, he went to North Carolina State University for four years, took a detour into the NFL with the New York Jets for one year as a head coach, and moved back into college coaching at the University of Arkansas for seven seasons and at the University of Minnesota for two before Notre Dame offered him a job to replace Gerry Faust for the 1986 season.

Two years later, Holtz achieved his greatest success when the Fighting Irish won the national championship in 1988. He remained at Notre Dame for 11 seasons and compiled a 100-32-2 record. After two years in broadcasting, he came out of retirement to take the head coaching job at South Carolina from 1999 to 2004 before  stepping down with an overall career record of 249-132-7 in college and 3-10 in the NFL. The College Football Hall of Fame member is the only person to lead six different schools to bowl games.

The younger generation more readily identifies Holtz from his work for ESPN on college football broadcasts from 2004 to 2015. During the past four years, he has continued to travel for presentations and work as a college football and golf analyst for SiriusXM Radio, though he has cut back on those endeavors to be close to his ailing wife, Beth, at their home in Florida. 

One of Holtz’s four children, Skip, is head football coach at Louisiana Tech University. A grandson, Trey Holtz, is a third-year graduate assistant on offense at Ohio State.

The Catholic Times spoke with  Holtz this month about the book; spiritual life; some of his coaching experiences, particularly with Hayes; his thoughts on new Ohio State coach Ryan Day and more. The following are his thoughts on a variety of topics:

Comparing Evashevski and Hayes, two of the Big Ten’s most successful coaches: “They were both taskmasters. Evy commanded respect. He talked quietly but had command of the team and he was great on fundamentals and great on execution. Woody Hayes was demanding as well. Both of them demanded results. It was our obligation to provide great coaching for both. They both strongly believed in fundamentals. They had a philosophy in football that they believed in strongly.” 

On becoming a college football coach: “I got out of the Army and I was offered a job at Conneaut (Ohio) High School. I was going to be backfield coach and teach history. But unbeknownst to me, Trevor Rees, my college coach, calls Evashevski. (Rees) was in the Navy with Forest Evashevski. Trevor Rees was an All-American tight end at Ohio State the same time Evy was an All-American at Michigan. (Rees) asked Evy if he would give me a graduate assistant position. And this was when graduate assistants were very rare. They worked it out that I would teach physical education to the physically handicapped and work with the Iowa football program in exchange for room and board and books for my master’s degree and a small stipend. And that is how I ended up at the University of Iowa. I never applied. All of a sudden, I was there. If it wasn’t for that, I would have been at Conneaut High School teaching history and coaching the backfield.”

His experience with Hayes at Ohio State: “Woody is one of the great people I’ve ever been around, but you don’t always appreciate him until you leave. He was very demanding in every area of your life. He wanted you to be as good academically as you were in football. He wanted you to be a good citizen. He knew how to win, he believed in execution, he was very positive, he left nothing to chance. But he also could be totally upsetting to you. He wasn’t always fair to you. I remember he fired me four times and told me not to worry until he put it in writing. 

“First game after I left Ohio State (as William & Mary coach) was in Cincinnati against the Cincinnati Bearcats. We opened up there a week before Ohio State did. Woody Hayes came to my game and brought (quarterbacks) Rex Kern and Ron Maciejowski with him. We lost 25-19 or something like that. (Woody) talked to my mother, talked to my team. He never again went through East Liverpool, Ohio, that he didn’t stop and call my mother. That’s what people don’t know about. But that’s why anybody who ever played or coached for him absolutely owed so much to him.”

Thoughts on Urban Meyer, Ryan Day and Ohio State football in 2019: “Urban Meyer coached for me (at Notre Dame) and I’ve been very close to him over all these years. He’s very high on Ryan Day. Ryan Day did a good job filling in for him. In addition to that, my grandson, Trey Holtz, is a graduate assistant at Ohio State. He loved Urban Meyer and he loves Ryan Day, and he thinks he’ll do a great job. I can tell you this: That quarterback, (Justin) Fields, he’s the real deal. He’s got a very strong arm, very athletic, very mobile, very competitive.” 

Objective for the book and its message: “It really helps your self-image, your self-confidence, you feel good about yourself when you know you did everything to the best of your ability. You treat people the right way and always try to do the right thing. There’s never a right time to do the wrong thing.

“The three questions that everybody asks mentally – I don’t care whether you’re talking about your child, your spouse, your friend, your employer, the employees, the people you work with – are: No. 1, can I trust you? You cannot have a relationship if it’s not based on trust. There’s only one way in this world that I know that you can guarantee that trust will be built: if both parties do the right thing. That’s why doing the right thing is so important, so you can build trust with the people you want to have a relationship with.

“The second question that everybody asks: Are you committed to excellence? Do you want to be good, or are you going to cut corners? Whatever we do, we’re going to do it to the best of our ability, and that’s why rule No. 2 answers that question. 

The last question, and maybe the most important question that everybody asks, is: Do you care about me? And that is so critical, and it’s so important to understand that you’re never going to meet anybody that doesn’t have a problem, have a difficulty, that doesn’t need encouragement. 

“What I found is you’re always going to have problems, you’re always going to have difficulties, that’s part of life. I guarantee you that with a person you have a problem with, you identify the problem when you ask those three questions. And when you know what the problem is, you can sit down with them and say, ‘I don’t believe you’re doing the best you can.’ You never attack the performer, you attack the performance.”

How he developed the three rules: “I leave Ohio State, and my first year at William & Mary was a disaster. I tried to be Woody Hayes and I tried to run the Ohio State offense, but I didn’t have Ohio State personnel. So I sat down in the offseason and I tried to analyze why Woody Hayes was successful, why was Forest Evashevski successful. I made a list. And I made a list of coaches that weren’t as sharp. You try to compare them. There’s only three differences I found. You could trust them; if they told you something, you could take it to the bank. They also were totally committed to excellence in everything they did, and they cared about other people off the field and on the field. The group that sort of screwed everything up, I couldn’t trust them. They cut every corner in the world. They only cared about themselves. And from that is how those three rules came about.”

Differences between eras: “Today, everybody wants to talk about their rights and privileges. Forty years ago, we talked about our obligations and our responsibilities. Many of the people who influenced my life had been in World War II, had been in combat, etc. The one thing you learned in the military is the obligation and responsibility you had to other people.

“If I were coaching again, I’d be a better coach than I was before because I’d still emphasize fundamentals, I would be more demanding than I’ve ever been before. However, what you say to a millennial is important, but what you say to them is not nearly as important as your tone of voice. Your tone of voice is not nearly as important as your facial expression. So the madder you get, the softer you talk, the more you smile, but you don’t alter the message. Millennials deep down inside want to be good, they just don’t always know how.”

On being successful: “There is a burning desire inside of us that we want to be special, we want to be exceptional. We’ve been taught (today) that everybody’s the same, no one is better than anyone else. That’s not what made this country great. It’s a competition. You have the right to succeed, but you also have the right to fail. If you fail, you have the right to benefit and learn and try again.” 

Influence of Catholic faith on his life: “It’s always been strong (starting with) being taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame for eight years, being an altar boy, etc. Having faith isn’t going to mean you’re not going to have problems. I honestly don’t know how people handle all the difficulties without having a faith. I think four things everyone needs is: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for and something to believe in. In my case, you’re either going to believe in yourself or you’re going to be believe in God. I choose the latter. I always say: Do what’s right, and if you have any doubts, get out the Bible.

“I think it’s wrong to be bitter. We all have difficulties in life, and you can’t go through life being bitter about something. You’ve got to let it go, or after you pass away your wife is going to have to hire pallbearers because you don’t have six friends.

“I don’t preach or lecture, but I hope the way I live my life reflects my faith in God.”