Devout Catholic, father of four, legendary football coach and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom Lou Holtz has died. He went to his heavenly reward on March 4, surrounded by family and friends in Orlando, Florida, at the age of 89.
Born in 1937 in Follansbee, West Virginia, and raised in East Liverpool, Ohio, Holtz grew up in a devout Catholic family. He attended St Aloysius Elementary School, where he was taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame. He later said of his schooling: “I owe the good sisters so much for what they taught me and will be forever grateful for their selfless dedication.”
At East Liverpool High School Holtz played football, basketball and baseball before going on to Kent State University in 1955, where he played college football as a linebacker when the legendary Don James was beginning his career as assistant coach.
After university Holtz began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at the University of Iowa in 1960 under head coach Forest Evashevski. During the 1960s he served in a series of assistant coaching roles before becoming head coach at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
In 1970 he was appointed head coach at North Carolina State University, leading the team to the Atlantic Coast Conference championship the following year. Further head coaching appointments followed – including a brief stint in the National Football League with the New York Jets in 1976 – before he was named head coach at the University of Notre Dame in 1986, replacing fellow practising Catholic Gerry Faust.
Holtz’s 11 seasons at Notre Dame began in the final year of Fr Theodore M Hesburgh’s service as university president. Hesburgh bluntly told him: “I will give you five years. If you ever cut corners, you will be out of here by midnight”. The priest’s successor Fr Edward “Monk” Molloy summarised the university’s attitude to football as “We like to win”. Holtz was expected to deliver – and he did.
Holtz inherited a struggling Notre Dame side that had finished 5–6 in 1985, but the turnaround was swift. In his second season, 1987, Tim Brown won the much coveted Heisman Trophy; a year later Holtz led the team to an undefeated season and the national championship, defeating West Virginia 34–21 in the Fiesta Bowl. Over eleven seasons he compiled a 100–30–2 record and coached a remarkable roster of future College Football Hall of Famers, including Brown, Raghib Ismail, Michael Stonebreaker, Aaron Taylor and Chris Zorich. Holtz himself was inducted in 2008.
His faith influenced much of his work. He attended Mass daily, prayed the rosary and frequented the sacrament of Confession. He also helped facilitate the refurbishment of four residence hall chapels and the construction of the Beth and Lou Holtz Grand Reading Room. His legacy at Notre Dame continues through Holtz’s Heroes, a charity set up in his name that provides scholarship aid and supports former student-athletes in times of hardship, the Lou and Beth Holtz Family Scholarship, which provides financial support to undergraduates, and his assistance to the Rockne Heritage Fund.
After leaving Notre Dame in 1996, he moved into broadcasting, working first as a college football analyst for CBS Sports and later for ESPN, where he became a regular studio analyst covering major college football programmes and bowl games. In 1999 he returned to coaching as head coach of the University of South Carolina football team. His first season there ended 0–11, but the programme improved sharply to 8–4 in 2000 and 9–3 in 2001, earning consecutive bowl appearances. Holtz remained at South Carolina until retiring from coaching for a second and final time after the 2004 season. His final game was notable for the Clemson–South Carolina football brawl.
An active Republican, he criticised Joe Biden as “a Catholic in name only” and considered entering the Republican primary for a congressional seat in Florida in 2009. He endorsed Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns and supported former University of Notre Dame professor and alumna Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Barrett’s appointment tipped the balance to a conservative majority and led to the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade. On 3 December 2020 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Donald Trump.
In 1961 he married his university sweetheart, Beth Barcus Holtz, a fellow devout Catholic. The couple had four children – Luanne, Skip, Kevin and Elizabeth – and were married for nearly six decades until her death in 2020. Their son Skip followed his father into coaching and is now head football coach of the Birmingham Stallions.
In January this year his son Kevin announced that his father was “presently facing a health challenge” and cited Psalm 41:3: “The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health.” He is survived by his four children and nine grandchildren, and will be remembered at Notre Dame for a legacy of faith and generosity.
