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| Lou Holtz overlooking NC State's practice field. |
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This story was originally published in the Greensboro News & Record prior to Lou Holtz's first game at South Carolina, which was against Carter-Finley Stadium on Sept. 4, 1999. It was also reprinted in the NC State Alumni Magazine.
It has been updated at the end to reflect the end of Holtz's career following the 2004 season.
By Tim Peeler
© Landmark Communications, 1999
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Fittingly enough, it was after a South Carolina game that Lou Holtz made an eternal impression on one of his NC State stars.
It was November 1974, and the third-year coach had just beaten the Gamecocks, as they did all four times when Holtz was the Pack’s coach from 1972-75. Seventh-ranked Penn State was on its way to town for the first time ever, and in nine previous meetings, the Wolfpack had never really come close to beating the Nittany Lions.
Holtz, who had taken the Wolfpack to the top 10 earlier in the season, was disappointed that back-to-back losses to North Carolina and Maryland had ended his team’s chances for a second consecutive ACC Championship, but he held out hope that the Wolfpack could return to the Top 10 with season-ending wins over the Nittany Lions and Arizona State.
"When we got into the lockerroom after the South Carolina game, he sat us all down and told us all we had to do was do our own jobs to the best of our ability," said Dave Buckey, the Wolfpack quarterback at the time. ``He said not to worry about what anyone else was going to do, just do what you had to do to beat your man.
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| Joe Paterno and Lou Holtz |
"Then he added, 'Because I guaran-damn-tee you, I’m going to go out-coach Joe Paterno next week, and we’re going to win that game.'"
With that, Holtz stormed out of the lockerroom and the place erupted in cheers. Those cheers echoed for a long time, too, because the Wolfpack ended its nine-game losing streak to Penn State with a 12-7 victory, perhaps the biggest win in Holtz’s four seasons with the Wolfpack.
"I will believe to the day I die that we won that game when Coach Holtz told us that," Buckey said. "He is amazing. I think he is the best underdog coach in America, hands down. You don’t want to be playing him when you are the favorite."
In his new job, as head coach at tradition-poor South Carolina, Holtz will be a perpetual underdog. It’s a challenge he will savor when he makes his return to college football tonight at 7:30 in Carter-Finley Stadium, when the Gamecocks face the No. 24 Wolfpack.
Rebuilding The Ruins, Part VI
A master motivator and part-time magician, Holtz admits he’s never been asked to pull off a bigger miracle than turning South Carolina into a consistent winner. The Gamecocks are coming off a 1-10 season that ended Brad Scott's tenure here.
"I have never had a team with a bigger challenge than this, I need not tell you that," Holtz says. "It doesn’t mean that it’s insurmountable. It doesn’t mean it can’t be accomplished. It just means it won’t be easy."
But, then, it never has been. It wasn’t easy at William & Mary, where he guided the school to the Tangerine Bowl in his second season.
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| The sidelines of Carter Stadium |
It wasn’t easy at N.C. State, where he took a team with a 9-21-2 record in the three previous years under Earle Edwards and one-year interim Al Michaels, to four consecutive bowl games.
It wasn’t easy at Arkansas, where he took over for legendary coach Frank Broyles and immediately pulled off one of college football’s biggest upsets in the 1977 Orange Bowl in his first year at the helm.
It wasn’t easy at Minnesota, a team that went 1-10 the year before Holtz arrived, but was invited to play in the Independence Bowl after his second year.
And it wasn’t easy at Notre Dame, his dream job, where he was hired to knock the dents out of the Golden Dome left by Gerry Faust. Two years later, the Fighting Irish won the national championship.
At every one of those stops, Holtz has taken over a team with a losing record, then guided them to a bowl within two years of his arrival. He’s won over fans and players alike with his well-rehearsed aphorisms and ice-breaking magic tricks, though he almost always wears out his welcome with the administration.
Holtz left coaching in 1997, tired of fans expectations and tired of fighting the ghosts of Notre Dame’s coaching legends, not to mention his spoiled relationship with his boss, Notre Dame athletics director Mike Wadsworth. He spent two years working as a television commentator and giving motivational speeches at $20,000 a pop, before he decided he needed one last rebuilding challenge. His wife, Beth, was progressing in her treatments for throat cancer, and Holtz kept finding himself in first-class airplane seats with nothing to do but fidget. All that space to stretch out, and no strategies to plan.
"I talked with him when he resigned, and he said he might want to get back into it," Florida State coach and long-time friend Bobby Bowden says. "For me, there were two good bits of news: No. 1, that he came back to coaching.
"And No. 2, that he ain't in my conference."
So it wasn’t exactly a surprise when word spread that Holtz was looking into several coaching opportunities last fall.
"Anybody who knew anything about Lou, knew he wasn’t going to stay out of coaching," says Virginia head coach George Welsh. "He missed coaching big-time college football."
This Is the Big Time?
So how did Holtz wind up here, the land of the ``Chicken Curse,’’ with a team that lost to Vanderbilt just last year?
Gamecock athletics director Mike McGee, who never had success beating Holtz’s Wolfpack team when McGee was the coach at Duke, made a strong pitch to lure Holtz back to South Carolina. The coach spent two years as an assistant to Paul Dietzel in Columbia in the late 1960s.
Holtz claims to have turned McGee down three different times, before finally relenting after a bad day at the golf course.
"I am a teacher,’’ Holtz says. "What talents I have are geared to helping people realizing a dream and helping them achieve it. I didn’t think I would coach again after Notre Dame, because where do you go from there except straight to heaven and sit beside the pope?
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| Champions of the 1972 Peach Bowl |
So Holtz cleaned out his warehouse full of motivational tricks and shipped them to South Carolina, where he had to change the perception both inside and outside the program. He was welcomed by 4,000 spectators at his introductory press conference at Williams-Brice Stadium, then by a roomful of glum faces on his players during the spring.
"I would just like to see our guys smile," Holtz says. "It’s not like we are about to enter into a Death March."
But for most of its 105 years, South Carolina has been the Bataan of college football. Only once has the school won more than eight games in a season. Only three times in its history have the Gamecocks put together more than three consecutive winning seasons. In nine bowl appearances, the Gamecocks’ only victory came in 1995 when they beat West Virginia in the Carquest Bowl, a postseason futility of laughable proportions for a school that wants so badly to do well in football.
"You can’t win the national championship by winning the Carquest Bowl," Holtz says.
Among the first things Holtz did was try to improve the Gamecock’s Chicken Strut with cosmetic changes. It’s the same thing he did at NC State when he took over for Michaels in 1972. Holtz brought back white helmets with a block-letter S on side, made the uniforms look more traditional and removed players’ names from the back of their jerseys.
"We went 1-10 last year and it seemed like every game we got lower and lower on ourselves to where we felt we can’t win anyway," says senior running back Boo Williams. "We have a new attitude, new team. We started completely over.
"Our confidence level is totally different."
Holtz made more substantial changes, too, like extending practice time, improving off-season training and cleaning house of some problem players, including the team’s leading rusher the last two years.
"In the past, we haven’t always had confidence in our preparation and we haven’t always had confidence in our system," says senior tight end Trey Pennington. "With Coach Holtz, right or wrong, you know everybody is going in one direction, and when everybody does that, you can’t help but do right.
"I think 80 percent of football is mental and 20 percent is physical, and he has helped the mental part of our game. Just having him on the sidelines brings a lot of confidence to our team."
When Holtz walked into the team meeting room on the first day of fall practice, he still saw a lot of diverted eyes and downcast looks. After a clamorous attitude adjustment, in which he told his players to get a smile on their face and a song in their heart, he had the players looking squarely in his eyes.
"It’s almost like you are in a dream," says senior safety Ray Green. "He’s one of the greatest coaches to ever coach the game talking to us. He chose South Carolina, to make us better."
And that’s no small challenge.
Remembering NC State
Holtz will never forget the day he met NC State athletics director Willis Casey. The two were supposed to meet in secret at a gas station in South Hill, Va., for an informal interview. Both showed up early and waited for the other to arrive.
After waiting for an hour, Casey wandered over to a scrawny, accountant-looking fellow who was about 5-8, 130 pounds.
"Are you Lou Holtz?" said Casey, who had seen Holtz’s team play, but had never met the coach.
"That’s me," Holtz said.
"You sure don’t look like a football coach," Casey said.
Looking over his glasses at the pudgy Casey, the 33-year-old Holtz shot back: ``Well you don’t look much like an athletic director,’’ Holtz said.
It was the beginning of a successful, stormy relationship.
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| Willis Casey and Lou Holtz in December 1971 |
Casey had tried to hire Holtz after Earle Edwards suddenly resigned in the summer of 1971, but Holtz didn’t want to back out of his contract with William & Mary. Casey elevated Michaels, who had been the Pack's defensive coordinator under Edwards since 1954, to interim head coach to wait for Holtz. That fall, Casey saw William & Mary nearly upset North Carolina in Chapel Hill with a wide-open, high-scoring offense and it solidified Casey’s desire to bring the little bookworm to Raleigh.
The Wolfpack was 3-8 under Michaels, but it had won two of its final three games and was hardly devoid of talent, with a returning backfield that consisted of running backs Willie Burden, Roland Hooks, Stan Fritts and Charley Young, collectively known as ``The Stallions.’’
Sprinkle in an All-Conference quarterback in Bruce Shaw, an offensive lineman, Bill Yoest, who would become an All-America and a recruiting class that included twin freshmen Dave and Don Buckey, and Holtz had a lot to work with.
"No matter who N.C. State had hired, he would have been successful," Holtz says.
It wasn’t that Holtz was just successful. It was how he made the Wolfpack win. The ACC played defensive football back then, with little offensive imagination. Holtz’s twin-veer attack was exciting and daring, with long down-field passes that eventually packed Carter-Finley Stadium.
Holtz has developed a reputation as a conservative offensive coach in the years since then, but his first edition of the Wolfpack scored 409 points and gained 4,758 yards in total offense, a record that still stands.
"Until then, [the ACC] was a throw-if-you-had-to league," says Darrell Moody, a former NC State player and a graduate assistant to Holtz in 1973. "Lou brought option football and he also brought a good passing game off of that.
"At that time, NC State fans were not used to seeing a lot of points scored. They were used to winning a lot of low-scoring games, then they stopped winning. When Lou came in, it was a great marriage for NC State."
He won over the fans in his third game when he went for a game-winning two-point conversion against North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The attempt failed, but he left the field at Kenan Stadium that afternoon to a standing ovation from the Wolfpack fans in attendance.
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| Frank Weedon and Lou Holtz in 2006. |
"He wanted the win, and I think people appreciated that.’’
Eventually, Holtz’s relationship with Casey began to sour, as the two head-strong individuals were frequently unable to reach compromises regarding staff salaries, recruiting, long-awaited upgrades to Carter Stadium and other aspects of running the football program. He was courted by other schools, including, ironically enough, South Carolina.
It wasn’t until the end of the 1975 season, not long after Holtz embarrassed the school by having an NC State mathematicsprofessor arrested for jogging around the school's public track during a closed practice, the coach found a challenge big enough to lure him away. He became the head coach of the NFL’s New York Jets, where he lasted less than a full season before realizing his motivational gimmicks didn’t work on the professional level.
Holtz never leaves a town with the same love he receives upon arrival.
At Arkansas, he resigned after seven years after his relationship with Broyles deteriorated. The final straw came when Holtz filmed a campaign announcement for North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms’ 1984 re-election campaign on public property.
At Minnesota, he left behind bitter fans with his departure for Notre Dame, the one school he had always wanted to coach. The Golden Gophers got a two-year probation after Holtz left for violations that included two by the coach himself. He was an immediate hero with the Irish, winning Rockne-like devotion after he won the 1988 national championship.
When no others followed, Lou’s golden shine faded in South Bend, with further allegations of NCAA improprieties, a disdain for his Machiavellian, sometimes abusive, coaching tactics and a strained relationship with AD Wadsworth. Current Notre Dame coach Bob Davie even questioned Holtz’s mental stability during court proceedings involving assistant coach, who fielded an age-discrimination lawsuit against the school.
The theme of Holtz’s career is common: He turns programs around, until he strains his relationship to a breaking point. That might not be a problem at South Carolina, where he has a long-lasting friendship with AD McGee.
"Besides, I’m 62," Holtz said. "This won’t be an eight-year rebuilding project."
How Soon Is Soon Enough?
When Holtz lost his assistant’s job at South Carolina in 1967, he sat down and re-evaluated his life. He wrote down all the things that he wanted to accomplish before he died. When he finished, there were 107 items on the list and he showed them to his wife.
She reviewed them and told him he might want to think about adding one more goal: "Get a job."
Holtz had no trouble with that, and so far, he’s ticked off 102 of his original goals, which included coaching at Notre Dame, winning a national championship, having dinner at the White House, appearing on Johnny Carson and jumping out of an airplane. He never did run with the bulls in Pamplona and he’s never mastered a second language, but he should have some time for those things when he finally retires for good.
For now, he’s spending his vast reserves of energy trying to do what some people think is impossible: getting the Gamecocks to the top of the Southeastern Conference.
Ever the optimist, Holtz isn’t intimidated. After all, he has plenty of support from McGee and the fans, who continue to flock to Williams-Brice Stadium, even if they have no real reason. According to NCAA statistics, South Carolina ranked 15th in attendance last year at over 77,000 per game, for a team that won only once.
"I am not worried about winning in the long run," Holtz says. "We have all the support we could ever need. What I am worried about is winning quickly. I believe we can win here. I just don’t know how soon."
If history is any measure, soon enough.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Holtz's six-year stint at South Carolina began with a rain-soaked 10-0 loss to the Wolfpack at Carter-Finley Stadium during Hurricane Dennis and an 0-11 inaugural campaign. The Gamecocks eventually bounced back, winning back-to-back Outback Bowls in his second and third seasons and compiling a school-best two-year record of 17-7. His last three years with the Gamecocks, however, ended with two 5-6 records, a 6-5 final season, swirling allegations of improprieties and an on-field brawl against Clemson in his last game that cost the coach one last chance at winning a postseason game. He finished his career with a 12-8-2 bowl record.
He finished his career with a 249-142-7 record before handing over the reins at South Carolina to Steve Spurrier following the 2004 season.
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