Wisdom and Inspiration: Coach Lou Holtz joins The Fellas (Summer Classic)

Hello and welcome to another summer classic edition of no Wrong Choices, featuring interviews from our old Sirius XM show, the Fellows. I'm Larry Samuels, soon to be joined by Tushar Saxena and Larry Shea. Now, before we get too far into this, I should point out that our old show is 98% sports, but it just so happens that today's conversation that we're featuring is a perfect example of what we're doing with no Wrong Choices as its loo-holts sharing what he learned from his career journey. The parallels couldn't be better. Now, if you enjoy this episode and others, please support us by clicking subscribe on your podcasting platform, while giving us a five-star rating. You can also connect with us and check out other episodes at NoWrongChoicescom or follow us on Facebook, Instagram Threads and Now X by searching for no Wrong Choices. Now for the setup. So, from what I remember, Coach Holtz was in the building. Tushar and Larry Shea were walking around and somehow managed to get access and secure a studio and, with that in mind, sound incredibly prepared. Tushar, why don't you lead us into this one First?

of all, I take offense at the fact that you say we sounded prepared.

We were prepared for this interview.

We were very prepared. This interview actually was supposed to be the three of us, but it so happened that Coach came into the building early that day, like really early, like six hours early before he was supposed to record with the three of us. So he wasn't going to stay for six hours waiting for the three of us to record, and Shea and I we were working in the building at that point and somehow I was there a little bit earlier than normal and we met up with his people or at least I met up with one of his people and said, hey, can you guys get this done now? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And luckily there was a studio that had about an hour's worth of free time. Now, back in the day, it's serious you had to actually book time to get studios. It was very hard to do that sometimes and we managed to find a studio which had no one in it for one hour. So we took this studio and I'll tell you what. It was magical because, first of all, lou Holtz is a character. Everyone knows who's ever seen Lou Holtz or seen him talk, heard him speak. He's a character and one of the most inspirational man you'll ever see, a guy who should never have been a football player. You don't know how this man is a football player. He sounds goofy, but somehow this man is a legendary person, not only not only a legendary college football coach, but obviously he had his time with the Jets, which wasn't so great. But I grew up a Notre Dame fan and for me this was one of my most special interviews ever when we were on the fellas, when I had the opportunity to speak to Lou Holtz, but we were a little bit worried about hey, would we have enough to say? Would we be caught short? All I remember saying to Larry Shea was Larry, don't worry about it. All we have to do when coach comes in and say hello, coach, and the rest will work itself out.

Yeah, I remember the book too. I remember digging into that book and reading the stories and every single story seemed to have a lesson to it, right? And then, of course, yeah, in walks this legendary coach and it becomes reality in front of your eyes and he was every bit what we imagined and what the book kind of lent itself to be. Every story had a lesson. He comes from super humble beginnings and goes over it in this interview, which is fascinating, but a sense of humor, a self-deprecating humor, and it was a magical time. I think you put it right T, it was magical and I really enjoyed a lot of what we talked about here and I'll never forget it. The book.

Larry Shea is referring to is wins, losses and lessons in autobiography. Here is Lou Holt's courtesy of SiriusXM.

Welcome back to the Fellows. Right here on Sirius Sports, section 123. I'm your man T Daddy Tushar Saxena, joined by Larry Shea right across the way, and in studio we have one of the great college coaches of all time. I gotta be honest, I grew up a Notre Dame fan and the reason was because of this man sitting in studio with us, and now he has a book another one of his books out, this one, an autobiography of his life in times called Wins, losses and Lessons. The autobiography, of course, is by the great Notre Dame head coach, louis Oldt's coach. Thank you so much for joining us.

Well, thank you for having me.

It's my pleasure, and I might point this out, I've now written more books than I've read, so One of the very first books I ever read by you, of course, was the Fighting Spirit about the 1988 championship season, Great book.

Well, what happened on that book? They came to me after the 1987 season, said we'd like to do a book on what it's like to be a coach at Notre Dame you know all the different poles and tugs on you and so we were going to write the book. So we taped every team meeting, we had a weekly journal of what we did and, consequently, we won the national championship. We were able to really and truly reconstruct the seasons that went along because we were playing on writing the book. We weren't playing on writing the book on winning the championship.

Coach, I've read the book. It's a wonderful, wonderful story. Your anecdotes and your funny, dry sense of humor comes through in the book so well. I just found so many of the stories Fascinating. What was the inspiration behind writing this book?

Well, I didn't want to write an autobiography because I think autobiography is boring. You know, after I die In three days, when people find I'm not going to be resurrected from the dead, don't forget about it. And so you don't bother to write an autobiography, because it's like problems. Don't tell people about your problems because that's what I found. 90% don't care and the other 10% are happy you got them. I really don't wish to write an autobiography. They said well, how about writing one of the things you've learned, and whether it be Notre Dame, minnesota, arkansas, growing up, everything else? There are different lessons that I've learned and I try to pass on in the book and the humors. And yet everything in there is accurate. When I finished the book originally I had 600 plus pages. Oh wow. And they said, well, we can't have a book that long. Your name's not Mr Clinton. I was going to say what is your name, homer? Oh, yeah, yeah, homer. So we got to know that thing down. So they decided what we're going to the book and what would not.

The voice you're listening to. Culture, loohol, tizotobiography out, wins, losses, wins, losses and lessons currently in the finer bookstores as well as you can find it online Amazoncom, barnesandoblescom. Coach, let's get a little bit into the book, Of course. You say there are four things that every person has to follow for, I'd say, an enriching life.

Someone to be or something to do, something to love, something to hope for and something to believe in. Okay, If you have all four of those, you got a complete life, but if you're missing any one of those, you're going to find a void there.

All right Now. I got to ask you this now In the let's say, between the 1960, in the 1965,. You're in 1965, you're in Columbia, south Carolina. You're working for $8,000 at the University of South Carolina. You took a $3,000 pay cut to work with Coach Paul Dietzel.

Went from 11 to 8.

Okay, you went from 11 to 8,000. Even I mean even $11,000 in 1965, not a great deal of money but to go down to $8,000. How do you live on that?

Well, it came down to a choice, and this is where logic helped. $8,000 wasn't very much, but it was better than nothing.

That's true. That was your only other option Because you weren't employed at that point, correct?

I was unemployed. What happened? I went to South Carolina under a gentleman by the name of Marvin Bass and I was there one month. We spent every cent we had in the bank for a down payment on home and I got up on a Monday morning. I never forget it. In the state headlines of the paper read Marvin Bass Resigns. And I said to my wife I wonder if he's related to my coach. I said hold on. All of a sudden I'm unemployed. And after my wife gave birth to her son, kevin, who's now a lawyer, and I made everybody get out of law school. I said, kevin, what's the most important thing you learned in law school? He said if somebody's going to go to jail, make sure it's your client, not you. I said that's very good. My wife then went to work in an x-ray technician. I was a stay-at-home dad and it was then that I set the 107 goals that I wanted to do with my life. And then, after a couple of months coached these called and said if you'll take a $3,000 pay cut, we'll put you in charge of academics and let your coach the scout squad. And so that was the only option. I had to stay in coach, and that's what I did and you make sacrifice, but it's like when I was growing up, I was a depression baby. I'm not going to tell you how old I am, but I will celebrate the 49th anniversary of my 21st birthday. And so you know, my dad had gone to the third grade and there wasn't welfare, there wasn't food stamps. I was born in a cellar. There was one bedroom, my mother, my father, my sister, myself, no closet, a kitchen and a half bath and that's all we had. And I was small and I had a list and people picked on me, people made fun of me, but I didn't need a shrink, I didn't need a psychiatrist, but you know, it didn't. What you have, it's who you had, and what I had was I had aunts, I had uncles, I had grandparents, and that's where your confidence comes from. And today, people give their children everything, but they don't give them their time and their attention. And so you're going to make sacrifice if you're going to be successful. You people have a great show here in Syria. It has been unbelievably successful, but I guarantee it, you've made sacrifices in order to do it, and so all we've looked at is we have one another. Let's make sacrifices in order to be successful.

Coach, I love how all of your stories lead to a lesson and there are so many great anecdotes in the book. Tell me about your first time on a football field.

Well, I was saying now the wishes, and incidentally, we were playing a Macleod conception. I didn't realize at that time. But you remember the Little Rascals the Harmonica. Well, the Gros Brothers are from Wellsville. They played for the Macleod conception team in that game and I was in the fifth grade, on the eighth grade team, and the only reason I was, my uncle was a coach and I kept following around on the side. Uncle Lou put me in Uncle and so finally puts me in safety. Well, lo and behold, I'm in there, one playing a guy bus through the line and I'll tell you what. He must have went to high school on a GI bill, I mean. That sucker looks so old and he comes running down at me and I'm a little old, scared kid. So I did what any great football player would do at age eight or whatever I ducked my head and missed it completely.

He gave him the.

OA.

Yeah, I I.

I, I, I. There wasn't any way. I wanted to tackle him, and this is what I learned at that time. I walked off the field and I saw the disappointment in my uncle, the disappointment in my teammates, that I didn't even try. And what? What becomes obvious to me is any physical pain will fade, the mental pain will stay with you a long time and you can live when you let yourself down, but it's hard to live when you let other people down, and that's why I take the, the responsibilities and the obligations very, very serious. But everything happens in your life and you learn something from it, and that made a lasting impression on me.

The voice you're listening to, coach Lou Holtz. He, of course, the coach of the Notre Dame team from 86 to 96. Of course, the head coach of the one they won that world championship, the national championship in 1988. And of course he's the author of an autobiography out hit but written, of course, by him wins, losses and lessons currently available in stores. Coach, I want to talk a little bit about 1968. Your dream job was there in front of you. You're still an assistant over at South Carolina, but as you had said in passing to a friend, one day I'd love to coach for the great, for the great Woody Hayes I can't believe I just forgot that name, of course for the great Woody Hayes at Ohio State. Now you go to the American football coach conference here in New York City right here in New York City and by the time that conference is over, you're handed two jobs or essentially, you are get two jobs are placed off one from Woody Hayes and the other from Bud Carson at Georgia Tech. Now your entire family out, seems you had said, it seems that your family was all about go to Ohio State.

Yeah, yeah, but but let me tell you something Georgia Tech offered me something like they offered you the sun, moon and the stars $15,000, a car down payment on the home, two trips to Florida from my family what coach has, and they would move me, put me up to hotel and move my family. Coach Hayes offered me a job in Ohio State for 13,000, so I was gonna go to Georgia Tech. They were pretty good then and I gotta ask you now.

Coach Deidsel and most of the coaching staff in South Carolina and a lot of the coaches you would ask said no way, you should go play, no way to go coach for Woody Hayes.

He's a lunatic.

He's a maniac, yes, and was it okay? Was it partially because he kind of was a lunatic and a maniac, or was it because they didn't like Coach Hayes? I mean, he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

Well he does. And I felt that it was just fine because, as I say in a book, after, after I accepted the job at Ohio State, they couldn't announce it for two weeks until the board met, because Coach Hayes had a bad year in 1967. So I'm down in South Carolina, I go to the office every day and they're saying don't go there, he's crying. So I decided not to go. So I called him, I got him a Tom Campana's house. I never forget it. We're both recruiting. I mean, I told him I was not going. He said a world's record of four letter words in a two minute period. I almost hung up on him but I thought, hey, I owe it to him to listen to him. And finally he stopped and he said I don't know what caused you to accept the job, but it's still there. He said it may be dormant right now but he's absolutely right. The reason I wanted to leave was everything they did in South Carolina was by seniority. So I go to Ohio State the very first staff meeting I have my coach stolen. My wife had bought me to go up there and it was snowing. I go into a staff meeting. Coach Hayes gets in fight with an assistant coach over. We had to break it up over academic. He gets mad. He throws a projector through the winnet. I'm sitting there and we walk out and I hear a guy behind me saying this, tiger Ellison. And I said Tiger, I. He said, oh, you get used to it. But I'll tell you this Woody Hayes, for all the things you hear about one of the greatest people I've ever worked for, had a great impact upon my life, and the lessons I learned I talked about was he didn't care whether he liked him. He didn't care whether people talked about him. What he cared about was making you the very best of you possibly could, and if you're in a leadership role, your obligations are yours your obligations not to be popular. I don't care if you're a parent, if you're a football coach or if you're a business person. Your obligation is to set standards, to be the leader and inspire people on the greatness.

Coach Lou holds here with us. I have to ask you one of the greatest stories I read in the book Another lesson learned is even bad things can end up being a wonderful thing. You broke a key off in a door. Tell that story.

Oh well, it was July 22nd and I was coaching at Arkansas. That was about 1982 and I had to make speech for Northwest butchers in the Hyatt Regency. The hotel had only been open a month. I come in that day, I'm speaking at four o'clock. There's no air conditioning, the taxi, I'm dirty. I got a shower. I get to go up my room, put the key in, it breaks off. On the 11th floor that has that open atrium and I got mad. I went over, called the people. They said we don't have, another room is sold out. Northwest butchers, they'll send a guy up. Guy comes up with a screwdriver, he doesn't help me. So now I'm really mad, I'm frustrated. I got to speak in my mind. I kick the door and I'm really mad. I hear a guy hey, lou holds, I'm gonna call the police on you. You can't do that. And I look up and it's Bob Hope. He's on the floor. Bob Hope was a friend of mine and I played. And it goes back to the tonight show with him. And then event. I said Bob, I can't get my room. I got my suitcase, I got speaking and I got a shower. That's why I'm mad. He said well, I got a big sweet. Come on up here you can shower. And so I go up to his suite. And he said I got a big sweet here. He said why don't you go make your speech? Come back, we have dinner. I got to perform tonight and spend the night here, so it's great. So I go make my speech, come back, grab dinner. I said, bob, would you do me a favor with you, call my wife and wish you good night, call my wife and wish her happy anniversary. I remember July 20th. I said yeah, so I get around the phone and I just dial the phone, give him the phone and he said Beth, this is Bob Hope, I'm just going to wish you happy, I don't know. 24th wedding anniversary. And he goes on saying no, how special these days are, I know how much it means. The doors and I, and he goes on and he finally says can I talk to Lou? He said what do you mean losing? I'll cheat on you. And I'm standing right there, and every anniversary my wife and I think about that call that's great, the voice you're listening to, coach Lou Hoates.

The book is called wins, losses and lessons. Is autobiography, coach. If there's one thing that folks should kind of take away from the book, what should that one thing be?

Well, I think it would be the fact that If you didn't show up, who would miss you and why? If you didn't have this radio show would your listeners miss you, and why, if you didn't go home, would your family miss you, and why, if your company went out of business, who would miss you and why? And you always want to make sure you live your life. We're not. You have nine million friends, but you don't want your wife to have to tie her pallbearers when you pass away either. But I think it's important to be positive and to make a contribution and a positive asset to anything you're going to be part of, and to me, that's the only lesson. There's so many lessons in there about what happened to me, but I think that would be the main one. Try to make a difference.

Coach. You're known as one of the best college coaches of all time, but you did have a professional stint there for a minute.

You had some interesting stuff.

Go on with the New York Jets. Do you remember one of your first days there?

Oh, yeah, I sure do. I'm there about one day and I said to Eloise, my secretary, I said get me Joe Namath on the phone because I want to set up meetings with players. She said well, we don't have his phone number. And I said, pardon me. She said we don't have his phone number. I said he is our quarterback. She said no, but we don't have his phone number. When we want to talk to him we call his agent, jimmy Walsh. So I said we'll get Mr Walsh on the phone. I said Jimmy got a funny, very, very nice. And I said I'll never forget. I said Jimmy, I need to start talking about. Welcome New York. I said I need to talk to Joe. Can you give me his phone number? And he very politely said no, I can't do that, but I tell you what I can do. I can call Joe and if he wants to talk to you he'll call you. And I said well, that'd be great. I said, but we don't need a $400,000 quarterback to go over, and I love it, or whatever it was. Oh, man, and I'll tell you what it wasn't. 20 seconds later, joe Namath called me and Joe Namath said yeah, you can have my phone number, coach and I'll say that, of all the people I've ever coached, I don't know if anybody was more dedicated, more committed than Joe Namath. We had some very, very good football players here with the Jets they're some of them were getting a little older, like Winnie, the offensive tackle, rich Caster Barlow, but I'll tell you, joe Namath was a dedicated individual and, as I said in the book, when I talk about it, the thing that I really regret more than anything professionally was coming to New York and then letting them down, not seeing it through. But I came here without a commitment. New York may be the best job in the world, but it's like anything else. If you approach it without a commitment, without understanding, you're going to have to solve problems and solutions, you're going to be unhappy, you're going to be discontented and I feel bad because I let people down, likely on hats like our award, Phil Haslett.

You know, not for nothing, I think you went three and 13 and two of them. You beat my Buffalo Bills Well thank.

God.

So then in my opinion, you had a great season. I was.

You know. Every night I went to bed and thank God for Buffalo.

The voice you listen to, coach Lew Holts. The book is called Wins, losses and Lessons, available at finer bookstores as well as online. Final question from us, coach, you've had so many great accomplishments during your coaching career. Of course your response before the second greatest turnaround in essentially college football history with South Carolina, when you went there late in your career. Which is the most meaningful to you? South Carolina, the 88 championship with the Irish, or back when you coached William Mary to their first ever postseason.

Boy, that would be difficult because it's all a learning process. You go along in life. You know, when I went to William Mary and we had more Mary's than we had William's. And I was going to run the Ohio State Style offense, which didn't work. So you had to adjust, you had to change. But I think being at Notre Dame was just special. I mean, if you've been there you don't need an explanation, if you haven't, none satisfactory. It's just a great environment. Being a Catholic and having three children graduate from there, being able to coach my son, skip there, who roughed the punter against Southern Carolina, you still remember, and now I remember that that's when I decided that I now understand why certain species of animals develop differently. But I've just been blessed. I've got a lovely wife of 45 years, we have four beautiful children and nine grandchildren, and been blessed.

You know, I just want to say very quickly Skip helped to turn around that UConn program.

No, I want to tell you what. Skip's an excellent coach. Someday I will be known as Skip's father. I just he's not there.

I highlight that.

He's now the head coach of East Carolina.

He asked me to come down and watch him scrimmage and I did Saturday. I'll tell you what he's doing a nice job down there. He really is and I'm very proud of him, proud of all our children. But I also want to congratulate you people on what you've done, and I can't begin to tell you yet what an important role your organization plays. God said there's nothing more frustrating than travel, and try to get a station on longer than five minutes without losing so satellite radio is a thing, and now I understand. you can even buy little ones that you can put in rental cars.

Yeah, yeah, they're in their rental cars absolutely.

Well, I'm asking my wife to look into it, because I have a 1990. Tempo is what I drive.

You are not driving a 1990 tempo.

I am driving a 1990 tempo. In a way you can double the value, coach, I know you have a couple of books.

Can't you at least spring for the Acura?

Come on, I have a 1990 tempo, and if I wanna double the value of it, I filled up with gas. But I'm gonna make an important speech. I'll go over to the dolphin. I drive up in that old 90 tempo. No wait. No, I mean, but it's me, it's just me.

I enjoy it. That's great.

The voice you've been listening to, coach Lujolts. The book is called Wins, losses and Lessons is Autobiography. Available online. Also available in finer bookstores everywhere For college football fans for Notre Dame fans.

It's a great book to pick up.

We've had a great time reading it. We've had an unbelievable honor to have you in studio with us.

It's been my pleasure to be here. What I have found, it is just it's about life, it's not just about football.

Well, what a pleasure. The next time you're in town or whenever hell you just wanna call me on the phone, feel?

free, absolutely. I look forward to being on your program again.

We'd love to have you anytime you wish. Once again, I'm your man. T Daddy T-Shirt Sexy and Larry Shea Join in studio by Coach Lujolts. This has been the fellas on Serious Sports Action 123. We'll be back right after this.

So that was Lujolts and guys. What a great job. That was such an interesting and an insightful conversation. The nuggets they came out of that thing were incredible.

Some of the things he said, like you know, especially like you know. Imagine if you, if your audience, didn't have you around. What would those, what would that be like for them? If you know, if they didn't have the ability to listen to what you, the wisdom you had to impart upon them, you know. Those are things I actually carry now to my jobs later on in life. These are things that I've carried on with me to other places. A lot of what he said in that interview and his book that he gave to us as well. I carry on to this day. I think there's a lot of wisdom that was in that book and once again, I just I loved that interview. First of all, any guy who's had a chance to speak to Bob Hope come on what are we talking about? That is awesome, although I will say I do I don't believe for a second that that man was still driving around in a Toyota Corolla when he was still at Notre Dame.

I don't believe that for a second. I don't believe for a second. Was it a Corolla or a Pinto or what? What did he call it? It was some. It was some sort of shit box car.

I know at some point the man had enough money to buy another car. I just know this.

I love how you busted his chops about it, and speaking of busting chops, I mean Bob Hope. Busting your chops with your wife on the phone saying what is that bum not doing there for your anniversary is just priceless. The stories- are priceless. You know, we only had a small window here, T I feel like we could have gone forever with this interview. He was so personable, so nice. I, just when I listened to the interview, I'm literally taken back to the moment and, as you said, so many life lessons and so many things that I carry with me to this day that he imparted such wisdom in the book, in the interview, and I'll forever remember it and I'll forever remember being thankful that we had a chance to do it.

Yeah, it's. When you talk about the wisdom and experience, you know. There was a line that caught my attention which I wrote down even bad things can become wonderful things, and the reason why that stuck with me is that that's exactly what we're doing with our program. That's what no Wrong Choices is all about. You put yourself out there, things go right, things go wrong. You learn from everything and everything winds up having a meeting and a purpose at some point along the way, and to me, that was a very big theme of that conversation. So thank you, lou Holtz, for affirming the value proposition of no Wrong Choices and for joining Tushar and Larry all the way back in 2006. Thank you again to SiriusXM for allowing us to share that with you. As I mentioned off the top, we'll be sharing other interviews from our old show, the Fellows, over the next few weeks as we get ready for season three of no Wrong Choices. We'll launch that just after Labor Day. In the interim, we hope you'll explore some older episodes of no Wrong Choices that you may have missed along the way and encourage you to subscribe or follow us on your podcasting platform of choice and on Facebook Instagram Threads, and now X, by searching for no Wrong Choices. On behalf of Tushar Saxena and Larry Shea. I'm Larry Samuels. Thank you again for joining us and remember there are no wrong choices on the road to success. We learn from every experience.