Lou Holtz Quotes

Had I been a great athlete, I’m not sure I would have even gone into coaching. I may have turned out feeling that my life ended when my athletic career ended, as happens so many times with various athletes.

All my life, I’ve been trying to make a hole-in-one. The closest I’ve come is a bogey.

I was born January 6, 1937, eight years after Wall Street crashed and two years before John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the plight of a family during the Great Depression.

Successful people will always tell you you can do something. It’s the people who have never accomplished anything who will always discourage you from trying to achieve excellent things.

After winning, most teams become individuals; most teams become complacent.

I do think coaches need to get away from the game more, though. It’s good for them.

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

I’m proud to be part of the Dr. Pepper Scholarship Giveaway. It’s a great program that gives me the chance to brighten the day for some lucky college students with free tuition.

I look like I have beriberi and scurvy.

We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.

Winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they’re making to win. Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that’s the difference.

Nothing on this earth is standing still. It’s either growing or it’s dying. No matter if it’s a tree or a human being.

I do know this: God does answer your prayers, but it’s not always in the way you expect. God knows what’s best for us, though, so there’s no need to worry when things don’t go how we originally wanted them to go.

I don’t drink water, haven‘t drank water in 40 years.

I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it.

Notre Dame is the one school that has a national recruiting base, from Florida to Texas to California.

Football coaches don’t have real problems.

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.

My first assistant-coaching job in football was at William & Mary in 1961.

My first assistant-coaching job in football was at William & Mary in 1961. The pay wasn’t much, so to get $300 more per year, I agreed to coach the golf team. I didn’t even know how to keep score, and really, my main job was not to wreck the van on the way to tournaments.

A lifetime contract for a coach means if you’re ahead in the third quarter and moving the ball, they can’t fire you.

I truly believe the things Notre Dame stands for.

If you’re bored with life – you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals.

Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated.

You aren’t going to find anybody that’s going to be successful without making a sacrifice and without perseverance.

For victory in life, we’ve got to keep focused on the goal, and the goal is Heaven.

I don’t exercise.

Our cellar home had a kitchen and a combination bedroom and half bath, which meant we had a sink next to the bed. We had no refrigerator, no shower or tub, and no privacy. My parents shared the bedroom with my sister and me.

My wife told me if there is any rumors about me, it better be about politics and not about my social life.

I used to pray that God would make me a great athlete, and He never did.

In the successful organization, no detail is too small to escape close attention.

I just have an enthusiasm for life.

I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care.

When I left the University of Notre Dame, I honestly felt I would never coach again.

When people need love and understanding and support the most is when they deserve it the least.

When I die, and people realize that I will not be resurrected in three days, they will forget me. That is the way it should be.

I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.

If Tiger Woods had played football, he would have been a quarterback.

Don’t run if you can walk. Don’t walk if you can stand. Don’t stand if you can sit. Don’t sit if you can lie down.

As a coach, one thing that used to frustrate me was one player would make a bad decision, and that’s all you would read about in the papers all over the country. We have so many athletes do so many wonderful things for other people, and you never read about it.

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.

ESPN is a great organization to work for.

Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.

To win a national championship, you’ve got to be a little lucky.

If he’s got golf clubs in his truck or a camper in his driveway, I don’t hire him.

If you look at the history of Notre Dame, if you hire a coach who’s been successful at another college program, they’re going to be ultra successful at Notre Dame because the talent will always be there.

The Sisters of Notre Dame at St. Aloysius Grade School influenced my life tremendously. This was due to the fact that they encouraged you always to make sure that God is the focus of your life, and they didn’t allow you to do anything except to the very best of your ability.

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

I give opinions, not advice.

We can all be successful and make money, but when we die, that ends. But when you are significant is when you help other people be successful. That lasts many a lifetime.

I’m so old, I don’t buy green bananas any more.

At home I have a copy of the April 21, 1986, issue of ‘Sports Illustrated.’ I’m on the cover with the blurb, ‘Can Lou Do It?’ I’d just arrived at Notre Dame, and with spring football underway, I was the focal point of that week‘s coverage.

I’m an old man, and all my life I’ve said that Notre Dame should remain independent because it’s a national school.

It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.

On this team, we’re all united in a common goal: to keep my job.

Coaching is nothing more than eliminating mistakes before you get fired.

All an agent is going to do is buy things for a player, damage his eligibility, and make the player dependent on them.

I won’t accept anything less than the best a player’s capable of doing… and he has the right to expect the best that I can do for him and the team!

The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.

Sacrifice, discipline and prayer are essential. We gain strength through God’s word. We receive grace from the sacrament. And when we fumble due to sin – and it’s gonna happen – confession puts us back on the field.