Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American coach Lou Holtz.
Last updated on December 24, 2024.
Louis Leo Holtz is a former American football player, coach, and analyst. He served as the head football coach at The College of William & Mary (1969β1971), North Carolina State University (1972β1975), the New York Jets (1976), the University of Arkansas (1977β1983), the University of Minnesota (1984β1985), the University of Notre Dame (1986β1996), and the University of South Carolina (1999β2004), compiling a career record of 249β132β7. Holtz's 1988 Notre Dame team went 12β0 with a victory in the Fiesta Bowl and was the consensus national champion. Holtz is the only college football coach to lead six different programs to bowl games and the only coach to guide four different programs to the final top 20 rankings.
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.
The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren't in a very good mood.
Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity.
God looks after children, animals and idiots.
If you burn your neighbors house down, it doesn't make your house look any better.
Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.
I can't believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary.
I think that everybody needs four things in life. Everybody needs something to do regardless of age. Everybody needs someone to love. Everybody needs something to hope for, and, of course, everybody needs someone to believe in.
How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.
I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it.
Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.
I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.
Coaching is nothing more than eliminating mistakes before you get fired.
I truly believe the things Notre Dame stands for.
On this team, we're all united in a common goal: to keep my job.
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.
In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life - or at least the way life should be.
My wife told me if there is any rumors about me, it better be about politics and not about my social life.
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.
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.
You aren't going to find anybody that's going to be successful without making a sacrifice and without perseverance.
At age nine, I got a paper route. Sixty-six papers had to be delivered to sixty-six families every day. I also had to collect thirty cents a week from each customer. I owed the paper twenty cents per customer per week, and got to keep the rest. When I didn't collect, the balance came out of my profit. My average income was six dollars a week.
When all is said and done, more is said than done.
Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated.
Virtually nothing is impossible in this world if you just put your mind to it and maintain a positive attitude.
I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care.
Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated.
I'm so old, I don't buy green bananas any more.
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.
I believe that having a spiritual life is so important in everybody's life.
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.
Don't be a spectator, don't let life pass you by.
We were at a beach one summer, and I had a bathing suit on. My wife looked at me and said: 'Boy, you are skinny, aren't you?' I said: 'Honey, I'd like to remind you that it was minor defects like this that kept me from getting a better wife.'
In the nineties, everybody wants to talk about their rights and privileges. Twenty-five years ago, people talked about their obligations and responsibilities.
No one has ever drowned in sweat.
I don't drink water, haven't drank water in 40 years.
When people need love and understanding and support the most is when they deserve it the least.
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.
If he's got golf clubs in his truck or a camper in his driveway, I don't hire him.
In the successful organization, no detail is too small to escape close attention.
God answers prayers, but he doesn't always answer it your way.
ESPN is a great organization to work for.
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.
It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.
Don't tell your problems to people: eighty percent don't care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them.
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.
You don't go to Notre Dame to learn something; you go to Notre Dame to be somebody.
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.
The University of Notre Dame does not redshirt, and I endorse that policy completely. I am very much in favor of redshirting, but not at Notre Dame. But there's no doubt about it. It puts us at a huge disadvantage.
If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven't done anything today.
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.
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.
It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.
You'll never get ahead of anyone as long as you try to get even with him.
We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.
Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose.
If Tiger Woods had played football, he would have been a quarterback.
The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.
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!