GREENBRIER COUNTY, W.Va. — A former head football coach at Notre Dame predicts West Virginia University could potentially be in for “a very good year,” but Lou Holtz quickly noted about the Big 12, “You never know going into that conference.”
Holtz talked with Hoppy Kercheval on Thursday’s MetroNews “Talkline” prior to his speech during the 80th West Virginia Chamber Annual Meeting and Business Summit at The Greenbrier Resort.
He took messages about leadership with him to White Sulphur Springs for the Summit’s keynote address.
“They can name you the president of a corporation. They can name you the head coach at Notre Dame. See, you can give people titles because titles come from above, what you cannot do, you cannot name them a leader,” Holtz said.
“The leader will be determined by the people below and, if you’re going to be a leader, you have to have a vision, you have to have a plan of how you’re going to get there.”
Holtz, 79, was born in Follansbee and spent his earliest years growing up in West Virginia.
At age seven, his family moved. “The only reason we left West Virginia was, when my dad went into the Navy in World War II, he was in the Pacific, we moved to East Liverpool, Oh. to live with my mother’s parents while my dad was gone,” Holtz explained.
“When he came back, they decided not to try to relocate us out of school.”
Holtz graduated from East Liverpool High School and went on to earn his undergraduate degree in history at Kent State and his master’s degrees in arts and education at Iowa.
While at Kent State, he played linebacker for two seasons before an injury ended his football playing career. He later turned to coaching.
In 1986, Holtz became Notre Dame’s 27th head football coach after seasons at Minnesota, Arkansas, North Carolina and William & Mary. In Jan. 1989, Notre Dame claimed the National Championship with a 34-21 win over West Virginia University’s Mountaineers in the Sunkist Fiesta Bowl.
Holtz finished his coaching career, one that also included a 1976 season as head coach for the NFL’s New York Jets, in 2004 at South Carolina with an overall 243-127-7 college record.
From 2004-2015, Holtz worked as a college football studio analyst on ESPN and, after that, joined SiriusXM where he is for the 2016-2017 football season.
As a coach, Holtz said he always instructed his players to do their best. The same expectations, in his view, can be applied successfully in business.
“Not everybody can be All American, not everybody can be All Conference, not everybody can be first team. Everybody can be the best that they are capable of being and, if they fail to do that, you sit down, you say, ‘I don’t believe that’s the best you can do and here’s why,'” Holtz said.
“You never criticize a performer but, as a leader, you have an obligation to criticize a performance.”
In general, he said, businesses have two main mandates: satisfy the customer and make a profit.
When coaching, “I had two mandates: graduate and win. Why do we do complicate life? You aren’t running a business, you’re trying to do those two things,” Holtz said. “There are seven colors of the rainbow, but look what Michelangelo did.”