Word: holtz
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...Mary, he took that school to its only bowl game. Seven years after that, he suspended three star players from his Arkansas squad for violating team rules on the eve of an Orange Bowl showdown against heavily favored Oklahoma. Arkansas still managed to win, 31-6, another example of Holtz's turning adversity into unlikely advantage...
...Holtz ability to crack wise, usually at his own expense, has kept his teams loose. But the self-deprecation also allows him to ward off praise, which he feels is the father of complacency. "When it's over, maybe I'll sit - down and say, 'Gee, we did something pretty terrific,' " he says. "But it's just not my nature." "He doesn't really accept compliments," says his son Kevin, a student at Notre Dame law school. When Notre Dame beat Pittsburgh 45-7 in October, Kevin called to congratulate him. What did Dad say in reply? "Kevin...
...Holtz had even less reason to fear S.M.U., whom his team eventually trounced 59-6, than he did Pitt. But like most coaches he dreads games against "cupcake" opponents because of the danger that his own heavily favored players might lose concentration and intensity, and hence lose in an upset. Before the Pitt game, he assured reporters that Pitt was only slightly less dangerous than Rommel's Panzers. Yet at practice he was telling his players that Pitt was more like the army of Grenada and that he expected the Irish to beat the bejabbers out of them. When this...
...hour days that Holtz habitually puts in on the problems and the solutions are beginning to wear on him. In addition, he is doubtless feeling the stress stemming from accusations that he gave money through a third party to a player at his last school, Minnesota. Holtz emphatically denies it. Now one hears the word burnout in South Bend. "Football encompasses his whole life. It's everything," says Kevin Holtz. Says Ara Parseghian, who quit, worn out, after eleven successful years: "I told him all summer, 'Please pace yourself.' " When asked what lessons he draws from the experiences of Parseghian...
That's because goal-oriented Lou Holtz is on a mission. He wants to win his second consecutive national championship, although he would never freely admit it. But he quietly asked coaches like Bill Walsh how they tried to avoid a letdown after their teams won championships. How long can he keep it up? His answer is pure Holtz, all deceptive diffidence and then steely follow-through. "I don't think we can win every game," he says carefully. "Just the next...