Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM APRIL/MAY 2026 25 "When we got on the field in a big game, we didn't lose very many of them during my stay there. But you're not supposed to. You're supposed to win at Notre Dame. You come to Notre Dame to win all of them, not just most of them, and enjoy your stay there, enjoy your teammates. And very seldom did we have an athlete transfer from Notre Dame. "I don't like the direction football is going. You pay the athletes now. No- body has enough money. But what you learned about, and this was important, you learned to buy what you could afford, not what you wanted or what you needed. And now they're paying people a couple thou- sand dollars, a couple hundred thou- sand dollars a year just to play the game of football. "And then I think the transfer portal is the worst thing that could happen to college football. Someday they're going to do a study on the people that went to four different schools. And I mean the quarterback started at Southern Cal, then he went to Georgia, I forget where his third place was, but his fourth place was at Rice. He started at four different schools in four years. What kind of re- lationships does he have? What kind of perseverance has he learned? "It's bad. You ought to be able to transfer one time after your second year in school. People are transferring in or- der to play football. That's wrong. And let's remember this. Where were the great football schools years ago? They were all in the Ivy League. You can look at Yale Stadium or Harvard Stadium. They're huge stadiums because there was great enthusiasm. But what they figured in the Ivy League at that time was advantages of being an athlete. "Because there's certain things you learn on a football field you can't learn in a college classroom. You learn the perse- verance, you learn of unselfishness, you learn to get along with people, you learn to wait your turn, and this goes on and on. But I wonder what happens to those players that make that money. "I think half the players in the NFL end up penniless when they die. Be- cause see, it's not about money. It's about the lessons you learn and the de- cisions you make. Whatever happens in your life is predicated upon the choices you make. You choose to do drugs, drop out of school, join a gang, get tattoos all over your body, you're choosing that difficulty in life. Stop blaming some- body else. Take responsibility for the decisions you make. "I was fortunate to play and coach college football when it was really and truly a good amateur sport." BGI: How much do you value the im- pact that you've made on players be- yond just the wins and losses, but the way that you've impacted their lives? Holtz: "When you listen to them now, I was a great coach and a great leader, but they didn't feel that way when they played. You influence people by the way you act and the things you believe and the policies you follow. And you don't go into coaching to influence people, but you end up doing that. "As I say, a lot of people can go into business, make a lot of money and die. And when they die, it ends. When you're coaching, you have a chance to be significant. The significance is when you help other people be successful, that lasts many a l i fe t i m e . Yo u go look at the athletes that played for me and almost every single one of them are ultra-successful today and have a good feeling about their teammates and their experience at Notre Dame. "That's evident by how many ath- letes that played for me had their son go to Notre Dame. Bryant Young, Corny Southall, the list goes on and on. To me, that's the best compliment they could pay me is that they had such a good ex- perience at Notre Dame, they want their children to have the same one." ✦ "As I always told the players, you do what I ask you to do for four years, I'll be there for you for the next 40." HOLTZ Holtz was highly regarded for his folksy wit and inspirational speeches centered on leadership and character. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND