Top 160 Lou Holtz Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 3 of 4

101. “Happiness is nothing more than having a poor memory.”

— Lou Holtz

102. “I feel that God wants me to coach; otherwise, he wouldn’t have put the desire in me.”

— Lou Holtz

103. “After winning, most teams become individuals; most teams become complacent.”

— Lou Holtz

104. “In the nineties, everybody wants to talk about their rights and privileges. Twenty-five years ago, people talked about their obligations and responsibilities.”

— Lou Holtz

105. “Behind every successful person, stands a very successful mother-in-law.”

— Lou Holtz

106. “First and foremost I am a teacher, I care. Caring is helping the players to develop.”

— Lou Holtz

107. “I’ve never known anybody to achieve anything without overcoming adversity.”

— Lou Holtz

108. “Broadcasting is easy; you just talk until you think of something to say.”

— Lou Holtz

109. “Absolutely. There are a 1000 better coaches in the cities, but I’m the best in the country.”

— Lou Holtz

110. “The only people who aren’t going to be criticized are those who do absolutely nothing.”

— Lou Holtz

111. “I give opinions, not advice.”

— Lou Holtz

112. “They say a tie is like kissing your sister. I guess that is better than kissing your brother.”

— Lou Holtz

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

— Lou Holtz

114. “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.”

— Lou Holtz

115. “You don’t go to Notre Dame to learn something, you go to Notre Dame to be somebody.”

— Lou Holtz

116. “Ya know, Hitler was a great leader, too.”

— Lou Holtz

117. “Everyone wants to win on Saturday afternoon when the game is played. It’s what you do the other six days that decides the outcome.”

— Lou Holtz

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

— Lou Holtz

119. “Remember that adversity presents us with numerous possibilities for success, if we are just willing to see them.”

— Lou Holtz

120. “I believe your attitude is the most important choice you can make.”

— Lou Holtz

121. “Actually, all I ever wanted to be was the best in my field.”

— Lou Holtz

122. “Don’t ever ask a player to do something he doesn’t have the ability to do. He’ll just question your ability as a coach, not his as an athlete.”

— Lou Holtz

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

— Lou Holtz

124. “I was raised in a religious environment, and my wife is one of the more religious people that I have ever known.”

— Lou Holtz

125. “I can’t explain why a bride buys her wedding dress, whereas a groom rents his tux.”

— Lou Holtz

126. “One thing about me is I try to be honest.”

— Lou Holtz

127. “The problem is, that it’s easy to adopt the attitude of losers.”

— Lou Holtz

128. “The freedom to do your own thing ends when you have obligations and responsibilities. If you want to fail yourself – you can – but you cannot do your own thing if you have responsibilities to team members.”

— Lou Holtz

129. “I don’t drink water, haven’t drank water in 40 years.”

— Lou Holtz

130. “So think before you complain, especially about things that require some sacrifice. Complaining is the sign of a loser.”

— Lou Holtz

131. “I’d say handling people is the most important thing you can do as a coach. I’ve found every time I’ve gotten into trouble with a player, it’s because I wasn’t talking to him enough.”

— Lou Holtz

132. “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.”

— Lou Holtz

133. “We are not going to win because you have a new head coach, any more than you are going to fix a flat tire by changing the driver. We will win the minute all of us get rid of excuses as to why we can’t win and stop wallowing in self-pity.”

— Lou Holtz

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

— Lou Holtz

135. “I asked you to pack your headgear and shoulder pads, but more importantly your defense and your kicking game, because that’s what wins game like this.”

— Lou Holtz

136. “An agent won’t help you get drafted higher, won’t make you win more games, and won’t make you faster or stronger.”

— Lou Holtz

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

— Lou Holtz

138. “I don’t play well enough to be allowed to throw my clubs.”

— Lou Holtz

139. “I bet you went on one date and wanted to get married.”

— Lou Holtz

140. “I have no desire at all to become the winningest coach at Notre Dame. The record belongs to Knute Rockne or some other coach in the future.”

— Lou Holtz

141. “Remember, if you have a problem, it’s your problem. Solve it. Don’t blame other people. Don’t burden people with your complaints. Ninety percent of the people you meet don’t care about your troubles. The other 10 percent are glad you have them.”

— Lou Holtz

142. “No, but you can see it from here.”

— Lou Holtz

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

— Lou Holtz

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

— Lou Holtz

145. “ESPN is a great organization to work for.”

— Lou Holtz

146. “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.”

— Lou Holtz

147. “It was a great game if you don’t care who won. I cared.”

— Lou Holtz

148. “Attitude determines how well you do it.”

— Lou Holtz

149. “No matter what happens on the field, getting an education makes you a winner.”

— Lou Holtz

150. “I’m not a disciplinarian. I simply enforce other people’s decisions.”

— Lou Holtz