SOUTH BEND — Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz, the last man to lead the Irish to the national championship, was laid to rest Monday on the same campus his teams once electrified with their sustained excellence.
Holtz, who died March 4 at age 89, was buried next to his wife Beth, who died in June 2020, at Notre Dame’s Cedar Grove Cemetery. Dozens of mourners lined both sides of Notre Dame Avenue for the burial procession in 25-degree afternoon temperatures.
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A light sleet fell on those who gathered to pay their respects following Holtz’s 75-minute funeral at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. The Notre Dame marching band played the “Alma Mater” to kick off the procession.
Holtz, who led the Irish to 100 victories from 1986-96, including the 1988 national title, joined fellow national championship coaches Ara Parseghian and Knute Rockne as the only known Notre Dame football coaches granted a final resting place on campus.
“My intention today is not to paint a halo around Lou’s head, gloss over his faults,” Rev. John I. Jenkins, the former Notre Dame president, said in his homily. “Those for whom Lou worked, those who worked for him, knew that he could be volatile, hard-headed. His players can tell you that he was often impossibly, maddingly demanding.
“Lou could be hard to manage, hard to work for, hard to play for … Lou would be the first to admit these things. And even that relentlessly demanding side of Lou Holtz came from a place of love. He wanted those around him, the teams he coached, to be their very best.”
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When Holtz announced his resignation with two games left in the 1996 season, only Rockne, who died in 1931, had more career coaching wins at the school.
“As his son Skip put it, Lou demanded so much of you because he believed in you even more than you believed in yourself,” Jenkins said. “Lou’s tough love was indeed genuine and deep love. He wanted you to be the very best version of yourself and refuse to accept anything less.”
Jenkins also noted the charitable contributions of the Holtz family, which helped fund a reading room in the Hesburgh Library, renovations to various residence-hall chapels around campus and a homeless center in Columbia, South Carolina, where Holtz coached the final six seasons (1999-2004) of his illustrious sideline career.
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“He had a remarkable ability to take struggling teams and turn them around,” Jenkins said. “Lou was one of football’s best strategists, but he did not rely primarily on clever schemes and athletic ability. He built a culture in which his players believed in themselves, cared for one another and were committed to excellence. The results speak for themselves.”
Remembering Lou Holtz as a ‘man of faith and love’
Jenkins also relayed a testimonial from Holtz’s daughter Liz, who recalled numerous times when the family would be approached by a homeless person on the streets of a major city. Holtz, Jenkins said, wouldn’t just give that stranger a “vintage Lou Holtz pep talk,” but often pressed $200 into that person’s hand to help start the process.
Letters would arrive, sometimes months or years later, from some of those same strangers, providing their benefactor with a life update, appreciation for his generosity and that same $200 by way of repayment.
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Jenkins called this “another side of Lou Holtz that was not always on public display … a man of love who showed that love to everyone he encountered. And a man committed to excellence, not just for himself but for everyone around him.”
Current Notre Dame President Robert A. Dowd presided over the funeral Mass, which was witnessed by an overflow gathering of Holtz’s former players as well as coaching and broadcasting associates. Additional mourners watched a livestream of the service in either Purcell Pavilion or Washington Hall on campus.
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Former Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly, who surpassed Rockne’s win total at the school before leaving for LSU in late 2021, was among those in attendance. Current coach Marcus Freeman, who succeeded Kelly and developed a close friendship with Holtz, also attended, as did Holtz’s former ESPN studio partner Rece Davis, among many other business, political and sporting dignitaries.
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Calling Holtz “this man of faith, this man of love, this man committed to excellence,” Jenkins concluded with the university’s gratitude for the late coach’s many contributions.
“On behalf of Notre Dame,” Jenkins said, “I want to say how grateful we are to have Lou and Beth rest here. We are grateful that their bodies will rest here.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Lou Holtz funeral Mass service: Notre Dame football coach remembered
