Lou Holtz (born Louis Leo Holtz on January 6, 1937 in Follansbee, West Virginia, USA) is one of the premier NCAA college football head coaches of his era. He led all six teams he helmed to a bowl game within two years of joining the program. Holtz entered the 2004 season as the third winningest active NCAA football coach and ranks eighth all-time with 243 victories, while his 12 bowl game victories rank fifth on the all-time list. To date, Holtz is also the only coach to ever guide four different programs to final top 20 rankings.
As a football player, the 5-foot-10, 150-pounder was a backup linebacker at Kent State University, graduating in 1959. Between 1960 and 1968, Holtz served as an assistant coach at the University of Iowa, the College of William & Mary, the University of Connecticut, the University of South Carolina, and Ohio State University.
Holtz's first job as head coach was at William & Mary, then playing in the Southern Conference, starting in 1969. In 1970, the Holtz-led Tribe won the Southern Conference title, and played in the Tangerine Bowl--as of 2004 the only bowl game a William & Mary team has ever played in (since Holtz's tenure there, William & Mary has dropped to Division I-AA). In 1972, Holtz moved to North Carolina State University and had a 31-11-2 record in four seasons. His team played in four bowl games, winning two, losing one, and tying one.
After a brief, unsuccessful attempt as an NFL head coach with the New York Jets, Holtz went to the University of Arkansas in 1977. He spent seven years there, compiling a 60-21-2 record and taking the Razorbacks to six bowl games, gaining national prominence.
His next job was at the University of Minnesota, starting in 1984. The school had won only four games in the previous two seasons, but in his second year, Holtz took his team to the Independence Bowl, where Minnesota beat Clemson 20 to 13.
In 1986, Holtz seized an opportunity to take over the then-struggling University of Notre Dame program. By 1988, he led the team to the national championship, winning all 11 regular season games and beating third-ranked West Virginia 34 to 21 in the Fiesta Bowl.
Holtz retired after the 1995 season to become a television commentator, but he came out of retirement in 1999 and returned to South Carolina, where he had been an assistant in the 1960s. Taking over a team that had gone 1-10, his Gamecocks went 8-4 and 9-3 in his second and third seasons and had two victories in the Outback Bowl.
On November 18, 2004, Holtz announced, citing health reasons, that he would retire a second time, at the end of the current season. His retirement was marred by a brawl between South Carolina and Clemson players during a game on November 21, 2004, resulting in the two universities announcing they would decline any post-season bowl game invitations.
