South Carolina coach Lou Holtz’s wife dealt with a serious illness this summer and Gamecocks fans poured out their prayers and affection for her. Now she is well, and Holtz said he wants prayers to be directed toward the 2003 Gamecocks’ football team.
“I wish our fans would direct their prayers and thoughts to our football team with an equal amount of devotion,” Holtz said in a preseason press conference. “That may take an even greater miracle.”
Downplaying his teams is nothing new for Holtz. CBS sports analyst Tim Brando, who worked with Holtz at CBS in 1998, has his own take on Holtz downplaying his team all the time. He said Holtz likes to manipulate the media and draw attention to his team.
“It gives you ink,” Brando said in a telephone interview. “He wants to let everyone know he’s at South Carolina.”
Brando said Holtz has adjusted to the new age of mass media and is totally accessible to the media, but he said the rhetoric Holtz uses still resembles that of the pre-World War II coaching generation.
“It’s the World War II ‘we’re not that good’ classic old school coaching,” Brando said. “He’s still from that old school.”
Holtz may be from that “old school” of thinking, but the coach said the team needs to improve this season, especially on defense if it is to turnaround from a 5-7 record a year ago. The team ended the 2002 season with a five-game losing skid in which the Gamecocks gave up an average of 26.8 points per game.
The fifth-year coach wants an improved defense and admitted to yelling at the unit during a preseason practice session, but he just wants them to be proud of their accomplishments this season.
“I probably holler too much at them, but I want them to be the best they can be,” Holtz said. “I want their families to be proud, I want the alums to be proud and I want their girlfriends to be proud. I realize I am tough on them, but if they don’t perform well on Saturdays, there’s only one person to blame and that’s me.”
Holtz’s involvement with his football team is unusual for a coach in today’s generation Brando said.
“The guy loves plotting unlike head coaches today,” Brando said. “He has a strong sense and is hands on in all areas … understanding of the total game.”
USC lost 13 starters from last season, returning six players on defense and three on offense. Holtz said the team is young and needs to be bent into shape.
“To make steel, you have to go through the fire first, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Holtz said. “We cannot keep making the same mental mistakes. We have really improved our fundamentals in the one-on-one drills, but we’ve got to carry that over to the team drills in order to become a good football team.”
Holtz has molded winning programs everywhere he has coached. He led Notre Dame to nine consecutive New Year’s Day bowl games, including a national championship with the Irish in 1988. Holtz also ranks third on the among active Division I-A coaches with 238 career victories.
Brando said the 66 year-old coach still seeks to make an impact on football players above everything else. He said that is why Holtz left television and went back to coaching.
“TV was never enough for a guy who considers himself a leader of men,” Brando said. “It was too boring for him. He needed to be back on the sidelines. I think he missed having an influence on the lives of young men.”