Lou Holtz

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.

You'll never get ahead of anyone as long as you try to get even with him.

In the successful organization, no detail is too small to escape close attention.

I think that we have opportunities all around us - sometimes we just don't recognize them.

I believe that having a spiritual life is so important in everybody's life.

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

My first assistant-coaching job in football was at William & Mary in 1961.

I look at athletes in all sports and try to picture what kind of football player they'd be, what position they'd play and so on.

I give opinions, not advice.

I do think coaches need to get away from the game more, though. It's good for them.

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

How do you know what it's like to be stupid if you've never been smart?

I just have an enthusiasm for life.

If you look at the history of Notre Dame, if you hire a coach who's been successful at another college program, they're going to be ultra successful at Notre Dame because the talent will always be there.

Notre Dame is the one school that has a national recruiting base, from Florida to Texas to California.

To win a national championship, you've got to be a little lucky.

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

I've followed Notre Dame football since 1946, when I listened on the radio and Johnny Lujack tackled Doc Blanchard in the open field to preserve a 0-0 tie.

I'm no genius.

I truly believe the things Notre Dame stands for.

I don't think there's been anything in the game of football in my lifetime that has changed college football more than redshirting.

The University of Notre Dame does not redshirt, and I endorse that policy completely. I am very much in favor of redshirting, but not at Notre Dame. But there's no doubt about it. It puts us at a huge disadvantage.

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

Football coaches don't have real problems.

My wife doesn't even want to spend 2 hours with me.

I'll assure you this: I will have nothing to do with politics.

After winning, most teams become individuals; most teams become complacent.

I'm an old man, and all my life I've said that Notre Dame should remain independent because it's a national school.

An agent won't help you get drafted higher, won't make you win more games, and won't make you faster or stronger.

ESPN is a great organization to work for.

In football, it's the job of the player to play, the coach to coach, the official to officiate. Each guy is charged with upholding his end, nothing more. 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.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

Our cellar home had a kitchen and a combination bedroom and half bath, which meant we had a sink next to the bed. We had no refrigerator, no shower or tub, and no privacy. My parents shared the bedroom with my sister and me.

At age nine, I got a paper route. Sixty-six papers had to be delivered to sixty-six families every day. I also had to collect thirty cents a week from each customer. I owed the paper twenty cents per customer per week, and got to keep the rest. When I didn't collect, the balance came out of my profit. My average income was six dollars a week.

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.

When I die, and people realize that I will not be resurrected in three days, they will forget me. That is the way it should be.

I do know this: God does answer your prayers, but it's not always in the way you expect. God knows what's best for us, though, so there's no need to worry when things don't go how we originally wanted them to go.

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.

The Sisters of Notre Dame at St. Aloysius Grade School influenced my life tremendously. This was due to the fact that they encouraged you always to make sure that God is the focus of your life, and they didn't allow you to do anything except to the very best of your ability.

I look like I have beriberi and scurvy.

We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.

My wife told me if there is any rumors about me, it better be about politics and not about my social life.

I think life is a matter of choices and that wherever we are, good or bad, is because of choices we make.

When I left the University of Notre Dame, I honestly felt I would never coach again.

Whenever you give up something, you must replace it with something.

I was raised a Catholic on both sides of the family. I went to a Catholic grade school and thought everybody in the country was Catholic, because that's all I ever was associated with.

God answers prayers, but he doesn't always answer it your way.

Successful people will always tell you you can do something. It's the people who have never accomplished anything who will always discourage you from trying to achieve excellent things.

I used to pray that God would make me a great athlete, and He never did.

We can all be successful and make money, but when we die, that ends. But when you are significant is when you help other people be successful. That lasts many a lifetime.