No One Has Ever Drowned in Sweat

Frat Guy of the Week: Lou Holtz

Legendary college football coach and ESPN commentator Lou Holtz was a brother of Delta Upsilon fraternity while attending Kent State University.

Holtz would become the only coach in NCAA history to lead six different programs to bowl games and the only coach to guide four different programs to final top 20 rankings.

Holtz graduated from Kent State in 1959 and in 1960 become a graduate assistant football coach at the University of Iowa while working on his masters degree. Holtz' first head coaching job was at the College of William and Mary, before taking a job at North Carolina State University.

In 1976, Holtz tried his hand in the National Football League with the New York Jets, before returning to the college football ranks a year later at the University of Arkansas. He later became head coach at the University of Minnesota before landing one of the most prestigious jobs in the game at the University of Notre Dame.

Holtz led Notra Dame to a national championship win in 1987 over West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl. The coach led the Fighting Irish to nine straight bowl games before retiring from the helm after the 1996 season.

He returned to coaching in 1999 with South Carolina, before retiring for good following the 2004 season.

Since then, Holtz has worked as an analyst and commentator with ESPN alongside Rece Davis and Mark May.

For a selection of wisecracks and legendary quotes from the coach and Delta Upsilon brother, click here.

Lou Holtz Quotes

Few men have been as eloquent with words in and out of the locker room as Lou Holtz. Here's a selection of some of the wise remarks the old ball coach has lent our ears over the years:


A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

Don't be a spectator, don't let life pass you by.

How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.

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

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

If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven't done anything today.

If you burn your neighbors house down, it doesn't make your house look any better.

If you're bored with life - you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things - you don't have enough goals.

Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.

On this team, we're all united in a common goal: to keep my job.

The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.

The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren't in a very good mood.

When all is said and done, more is said than done.