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Hacksaw’s Thursday Podcast…1:30pm
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“THE OLD BALL COACH”
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I can hear that West Virginia drawl from heaven at this hour.
Lou Holtz, ‘Good Ole Boy’, has taken his twang, his stories and his coaching expertise to see St. Peter at the Gate.
The die hard Catholic coach-joining the great Catholic team in the sky.
What a unique man.
Born in the backwoods of West Virginia, who became a national championship coach, then a media personna at ESPN, leaves us at age 89.
What a legacy too.
Smooth as a shot glass of Southern Bourbon.
Sharp tongued as a red-neck hillbilly when needed.
A preacher when the sales pitch was needed.
Red-faced when a call went against him.
Known for his enormous success in South Bend, where he took Notre Dame to a 1998-National Championship, and where he went (100-32-2), after he’d go to Mass each morning.
What he did at places like Arkansas, Minnesota, William & Mary, South Carolina and North Carolina State are legendary. Six schools-six different bowl games.
What he became as a TV college football analyst was spectacular, considering sometimes the nouns-verbs-adjectives did not always fit together. Imagine Holtz and Lee Corso on the same set talking college football.
He could charm the daylights out of a recruit’s mother, and scorch the stripes off the shirt of a college football referee. He could be folksy and fierce, all in the same conversation.
The media? Sometimes he liked us. Sometimes he glared-stared at us.
I crossed paths with him at a press conference, when he was asked about telling his unbeaten team at Notre Dame,how dangerous (0-9) Navy was heading into a late season game. He looked at me with a burning glare, and my response was, ‘really-that was the sales pitch?’
He was beloved when he gave all his football memorabilia to build a sports museum in the town he grew up in dirt-poor East Liverpool, Ohio. His speech at the Alumni Association fund raiser was something to behold, a cross between the Grand Ole Opry and a College football recruiting pitch.
He talked about being West Virginia proud and when he found out my wife grew up on the Mountain State border panhandle, it was like we were some long lost cousins. He even forgave me for being a sports talk show host.
He dabbled in everything, including a short-failed tenure with the New York Jets.
He lived life to the fullest-thru good times and bad, great decisions and bad ones too.
Think of his road travelled, from Williamsburg, Virginia to Times Square to Touchdown Jesus and that stadium in South Bend.
Old Country…Old Ball Coach. What a fun experience. Wonder if St Peter and Jesus Christ are prepared for who-what is arriving at the Gates of Heaven
What a special man.
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