Legendary football coach Lou Holtz had two stops at William & Mary during his 33-year gridiron career.
Holtz, who died Wednesday at the age of 89, came to Williamsburg initially in 1961 as an assistant under head coach Milt Drewer and left two years later. Holtz had three more assistant football coach assignments before he returned to William & Mary as head coach in 1969.
Fourteen years passed between Holtz’s time at W&M and his appointment in 1986 as head coach of Notre Dame, where in 1988 he won the national football title. In a 1989 interview with former Daily Press sports writer Bob Moskowitz, Holtz said: “If it hadn’t been for William and Mary”], I wouldn’t be at Notre Dame today.”
“Lou always had a special place in his heart for William & Mary,” explained Jimmye Laycock, a player for Holtz in 1969-70 and later a William & Mary head football coach for 39 years. Holtz told people frequently, “I loved William & Mary and enjoyed my time there.”
“He was a very demanding person, had a great football mind and knew things to motivate players,” Laycock added. “I was his first quarterback and in his first-year things were very different. He shook things up — he was a ball of fire — and personally helped me.”
Laycock maintained contact with Holtz throughout his life. “We had a very good relationship.”
In 2020, Holtz was inducted into the William & Mary Athletics Hall of Fame and came to Williamsburg for special recognition. Players from his William & Mary and Notre Dame teams were on hand to greet him.
While acknowledging that he was “humbled and flattered” to be inducted, he wanted people to know that William & Mary and Notre Dame “had the same caliber of athletes in intelligence, character, values and willingness” to work.
Holtz told his former players, who gathered in the Great Hall of the Wren Building for his induction, that he was “flattered to think that I’ve played an important role in your life.”
At the program, William & Mary President Katherine Rowe said Holtz “made a permanent impact on W&M’s football tradition and the university as a whole.”
During his three years in Williamsburg, Holtz had a winning Southern Conference record of 9-4 with a total record of 13-20. His record for 33 seasons with six schools was 249-132-7.
Holtz’s interest in being W&M’s football coach went back to 1964 when he was an assistant coach. The selection got down to Marv Levy and Holtz. However, W&M officials felt that Holtz, at 26, was too young and selected Levy, who had been head coach at the University of California, Berkeley. Levy left after the 1968 season.
The next selection, according to Lester Hooker Jr., a former W&M athletic director, got down to Holtz and former Navy coach Wayne Hardin. “I remember telling Dr. (Davis Y.) Paschall if we hire Lou, he’s quick and smart and doesn’t look like a coach. Hardin is a pro. There’s no telling what will happen to us with him,” Moskowitz wrote in “Goal to Goal: A 100 seasons of William and Mary football,” which he co-authored.
He was hired by Paschall, then W&M’s president, who told him, “We want to build an ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference) caliber football team,” explaining there was an ACC membership vacancy with the departure of South Carolina.
Holtz said he was flattered and honored, he recalled at his induction. W&M “had the academics, we had the location and that’s what we tried to do — build a stronger football program,” Holtz added. “We could do it.”
Holtz later wrote in one of his books that in his mind, he was “going to stay at William and Mary the rest of my life. They wanted to get into the Atlantic Coast Conference and that was fine with me.”
Holtz’s best friend in Williamsburg through the years was Joseph W. “Joe” Montgomery, a center on his second W&M team and now managing director of a financial consulting company in New Orleans. The two stayed in contact through the decades.
“Going to play at William & Mary was the best decision of my life,” Montgomery said in a phone conversation Friday. “Playing for Coach Holtz was a transformative experience. You’re extremely lucky to find people like Coach Holtz who can steer you in the right direction.”
Holtz, Montgomery added, “was the rarest of the rare. A wonderful person.”
Montgomery visited for more than an hour with Holtz in Florida just about six weeks before his death. “It was amazing. His mind was quick and I felt like an 18-year-old when he remembered visiting my home on Super Bowl Sunday to recruit me.
“He was a fantastic recruiter and had a vision of my capabilities. He knew what your fears were and gave you the strength to handle them.”
Jim Cavanaugh, a W&M wide receiver and later a college coach for nearly 40 years, recalled that Holtz’s first year, in 1969, was tough and “things were a little crazy.” Levy had resigned in June after spring practice and when Holtz became coach it was hard for players and coaches. Cavanaugh, speaking from his home in Charlotte, North Carolina, added that things felt like “we were all a class of freshmen, getting to knew everything new in a short time.”
Barry Beers of Williamsburg, who played offensive guard for Holtz and later became an educator, remembers Holtz as “determined, aggressive in a good way,” who “demanded the best of us and wouldn’t take any excuses.”
“I am greatly indebted to him,” said Beers, a retired William & Mary professor. “I could never have afforded to come to William & Mary without a football scholarship.”
Beers said “everyone was disappointed when (Holtz) went to N.C. State, but he deserved it.”
Holtz said he left William & Mary because Paschall retired and “they brought in a new president who wanted football at a lower level and I wasn’t interested in that.”
N.C. State had been seeking Holtz since the beginning of what became his last W&M season — 1971 — because they had an interim coach. But Holtz insisted he couldn’t talk to them until after the season. Holtz said N.C. State called him back after he had lost by one point, 36-35, to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
“I told them I still couldn’t talk and they said they were taking me off their list and I said ‘fine,’” Holtz recalled.
After the season N.C. State officials came back again to Holtz and an agreement was made. In 2020, Holtz recalled that Quarterback Club members Mont Linkenauger, a former team trainer, and George Oliver, the team physician, came to him and gave Holtz a new car. He told them he couldn’t take it because he was leaving.
A few days later, Holtz got home and his wife, Beth, told him she had been given a new car. “We can’t take it,” Holtz stressed.
“She said they gave it to me and I’m not giving it back.”
Wilford Kale, [email protected]