"When he was done with his pregame speech you woulda wanted to go beat the Chicago Bears. No Holtz team ever got to play the Chicago Bears. But he fared poorly against almost all the other NFL teams he did face in 1976, when Holtz went 3-10 with the New York Jets in his not-quite-one-and-done run as an NFL head coach."
"Holtz quickly got back to proving that his routine sure worked with kids. Warren Winston, Hanson's roommate at W&M and a defensive back for all three of Holtz's years at the school, is among the former players who'll tell you that more than play designs took Holtz to the top of the coaching heap."
Lou Holtz, who died at 89, is remembered by former players not for his X's and O's but for his extraordinary motivational speeches. Players from his early coaching days at William & Mary recall being so inspired by his pregame talks that they felt ready to face any opponent. Though Holtz became one of college football's most successful coaches, his methods proved ineffective during his brief 1976 NFL stint with the New York Jets, where he went 3-10. His struggles with professional players, including working with an aging Joe Namath, demonstrated that his motivational genius worked best with college athletes. Former players consistently attribute Holtz's rise to coaching prominence to his unparalleled ability to inspire and motivate rather than tactical innovation.
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