Our goal is to make a first down
by the fifth game. If we do that, I think we’ll exceed our capabilities.
You don’t ever want to let your mouth write a check that your team can’t cash. Our talent level is pretty good right now, but it’s a question whether we have the winning culture– how we act when we’re behind, how we compete against Tennessee, Florida, Georgia.
You win because people accept a role, because they’re unselfish, because they play as a team, because they make plays at the right time.
We make plays, but we don’t make them at the right time.
When I left the University of Notre Dame, I never thought I’d ever coach again. I really did. But the one thing I learned about life: You’re either growing or you’re dying. It doesn’t have a thing to do with age. It has to do with whether you have dreams or hopes.
I love what Winston Churchill said. They wished him a happy 84th birthday, and a young reporter said, “I hope I get a chance to wish you a happy 100th.”Winston looked at him and said, “Son, you might be able to do that. You look pretty healthy to me.” That’s my attitude
Professional football’s great. I didn’t quite understand it. I wasn’t ready for it.
In college,you control every facet of the program. In the pros, unless you’re a Bill Parcells or a Joe Gibbs, other people are going to make decisions on who you draft.
We had 108 on the original “List”.(1) We’ve done 102. Two things I haven’t done are “Run with the Bulls” because I can’t find a slower person. And I haven’t gone on an African safari, but I have gone to the zoo with a camera, but that doesn’t quite qualify.
I agree there’s less cheating in college football today than I’ve ever seen. In the late ’70s, early ’80s, I thought it was pretty bad.
I think you’re always going to break a rule somewhere unintentionally, they got so many of them.
I’d driven up from Orlando(2) and made the comment that we had to have the cleanest cars in the country because obviously everybody threw their trash on the highway, because I never saw that much trash. It struck a note with a lot of people, so they put me on the committee, and we received an award for most improved state in the country.
My next thing is for people to understand that you don’t have to drive in the left-hand lane going 45 miles an hour when another car’s in the right-hand lane going 45 miles an hour.
Coaching at Notre Dame was a privilege.
Core beliefs are what holds people together. You talk about family, and it doesn’t mean you have the last name, doesn’t mean you have the same address. It means you share the same core values. Our core values were trust, commitment to excellence and caring about each other. Those are exactly in accordance with Notre Dame.
If you try to satisfy everybody’s whims and wishes, that’s impossible.
We won more than one national championship. Now, we received one, but there isn’t any way in this world you’re going to convince me we hadn’t won more than one, I don’t care what criteria you use. I think there was a backlash– and I was told this by other people–because of the NBC contract.
Money is important when you don’t have it.
I don’t think of myself as a legend or anything else. My legacy, I want to be with my four children and my grandchildren, what “Pa-Pa” stood for and what he believed.
(1): Holtz’s compilation of things he wants to do before he dies.
(2): After taking the job at South Caroli
