By Carole Hawkins, [email protected]
It’s not unusual for a coach to deliver the keynote address at the Florida Realtors annual convention.
But this year, the pep talk to Realtors came not from a real estate coach, but from an actual coach.
Football coach Lou Holtz shared his formula for success with a welcoming audience. The former Notre Dame coach is the author of “Wins, Losses and Lessons.”
His top three lessons were:
• Do what’s right, fair and honest all of the time.
• Do everything to the best of your ability within the time allotted.
• Show people you care.
Easy to say. Harder to do.
So, Holtz gave examples from his own life.
Like the time his corollary to rule number 1 — don’t be bitter — served him when he was fired from the head coach job at the University of Arkansas. The firing followed seven straight years of bowl bids and four top 10 finishes.
“I wanted to go to the media and blast the University of Arkansas and I knew were all the bodies were buried,” Holtz said.
But his wife calmed him down. They knew what they had done there. They moved on and never said a word.
Two years later. Notre Dame was looking for a new head coach. They called the man who had fired Holtz.
“He said, ‘The dumbest thing I ever did was let him go. I got some bad advice,’” Holtz said. “’He’s the best football coach I’ve ever had, and if you hire him, you’ll never be disappointed.’”
In 1996, Holtz left Notre Dame, where he had a 64-9-1 record. He also took the team to bowl games for nine straight seasons.