Lou, You're A Lulu

Arkansas Football Coach Lou Holtz was driving through the streets of Fayetteville recently at his speed limit, which is to say approximately twice as fast as the signs say the local police consider their speed limit. Suddenly, Holtz made a left turn into the teeth of oncoming traffic. Asked by his passenger if he felt that what he had done had been prudent, Holtz sniffed. "Goldurn it, I don't judge when I should turn by the traffic," he said, "I judge by my watch—and we're late." While this outlook sometimes disconcerts those who conduct themselves in a more conventional manner, it is classic Lou Holtz.

Holtz, 41, is, for sure, his own man. He describes himself as "a guy 5'10", 152 pounds, who wears glasses, talks with a lisp and has a physique that looks like I've had beriberi and scurvy." He's a wonderfully erratic whirlwind, spouting one-liners one minute, exploding with rage the next. "I don't want anybody to ever do a story of my life and call it Ruts" he says. Holtz starts every day hopelessly overscheduled, then adds to it. "I work from dawn to exhaustion," he says. "If there's not a crisis, I'll create one." All of which makes him consistently late.

When Holtz gets into a car or an airplane, he inevitably asks how long it will take to get to wherever it is he's going, then asks why the time can't be cut in half. He points out that a delay is sure to mean the loss of a tackle prospect to Texas, or that the booster-club membership will be working on Turns by the time he sits down as guest of honor. Holtz invariably twists his watch to the side of his wrist, having concluded that in this awkward position he can see it more quickly, without having to turn his arm. He recalls with dismay the first time he took Frontier Airlines Flight 670 out of Fayetteville. "I didn't know that was how many times we stopped before I got where I was going," Holtz says. Once, when he was behind schedule in Richmond after a night flight from Colorado Springs, he demanded of a startled driver, "Gawdawg it, why are you stopped at this red light?"

Holtz takes Excedrin for his head, Captain Black for his pipe and 25 cups of Lipton per day for his throat. If you talked as much and as fast as Lou Holtz, your throat would need constant lubrication, too. And while Holtz would be talking like a tape recorder set at fast forward even if he didn't have anything to say, this year he does, because many experts believe that the Razorbacks have an excellent chance of winning their first-ever undisputed national championship. And what does Holtz expect from Arkansas? "I expect to be paid."

Last year, Holtz' first at Arkansas, the best anyone expected was a break-even season. Except Holtz, who figured on a national championship. Consequently, he directed the Hogs to an 11-1 record and the No. 3 ranking. The highlight of the season was a 31-6 upset of Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. This result was particularly shocking because three offensive players, who among them had scored 23 of Arkansas' 39 touchdowns, were left off the traveling squad, a fourth (All-America Guard Leotis Harris) was hurt in practice before the game and did not play, and a fifth (Free Safety Howard Sampson) went out early in the game. The victory was a demonstration of one of Holtz' maxims: "Don't tell me how rocky the sea is. Just bring the goldurned ship in."

Annihilating the Sooners was especially gratifying for a man who had been a conspicuous failure 12 months earlier. In his first and only season as head coach of the New York Jets, Holtz had a 3-11 record, and was so mortified he just up and quit. He hates to even talk about his stint in the pros. "The few talents God gave me are better suited for college," Holtz says. "I didn't have the background for that job and I didn't find that I enjoyed it."

Holtz knew he was in trouble from his first day with the Jets when he wanted to phone his quarterback, Joe Namath, and was told he'd have to clear the call through Namath's agent. He was briefly heartened when Linebacker Greg Buttle told him, "I want to play so badly I'll play for free." "That's commendable, son," said Holtz. Said Buttle, "But if you want me to practice...." When none of the Jets would sing the team song that Holtz had written, the New York media portrayed him as some kind of rube cheerleader. Still, Holtz is quick to say, "The people in New York were great to me. The only thing wrong with that whole situation was me."

Immediately after Holtz quit the Jets, Frank Broyles, Arkansas' athletic director and football coach, called him. Holtz could not have been more receptive. Says Broyles, who stepped down as coach after 19 years in favor of Holtz, "Pro ball was so strange to Lou that he even missed the alums." Holtz hates cold weather; before accepting the Arkansas job he was told by Broyles that on many occasions in January he wouldn't need a coat in Fayetteville. "He was right," says Holtz. "I needed a parka."

Once in Arkansas, Holtz found that everybody was for him, that everybody wanted to help him. Before his first game, a minister giving the invocation offered gratitude for "our new coach, new players and new plays." Whereupon, Holtz backed him up by calling a pass on Arkansas' first play from scrimmage to show that wide-open football was the new order of the day. "We threw it clear down to the eight-yard line," Holtz recalls. "It was exciting. I would have preferred, of course, that we had caught it."

This year, the prayers are even more grateful. At a Little Rock banquet, Father George W. Tribou explained to the Lord, "Lou now wears the mantle of divinity in Arkansas and gets more hosannas than You do. I know You will give him another good season as a reward for cleaning up his language." Holtz is trying to control his cussing—thus his frequent goldurn-its, gawdawg-its and other Snuffy Smith expressions. He backslides but explains, "The good Lord allows just so much profanity on a team and I use up our entire quota."