Lou Holtz Knows How To Motivate People

Believe it or not, while Lou Holtz has been giving "pep talks" all season, the one he scripted for Kansas last night was the first one I watched. Heard about them, sure, but never actually tuned in to ESPN when Holtz was on or checked YouTube for older material.

This was a mistake. I'll leave it to Awful Announcing to explain the beauty of the Holtz:

From November 16 - God damn he is good. I wish he sat outside of my office and when I began to doze off he'd just jump in and hit me with an acronym or something. "Do you know what Awful stands for?!?! It stands for Always Working Feverishly Until Lunch! Let's go."

From November 23 - These seriously get better and better every single week. I'm telling you ESPN you really have something here. You could just nix the NBA pregame show and have Lou give Pep talks for every team in every sport.

A positive review from AA? For an ESPN-related feature? That's really all you need to know.

Having missed most of Holtz's talks, I resolved to hit up YouTube and check out some past performances. Check them out, along with any interesting quotes, below.

Pep Talk Recipient: Michigan

Best Quote: "Remember the Good Lord put eyes in the front of your head rather than in the back, so you can see where you're going rather than where you've been."

Best Quote #2: "When things go wrong, the only friends you have in this world are those you eat with, sleep with, bleed with, pray with, and cry with. That's your family, and your teammates."

Best Quote #3: "Twenty years from now, you're gonna get laid off your job. The bank's gonna refuse to extend the mortgage on your home. Your car breaks down on the way home, and when you finally get home, your four children tell ya your wife just ran off with a drummer. You're not even gonna flinch - you're gonna say, 'I met the challenge at Oregon, I'll meet the challenge here.'"

Game Result: Michigan loses to Oregon, 39-7



Pep Talk Recipient: Penn State

Best Quote: "There'll be 108,000 people in the stands, but remember this: they're unarmed. And they're going to remain in the stands, they'll have absolutely no impact on this game whatsoever."

Best Quote #2: "And remember this: Michigan is a rather arrogant group. They probably do a crossword puzzle with a pen because they think they've never made a mistake. They made a mistake when they scheduled Penn State."

Game Result: Penn State loses to Michigan, 14-9



Pep Talk Recipient: South Florida

Best Quote: "Now we're a lot like the bumblebee. Everybody said the bumblebee can't fly - by all aeronautic it can't because it's body's too big and it's wingspan's too short. But fortunately, the bumblebee can't read so it flies all over."

Game Result: South Florida beats West Virginia, 21-13



Pep Talk Recipient: LSU

Best Quote: "We're better than every team in the stadium on every Saturday. We will win the national championship."

Game Result: LSU loses to Kentucky, 43-37



Pep Talk Recipient: Nebraska

Best Quote: "I also believe we can solve any problem if enough people care. We solved sexism, racism - we can solve problems with Nebraska football if enough people care."

Game Result: Nebraska loses to Texas, 28-25



Pep Talk Recipient: Notre Dame

Best Quote: "You wanna be happy for a day, eat a steak. You wanna be happy for three days, buy a car. You wanna be happy for a week, take a cruise. You wanna be happy for a cruise, win a lottery. But if you wanna be happy for a lifetime, win a championship for Notre Dame."

Best Quote #2: "Pride stands for Personal Responsibility In Daily Excellence."

Game Result: Notre Dame beats Duke, 28-7



This isn't a complete list - I couldn't get the ESPN videos to embed properly, so the Kansas talk from the other night is missing; this makes me sad - but I think it helps capture the essence of Holtz the Motivator. Who cares if he's only 2-4 in these speeches?