Lou Holtz is known to go on rants that don’t neccessarily make sense at times, but this latest one has taken the cake.
Holtz delivered a long-winded statement on the status of college football amid the COVID-19 pandemic during his appearance on “The Ingraham Angle” where he compared the risk of competing in NCAA games to storming the beaches of Normandy in World War II.
Holtz, a former coach and longtime analyst, argued in favor of playing out the 2020 season.
“There’s no way in this world you can do anything that’s without a risk,” Holtz said. “People stormed Normandy. I took some grandchildren down to that (place). They knew there would be casualties, they knew there were going to be risks, but it was a way of life.”
Here’s a partial transcription of Holtz’s overall appearance:
“When you’re in a leadership role, Laura, you have to look at things from both points of view. Look at it from the player’s point of view, as well as from a coach’s point of view,” Holtz said. “The way it is right now, they just don’t want to have sports and there’s no way in this world you can do anything in this world without a risk. People stormed Normandy … They knew there was going to be casualties, they knew there was going to be risk, but it was a way of life.”
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…”But how are you going to have football when they don’t even want to have school? Notre Dame has said, ‘OK, we’re going to start on August 10.’ Now some of the faculty members have said, ‘It’s too risky, I don’t want to go.’ You have teachers unions saying we shouldn’t go back to school. The underprivileged, the people from the poor neighborhoods, where are they going to get an education? What has happened to our way of life?”
…Holtz then extolled the virtues of the sport, telling Ingraham that football is a “microcosm of life.”
“You learn about sacrifice, you learn about teamwork, getting along with other people. You learn to work on your skills, to make sacrifices, to make a total commitment to other people for the welfare of the overall team …”
“People want to be a part of something,” Holtz went on. “That’s how gangs came about. When they started deemphasizing athletics in schools, people starting joining a gang because young people want to be part of something. And you’re taking that away from them?”
