Lou Holtz, the coach who keeps on coaching!

Most ot the Sunday newspaper I pitch without reading --ads, ads, and more ads.  But I always look thru the Good Times section and I read the religion column of Jeff Long if it is in the section.  I also read the food column.   Today Jeff Long column was present and it was entitled "Four Things".  The column was about the wisdom of Lou Holtz.  To tell you the truth, I knew very little about the man except that he was the football coach at Notre Dame.   So I read on.  "The Coach says there are four things that every person needs:   something to do, someone to love, something to hope for and someone/something in which to believe."

Okay, Coach, you have my attention!  I agree with you on each of the four!

I decided that I wanted to learn more about this man.  Was this quote a one time deal that someone else probably wrote for him?  You know, he is a motivational speaker according to his bio and they are really close, in my mind, to a used car salesman or bogus insurance salesman who haunt the nursing homes and retirement club membership rolls!

But I liked his resume (Coached 6 different college programs to Bowl Games) and I really liked some of his quotes.  Namely, two of them hit home to me --too close for comfort:

"Don't tell your problems to people:  eighty percent don't care and  the other 20% are glad you have them."   (This hits me;  I seem to spend my time feeling sorry for myself and making sure that everyone knows that I am wrongfully been imposed upon while there is a 20% that thinks good enough for her: she got all the breaks in the world.)

Here is another one that hits me in the face:  "If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven't done anything today!"   This is a challenge to me not to rest on what I consider to be my laurels.  I am just retired;  I am not dead and I face opportunities that are mine for the taking.

But my favorite is this one:   "A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song!"   I love this.   It says to me to sing your song--act don't react to what someone else has done.  Do your own thing.....with a sense of joy and a grasping of opportunity.