Game for anything

It wasn’t just hot here, it was heat squared, the kind of scorch that turns tennis shoes to goo, yet none of this kept old gumshoe Lou Holtz from punching the Gamecock clock in gray slacks, black penny loafers (with tassels), blue shirt buttoned to the Adam’s apple and boardroom navy necktie.

“I don’t know how close hell is,” Holtz remarked, “but it must be around the corner.”

In more ways than one.

South Carolina, coming off a 1-10 skid mark, opens the Holtz era Sept. 4 at North Carolina State, which defeated Florida State and Syracuse last year, then plays at Georgia.

Also on hell’s porch: Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas.

If there are four victories on South Carolina’s schedule--six of the first seven opponents went to bowl games last year--we couldn’t find them, yet this is the territory Holtz, 62, has chosen to stake his last claim.

He says he has accomplished 102 of the 107 life goals he set for himself 30 years ago--among them win a national title, write a book, go to Israel, have dinner at the White House, make a hole in one, visit with the pope--but not even Holtz was brazen enough to list as objectives:

Quit Notre Dame, walk away from a cushy CBS analyst position, perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on South Carolina football.

Holtz got cold feet so many times before accepting the offer Dec. 4 he almost had to be treated for frostbite.

What wasn’t to like?

In 106 years, South Carolina has produced one Heisman Trophy winner--running back George Rogers in 1980--one 10-win season and, count ‘em, one bowl victory, a 1995 conquest in the Carquest.

A pall hangs over the program like swamp fog, most expectations are of impending doom, and the “chicken curse” passes more scientific muster with some than Darwin’s theory.

“I feel like the guy who fell out of a 20-story building, and as he went by each window he hollers, ‘I’m doing OK, so far,’ ” Holtz said. “We’re doing OK . . . so far.”

Holtz, the king of poor-mouthing his teams in the best of times, may at last have a team worthy of his worry.

Why South Carolina? Why here? Why now?

Holtz’s return after a two-year hiatus was the result of a convergence of faith, family, remission, restlessness and South Carolina Athletic Director Mike McGee’s persistence.

McGee and Holtz have a history, having coached against each other in the 1970s--Holtz at North Carolina State, McGee at Duke.

When McGee was athletic director at USC in Los Angeles in the 1980s, he tried to hire Holtz from Notre Dame “during a process in which we [ultimately] hired Larry Smith.”

With South Carolina football listing, McGee had Holtz’s phone number on speed dial. McGee guessed right about Holtz’s departure from Notre Dame in 1996, that it was burnout, not checkout.

He sensed that Holtz, as most coaches do, would grow antsy in television and, sure enough, when McGee bumped into Holtz at a function more than a year ago, Holtz remarked, “Boy, I miss coaching.”

When last season’s 1-10 finish precipitated Brad Scott’s firing, McGee remembered Holtz’s comment.

“I was convinced he wanted to coach again,” McGee said.

There were issues: Only months after Holtz had left Notre Dame, his wife, Beth, was diagnosed with throat cancer. She endured 11 1/2 hours of surgery and 83 radiation treatments. Her weight dropped from 129 pounds to 89.

Holtz was not going to return to coaching, despite his wife’s urgings.

“Sadly, you start thinking maybe she knows something about her health that I don’t know and she doesn’t want me to be left by myself without a challenge,” Holtz said.

But Beth pulled through--she has increased her weight to 107--and all but planted two hands on her husband’s back and shoved him toward Columbia.

Holtz, though, didn’t want to return without son Skip, who turned around Division I-AA Connecticut and was the next hot Division I coaching prospect.

Skip’s wife, Jennifer, posed a weightier question to her husband: Years from now, when both of his parents were deceased, would he regret not having raised their three kids around their grandparents?

Skip said he would, and phoned the movers.

“Professionally, I don’t know how intelligent it was,” said Skip, his father’s offensive coordinator.

McGee maintains there is no guarantee Skip will replace his father at South Carolina, but that’s where the safe money is.

Yet, even as all the pieces came together, Lou Holtz still turned down the position a third time last December.

Holtz told McGee he and Beth had prayed all night and the answer was no.

McGee snapped, “My wife and I have been praying on this for two months!”

At 10 a.m. on Dec. 4, Holtz called Beth from a restaurant in Nashville, and this time she urged him to take the job.

McGee had his man.

“I said, ‘Thank you, Lord,’ ” McGee said, “and I mean that. This was one of those kind of things . . . this is a major step that has occurred to the good.”

Lou! Lou! Lou!

Holtz said yes at 10:30 a.m., the school called a 2:30 news conference and, in the interim, 5,000 Gamecock fans descended on Williams-Brice Stadium.

Celebrations broke out in the streets.

“It’s Holtzmania, unbelievable,” Bob Fulton, radio voice of the Gamecocks for 41 years before his 1995 retirement, said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Hell, he hasn’t even played a ballgame yet.”

South Carolina is a sporting anomaly. Despite decades of football decay, fans continue to pack the 80,250-seat stadium. As of mid-August, a record 53,000 season tickets had been sold.

“We raise more money per win than any school in the country,” Holtz has said a hundred times since his hiring.

These are devoted, if not curious, followers, many staunch believers in a 19th century hex purportedly handed down by United States Sen. “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, who founded rival Clemson.

The “chicken curse” has been blamed for most athletic shortcomings, the shortest coming in 1984 when a loss to Navy cost the Gamecocks a chance at the national title.

Holtz, 11-0 against Navy while at Notre Dame, intends to restore order in the henhouse.

“There was a letter to the editor that said, ‘We feel sorry Lou’s going to come here and be committed to excellence and some catastrophe will befall him,’ ” Holtz said. “Well, I believe in God more than I believe in the chicken curse. That was one of the reasons I came here. A lot of people said, ‘You can’t do it here.’ I’ve had coaches call and say, ‘Don’t go there, you can’t win.’ ”

Well, can he?

The track record says yes. Holtz has made a career as a turnaround artist, having revived programs at North Carolina State, Arkansas, Minnesota and Notre Dame. In two years at Minnesota, Holtz took a team that had lost 17 consecutive Big Ten Conference games to the Independence Bowl.

Of course, turnarounds don’t come cheap. The NCAA socked Minnesota with two years’ probation after Holtz jumped to Notre Dame. And his tenure at South Bend, highlighted by a 1988 national championship, ended with his mysterious resignation and the NCAA in his rearview mirror.

Holtz does not speak ill of Notre Dame.

“Where do you go from Notre Dame except directly to sit by the pope?” he asked. “It wasn’t my intention to come here, to prove anything, to do anything.”

Yet, Skip Holtz suggests his father needed a break after coaching in America’s spotlight.

“He seems to me to be much more at ease, much more relaxed,” Skip said. “I think the last two years off have been great for him. Not to say anything negative about his last year [at Notre Dame], but you get caught up in season after season, going here, the speaking demands, the schedule. He was always on the go.”

Clown Time Is Over

South Carolina football needed a swift kick in the backside, and Holtz had no problem applying his big toe.

“I am unique in a certain respect,” he said. “I have certain beliefs and I don’t compromise those beliefs. I don’t compromise them with players of today.”

To set the tone, Holtz expelled senior running back Troy Hambrick, the Gamecocks’ leading rusher in 1998, for off-field transgressions.

And tailback Boo Williams described spring drills as “the longest practices we’ve ever had. Extreme.”

Holtz has burned rock-star hot since his arrival. At the Southeastern Conference media day in August, cameramen bolted other coaches in mid-cliche to get position for Holtz’s entrance.

“Thirty cameras,” Gamecock free safety Arturo Freeman said. “You’ve got to respect that. He’s a celebrity. He’s been on ‘The Tonight Show.’ When he came in, and changed his glasses, I said, ‘Look, Boo, he’s changing into his Superman outfit.’ ”

When Holtz railed about the litter on South Carolina’s highways, the highways got cleaner.

Need someone to lead social reform on the dicey Confederate flag issue?

“There’s only one guy who can do anything about this and that’s Holtz,” Fulton said.

Holtz will earn $655,000 a year, more than Superman ever bagged, but knows he’ll spend most days this season as Clark Kent.

“I’d like to have this thing turned around by the second quarter on Sept. 4,” Holtz quipped. “I don’t have a timetable, but here’s what I really believe will happen. When we do turn it around, it will stay turned around.”

Holtz already has scored a recruiting coup with the signing of tailback Derek Watson, South Carolina’s “Mr. Football.” And Holtz has used national connections to lure running back Ryan Brewer, Ohio’s top player last year, and fullback Andrew Pinnock, Connecticut’s “Mr. Football.”

Short term, the Gamecocks are woefully undersized, which portends another banner year for the chicken curse.

Some wonder whether Holtz, not a patient man, has the fortitude to endure the tough times.

“Losing bothers you, the older you get,” he admitted. “That’s the one thing. My wife and I talked about this. I don’t like to lose. I won’t accept losing. But it’s not going to ruin my health.”

Fans here have waited a century for something good to happen, so what’s another year or two?

“I wish I could turn back the clock on all the men that came in with me,” Freeman, a senior, said.

Last year’s 1-10 season?

‘I felt like it was divine, that it was meant to happen,” Freeman said. “It all added up. We could not win. It had to get that bad for things to go up.”

Maybe this summer swelter was no coincidence.

Maybe Lou Holtz had just turned up the heat.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LOU HOTLZ’S PREVIOUS COLLEGE RENOVATION PROJECTS

NORTH CAROLINA STATE 1972-1975

Three years before Holtz was hired: 9-21-2, .313

First three years under Holtz: 26-8-2, .750

Improvement: .437

*

ARKANSAS 1977-1983

Three years before Holtz was hired: 21-11-2, .647

First three years under Holtz: 30-5-1, .847

Improvement: .200

*

MINNESOTA 1984-1985

Three years before Holtz was hired: 10-23, .303

Two years under Holtz: 10-12, .455

Improvement: .152

*

NOTRE DAME 1986-1996

Three years before Holtz was hired: 19-16, .543

First three years under Holtz: 25-10, .714

Improvement: .171

Coach’s Corner

How South Carolina coaches have fared since Marvin Bass took over in 1961. Joe Morrison is the school’s only coach to win 10 games in a season (10-2 in 1984):

Coach (Years) Record

Marvin Bass (1961-65): 17-29-4

Paul Dietzel (1966-74): 42-53-1

Jim Carlen (1975-81): 45-36-1

Richard Bell (1982): 4-7

Joe Morrison (1983-88): 39-28-2

Sparky Woods (1989-93): 24-28-3

Brad Scott (1994-98): 23-32-1