How I Got This Way by Regis Philbin

Author:Regis Philbin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 0062109758
Publisher: It Books
Published: 2011-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

WHAT I TOOK AWAY FROM IT ALL

When difficult times arise, don’t lose sight of how far you’ve already come and of all the better times that have helped sustain you along the way.

After a terrible setback, the true test is how you face the next day: Get up, show up, and I promise you’ll soon begin to cheer up.

Chapter Sixteen

COACH LOU HOLTZ

I need for you to indulge me here—just one more very special time—so that I can tell you about someone else I also happen to love, someone who is almost impossible not to love, unless you’ve once found yourself opposing him during a big-game showdown. But then again, he’s the kind of guy who would win you over even after he’d won over you—as in beaten you and your team’s brains out. I’ll swear this to you: Even if he’d never become part of the legacy of Notre Dame coaching greats, I still would have wanted Louis Leo Holtz (or, as I like to chant, “Lou! Lou! Lou!”) to become a part of my life. Which he is, and for which I am very grateful. Really, I would have felt the same way about him if he’d instead been a tax accountant or an insurance salesman. Although thank God he didn’t become anything other than what he was, and continues to be. He radiates a remarkable sense of magic unlike any I’ve ever encountered. His spirit, his wisdom, his kindness, and his standards—simply as a man—are just that infectious.

How infectious, you ask?

Well, let me share with you a journal excerpt of sorts, returning us to Friday, September 9, 1994: There I was, back in South Bend, where the campus was pulsing with that electrifying one-of-a-kind Notre Dame pregame anticipation. It’s called a pep rally. I was one of the speakers. This was the evening prior to the next afternoon’s season opener, always a thrilling time, and for the sake of posterity (and also a book I’d been working on), here are some notes that I happened to put together shortly afterward. It ought to give you just a small taste of how Lou had been capable of inflaming me. . . .

Lou Holtz has asked me to speak at tonight’s pep rally. I’m ready! I’m always ready for Lou. The crowd is big, noisy, hopeful. I get up, take a deep breath, and holler: “In the last two years, we’ve had two fabulous football teams, yet neither one of them could win the championship. They came close. They deserved it. They earned it. They didn’t win it. So now we have this team and they know better than anyone else that this is their season. Their year! Their chance! Their turn to bring a national championship back to Notre Dame, where it belongs!” I’ve got the crowd roaring. “We have three things on our side: the greatest sports fans in the world, the greatest tradition in sports, and the best coach in college football. Let me tell you how good Lou Holtz is: You could kidnap him on the day of the game.

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