In the late ‘80s, I was working for the Division of Nursing Care Facilities, and on certain days, it was my turn to answer incoming calls. Occasionally, the husband of one of our nurses, who went out to inspect nursing homes in the area, would call asking to speak to her. For this story, I will call him Bud.
I would put Bud on hold to see if his wife was available, and if she happened to be on the phone, she would often say, “Tell him to hang on a few minutes.” I would tell Bud her response, and he and I would often start chatting about the weather, the news, daily events, or sports.
I discovered that he was as Irish as the Blarney Stone and a big Notre Dame football fan. I could relate to that, as growing up and coming home after Sunday Mass, the first thing I did when I got home was turn on the TV to watch Notre Dame football highlights with Lindsey Nelson saying, “We now take you to further action.”
I had never been to a Notre Dame home football game, and Bud would often tell me that I needed to make a trip out to South Bend for a football weekend. “John, you’ve got to go. There’s no other place like it. You have to do it. You’ll love it.”
Photo courtesy IndyStar
But the thing was, back then, it wasn’t like today, where one can buy a ticket on a secondary market like Stubhub using a smartphone, even within hours of kickoff.
When Bud would call on a Monday in the fall, we would often rehash the Notre Dame and Pittsburgh Steelers games of the past weekend, as well as the upcoming weekend’s opponent. Bud was always very jovial, and it often seemed that when I put his call through to her, he would chat longer with me than with his wife.
Unfortunately, Bud’s health started to decline, and it was just one medical issue after another. He had suffered a heart attack and then learned that he had cancer. Wanting to do something to help lift his spirits, I took a chance and wrote to Lou Holtz at Notre Dame, telling him about Bud’s health situation and asking if he could send him a brief note of encouragement.
I was sure it would lift his spirits while he went through his health struggles. I knew Bud’s address because his wife sometimes rode the same bus home from work as I did, and everyone was listed in the phone book back then.
I thought that if Lou were ever to write Bud, it would happen after the regular season, as the demands and time constraints of the head football coach at Notre Dame during football season must be incredible. But the very next week, I received a thank-you letter from Lou, along with a copy of the letter of encouragement he had sent to Bud. He even sent another one to Bud later in the year.
The really good news is that Bud won his bout with cancer. Not long thereafter, I took another job, and my path and Bud’s would cross infrequently thereafter, only every few years or so.
But my Lou Holtz story doesn’t end there.
I’m not one to have dreams come true. Indeed, I have never had a dream come true. I haven’t won the lottery, either. Worst of all, Jennifer Aniston isn’t looking for a middle-aged guy rocking a dad bod. Not yet, anyway. [Jen, I’m on Facebook and X.]
Cartoon courtesy iStock
Then, one night in the fall of 2008, I had a dream where I met Lou Holtz. I dreamt I saw him from a distance and then waved to him to come to me. (I cannot believe I even had the nerve to do such a thing.) I keep waving, and sure enough, Lou starts walking towards me.
When he got close, I told him thank you. I recounted how I had written to him, asking if he could write to a friend of mine who was having some health issues. You did, I told him, and your letters really lifted his spirit. Lou said, “Thank you for bringing it to my attention, and I’m happy to do so.” I wanted to ask him for his autograph, but I did not have anything to sign.
Then I woke up and realized it was just a dream. Would I ever get see Lou Holtz?
The best chance would be on Notre Dame’s campus, especially if they were having an anniversary celebration of the 1988 national championship team, when the Irish beat the West Virginia Mountaineers with Major Harris at quarterback. I certainly would not meet Lou, my mind told me, in Bristol, Connecticut, visiting ESPN studios on a college football Saturday, where Lou was an analyst alongside Rece Davis and Mark May.
But you know, I’m a realist and believe you need to distinguish between reality and pipe dreams. So I never gave that dream a second thought.
It just so happened that later that week, Auburn was playing at West Virginia on a Thursday night game on ESPN. Thinking about how infrequently an SEC team travels this far north, and when I would ever have another opportunity to see Auburn play, so I decided to make the 100-mile drive from where I live to Morgantown for the game. The date was October 23, 2008.
I get there a few hours before kickoff, and having time to kill, I decide to walk around the stadium. As I’m walking around, I notice ESPN’s production truck, and as I look towards it, who do I see in the distance … but Lou Holtz! (I learned later that ESPN had Lou in the broadcast booth for the game, as he was born in West Virginia. Follansbee, West Virginia, to be exact.)
Just like I had dreamt only a few days before, I’m actually waving to Lou Holtz to come towards me. He pauses and then, just like in my dream, he starts walking towards me. Can this be real? It is!
Glory be! My dream is coming true
When he gets close, I tell him thank you. Years ago, I told him, I asked if you could write a friend of mine who was having some health issues. You did, and your letters really lifted his spirit.
Then he told me what he said to me in my dream: “Thank you for bringing it to my attention, and I’m happy to do so.”
My dream IS true!
Not having anything else to ask him to sign, I asked him to sign the Pittsburgh Steelers cap I was wearing.
The sad thing is that Bud had passed away a little more than two years prior to that game. He died in June of 2006 at the age of 69.
Since my first chat with Bud, I have made the six-and-a-half-hour drive from my home to South Bend more than a dozen times. I think of Bud every time I have been there.
He was right, there’s no place like Notre Dame.
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Follow John at his WordPress blog. This article was published there on June 30, 2020. We republished it at the author’s request, and are pleased to do so. (The TSC editor wants fans to know that the Mountaineers won the game, beating Auburn 34-17, as Pat White and Noel Devine combined for 481 yards.)
