RIP. It must have been the Jets fight song that did him in. https://pro-football-history.com/coach/189/lou-holtz-bio "Career Summary Lou Holtz was a football coach in the National Football League (NFL) during the 1976 season as the head coach of the New York Jets. During his lone season in the NFL the Jets went 3-11-0. He was the head coach of the Jets for the 1976 season. The Jets went 3-11-0 in this lone season as a head coach. During his career he was a head coach for one season. He resigned from the Jets on Sunday, December 12, 1976." @Cman7zero and/or @Brook! , kindly delete the duplicate thread in the NFL Forum. I meant to put it here. Duh. Thanks!
Rest in peace Lou. It seems you became Looney in your old age. We had high hopes for you here, but your best decision was leaving, and by not even waiting for the last game, you had an easier time getting a flight out of JFK before the holiday rush. Without you, I might not have remembered that Charlie Winner was a Jets head coach.
LOL… The summary says he resigned on Dec 12 but that was the day of the season finale (Namath’s last game as a Jet) he resigned I think the day after the previous game …. Holtz’s passing leaves Bruce Coslet as the longest surviving Jets head coach - not in age but in years passed. No Jets head coach before Coslet is still alive.
I was at Shea for game five of the '76 season to see Namath come off the bench to rally the team past OJ Simpson (who, as far as we know hadn't murdered anyone yet) and the Bills for the first win of the Lou Holtz era. Good times. RIP.
My Daddy called him Charlie Loser, but he would switch it out with a true Manhattanite phrase, "You're a real winner, you know that?"
The Jets went 3-11 the year before Lou Holtz, 3-11 the year Holtz was here, and 3-11 the year after he left. The Power of Three! There has to be witchcraft in there somehow l, but I can't quite figure it out. PAIN.
All true but the ‘77 team was better. The Jets had a great draft and Michaels had taken over and installed his toughness. They only won 3 games but played a lot of good teams and gave them all they could handle…..the feeling coming out of ‘77 was much different than the previous 2 seasons.
Actually, a friend corrected me yesterday. Charlie "Non" Winner came before Lou, and it was the great Ken Shipp who took over for Lou. Part of our coaching Mount Rushmore.
Another correction …..Shipp took over for Winner who was fired midway through the ‘75 season. Mike Holovak coached the final game of ‘76. So over a span of 21 regular season games between the middle of the 1975 season to the first game of 1977 (Walt Michaels) the Jets had 5 different head coaches…..may be a record.
I think my retinas are detaching from reading that. That has to be a record, but maybe not . . . if you go all the way back to the 1880s.
