Notre Dame’s Coach Lou Holtz Was Right: Life Is 10% What Happens to You
If you know me at all, you know one thing right off the bat: I am a die-hard college football fan. As in, “I have a drinking problem,” only my “problem” is college football.
I have some funny stories of encounters I’ve had with people who I’ve told, “I’m really into college football.” They didn’t understand what I meant until they saw it in action, and then sat there in utter disbelief.
More specifically, I am a die‑hard, fanatically possessed, lifelong Notre Dame fan.
I joke that our love of Notre Dame is a family disease. Some families have cancer or heart disease running through them. My family has an addiction to Notre Dame football. I was raised on it. I don’t know any differently. It’s in my blood, as natural to me as breathing.
In honor of the beloved Lou Holtz, who passed away a few days ago and will be laid to rest in the same cemetery as Knute Rockne, within mere feet of Notre Dame Stadium, I am sharing this story.
Coach Holtz was well known not only as Notre Dame’s head football coach, but also as a motivational speaker. I’ve read a few of his books, and watched plenty of footage of his speeches. He is disarming and commanding at the same time. One of his favorite phrases has stayed with me for years:
Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you make of it.
Over the past six months, that philosophy has been put to the test in ways I never expected. During that time, I have undergone cervical spine surgery, dealt with a postoperative infection, had a painful reaction to starting my own physical therapy routine a month prior than the doctor advised, then developed an abscess in the incision line. This line is located in the middle of my back and, therefore, impossible to see and largely guesswork to treat. (Ask me about the medical supply store my home has become!!)
I then had what was supposed to be a straightforward debridement surgery for the abscess turn into a seven‑level cervical spine fusion with less than twelve hours’ notice. Twenty‑six days later, I was back in surgery again for yet another abscess.
All of this culminated in a severe loss of social life, and a running tally of the number of consecutive days I’ve spent in my pajamas. After cervical spine surgery, you can’t drive for at least two to three weeks, because you’re in a cervical hard collar and can’t turn your head. My driving privilges were restricted for two weeks after the single‑level surgery in September. I still had to wear a hard cervical collar for another two weeks, while not driving and not while sleeping. After the seven‑level posterior fusion in early February, I was told I would need to wear the hard collar for six weeks. I blew a gasket.
At the three‑week mark, I told my doctor I was going to go broke and be unable to support my company, or my cats, if I didn’t get my driving privileges back. Ironically, just a few days later, the second abscess appeared, and a minor debridement surgery was scheduled for me. That meant another night in the hospital, and a few more days of feeling like I’d been run over by a steam roller, such that I ended up unable to drive quite yet, after all.
So what did I do with all this time that I never wanted to have?
I used it.
Lou Holtz’ words kept running through my mind.
I poured that time into Life Backup Plan. I restructured my website and made serious progress on a long overdue overhaul, added extensive new content to it, and created an entirely new digital marketing platform and system, that is a marketable product in and of itself. Because I had it, I took the time to do a deep dive on what HIPAA compliance meant and what we needed to do to be HIPAA compliant. I then wrote a 40 page Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC) document detailing our security posture for prospective clients and investors alike. I exponentially tightened our cybersecurity posture and reduced the blast radius to a few inches, from a few miles.
I put on my software engineer and Sr. Data Architect hats and learned more about the platform our app is being developed on, making changes myself that I had previously delegated to my developer, because his schedule couldn’t accommodate everything I wanted done in mine.
I developed a strategic partner program and entered into a partnership with an estate planning attorney, creating a landing page for her as well as a dedicated page for the partnership program overall. That relationship will serve as a boilerplate as I pursue additional partnerships with related organizations, including senior transportation services, estate planning and elder law attorneys, domestic violence prevention programs, human trafficking prevention programs, youth and family services organizations, meal services, and financial planners, to name a few, across the country
I also used the time to develop a showcase partnership program for the forthcoming Business Today Show appearance, with taping in Chicago. My medical issues forced that to be postponed three times and is now scheduled for May 2026. (Side note: the first reschedule was to Jan. 14, 2026. After the taping, as a native of Ft. Wayne, Indiana and with many friends and family in the region, my itinerary was to travel to a suburb of South Bend, Indiana. As I lay in bed that day, not looking forward to the forthcoming minor-debridement- turned-seven-level-posterior-cervical-spine-discectomy-and-fusion-with-rods-and-screws-with-less-than-twelve-hours-notice-surgery, I saw innumerable posts and videos about a lake effect snow front that dumped 16” of snow on the South Bend area in a few hours, and shut down the toll road I’d have been traveling on. I profusely thanked my lucky stars, my deceased Notre Dame loving dad, and was momentarily grateful for the medical issues that had derailed my plans).
I created a long‑overdue capability statement for government agencies and large event and venue operators. I submitted applications to become a vendor for Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles in February 2027, as well as for the FIFA World Cup 2026 competition being held in the Los Angeles area. This serves as a template for the upcoming LA 2028 Olympics vendor application when it opens. I registered as a vendor with the Metropolitan Water District. I eliminated at least half of the year‑old pile of papers, business cards, and notes that has accumulated on my coffee table and has become the bane of my existence.
I created lead magnets for both our new estate‑planning partner and for use on my own website.
In essence, I took an unhappy situation I neither expected, nor asked for, and made the best of it, exactly in the spirit of what Lou Holtz preached.
The Signed Football
My younger sister, then a sophomore at Notre Dame, lived in the same dorm as Liz Holtz, one of Lou Holtz’ daughters. After Notre Dame won the 1988 College Football National Championship, my sister bought a Notre Dame football from the bookstore and asked Liz if she could route it to her dad, to be signed by him and the team. That got done, and became what I am certain is the best gift my dad ever received. Very sadly, he passed several years ago, and the signed football is now proudly displayed in my sister’s home.
Earlier today, someone on Facebook asked what everyone’s favorite moment of the 1988 championship season was. For me, it was watching Pat Terrell bat down the two‑point conversion pass attempt in the end zone against the University of Miami during the infamous “Catholics versus Convicts” game. That single play secured the win, carried Notre Dame to an undefeated season, and ultimately led to the national championship victory over West Virginia.
As much as people love or hate Notre Dame, I will never forsake them. I, too, was accepted there, and I will never forget the sound of my dad choking up on the phone when I called to tell him. The first thing he said was, “Wow. To have two daughters graduate from Notre Dame.” It was an embodiment of his qualities as a dad, which he had in spades. He had long wanted to attend, with financial realities precluding that. Ultimately, my major and life at the time weighed against my attending.
Tribute
Rest in peace, Coach. Thank you for making better men, and the national championship. The resilience you exemplified and espoused is the backbone of the Life Backup Plan.