The Holtz-Helms connection
Former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, who was once opposed to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 
later teamed with U2 star Bono in the fight against AIDS, died Friday at the age of 86. The man was a polarizing figure in the South for six terms in the senate and his presence may have even affected the relationship between former Razorbacks football coach Lou Holtz and athletic director Frank Broyles.
South Bend Tribune columnist Jeff Carroll touches on the long-time relationship between Helms and Holtz, which grew too close, perhaps, for Broyles' comfort.
Before leaving the New York Jets during the season to coach Arkansas (Hey, Bobby Petrino wasn't the first, folks), Holtz coached at North Carolina State for four years. While there, Holtz and Helms became friends.
Carroll has the rundown with excerpts from the late, great Orville Henry book, "The Razorbacks: A History of Arkansas Football" and Holtz' autobiography:
A few years later, after Holtz had left for Arkansas, Helms looked to trade in on the favor, and asked Holtz to appear in a television campaign advertisement for his re-election to the U.S. Senate.
Here's how Holtz explains it in his autobiography, "Wins, Losses and Lessons":
"When he ran for the U.S. Senate ... Jesse asked me to do an ad for him. I did, but when I got home, I felt uncomfortable. The politics of football is tough enough; injecting myself into a Senate race didn't seem to make a lot of sense. So I called Jesse and told him how uncomfortable I felt. He understood, and the ad never aired."
According to authors Orville Henry and Jim Bailey, who wrote the book "The Razorbacks: A Story of Arkansas Football," Holtz' support of Helms didn't sit well at a Deep South school like Arkansas, still struggling to move past southern college football's dark legacy of racism.
"Lou's old friend Jesse," they explain, "was conducting a one-man filibuster against the establishment of Martin Luther King Day while the Arkansas staff was calling black mothers trying to recruit their sons."
Soon afterward, Arkansas athletic director Frank Broyles called Holtz into his office and fired him. Holtz claims he wasn't given a clear reason, but speculates in his autobiography that his filming of a Helms campaign ad factored strongly into the decision.
Regardless, the firing changed the entire trajectory of Holtz's career. Before that, as he tells it in his autobiography, he was beginning to consider spending the rest of his career at Arkansas, finding himself daydreaming about living his retirement years in the same house he occupied while coaching there.
Instead, he took the vacant job at the University of Minnesota shortly after, and had a "Notre Dame clause" written into his new contract.
Politics is a dangerous and unforgiving creature. Holtz would later say in an interview last year:
"[Frank Broyles] tells you that he wants you to resign and doesn't give you a reason and that was a great experience because of this: My wife said to me, "We're just going to move on." Two years later when Notre Dame was looking for a football coach, and they called Frank Broyles, he said, "Go hire Lou Holtz." What I am saying is 'That was a great experience. I ended up at Notre Dame because of Frank Broyles.' And I ended up in Minnesota which was a marvelous experience as well. Whether you are talking about good things that happen to you or bad things that happen to you, you can't control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it."
[...] out, Helms might have helped to kill off Lou Holtz’ career at [...]