Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Good cause bringing Holtz to Michigan Signing Day event

Published Feb. 3, 2016 7:58 a.m. ET

Marcus Hartman

The inclusion of Lou Holtz on Michigan's guest list for its Singing Day celebration raised some eyebrows for more than one reason.

Holtz has no direct connections to Michigan, and he is of course best known for his time as head coach at Notre Dame, a sometimes rival of the Wolverines.

Beyond that Holtz is also an Ohio native and one of the mentors of Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer.

It turns out Holtz had more than one reason for joining Jim Harbaugh's party in Ann Arbor.

High on the list Holtz told 247Sports was a desire to help the cause of fighting cancer via the Chad Tough Foundation:

"(Harbaugh) said it’s going to be about 3,500 people or so and will raise money for cancer," Holtz said. "My wife is a stage four cancer survivor; they gave her a ten-percent chance to live. She has squamous cell carcinoma in her throat, had a 13-hour surgery, and 83 radiation treatments. Her weight went from 129 to 89. So we do everything we can to help fight cancer.
“Those are the reasons I’ll be there. I have tremendous respect for Jim.”

Holtz coached the Fighting Irish against a Wolverines team quarterbacked by Harbaugh, and he helped Harbaugh get his first head coaching position at San Diego.