East Liverpool High School graduates Bob Duffy (left) and Lou Holtz pose at Holtz’s bust at the high school in 2022. That was when Duffy was inducted into the Lou Holtz/Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame. (Salem News/Michael Burich)

EAST LIVERPOOL — Even as a youngster growing up in East Liverpool, Lou Holtz had a love for the game.

“He’d call and say we got a team, we’ll play you Saturday morning,” Bob Duffy said. “He just loved football.”

Holtz, a College Football Hall of Fame coach who led Notre Dame to its last national title in 1988, died Wednesday at age 89.

Frank Wolfe, a 1953 graduate of East Liverpool High School who was a year ahead of Holtz, was the quarterback on Holtz’s first elementary team at St. Aloysius in East Liverpool.

“Even in those days Lou had a football mind,” said Wolfe, who lives in Chester, W.Va. “We would run a play and as soon as a play was over, Lou would go over to his uncle (and coach Lou Tychovienich), Uncle Lou so and so didn’t do what they were supposed to.

“Even in those days he knew what everyone was supposed to do. I said, ‘Shut your mouth you’re going to get all of us in trouble,’ He said, ‘You’re not doing the play right.’ He knew his football, even then. I guess he just had a football mind. He was born to do that.

They practiced after school in an area known as Skeleton Park, where the city hospital is located toward the Newell bridge.

“I was the quarterback because I got good grades and called the plays,” Wolfe said. “Lou was a guard or tackle. In those days, kids weren’t big. We had some big boys, but they were in the eighth grade.”

Duffy was a 1953 graduate of East Liverpool and served as sports editor of the Evening Review from 1956-69.

“He was a year behind me in school,” Duffy said. “We played a lot of touch football and basketball together. Our friendship grew after that.”

Holtz worked at the Evening Review, wrapping bundles in the mail room to save money so he could attend Kent State. Holtz walked onto the Kent State football team because he was told it would help his coaching prowess.

Duffy said when Holtz was named head coach at Notre Dame in 1986, he stopped by the campus during a summer family vacation.

“I walked in and his secretary said, ‘Lou is very busy today. I don’t know if he has time to see you, but I’ll see if he has time.’ Lou came running in. He said, ‘Duffy, what are you doing here.’ I’m here to see how you’re doing in this new job.

“He was a special guy to me. He never forgot East Liverpool.”

The diminutive Holtz played guard at East Liverpool High School.

“In high school, he was so small, Wade Watts was afraid to put him in,” Duffy said.

He said the last time he saw Holtz was May 21, 2022, when he was inducted into the Lou Holtz/Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame in East Liverpool.

“The year before, he came in the Casa De Emanuel restaurant with (Bob Sebo and Frank Dawson),” Duffy said. “Lou said, ‘How are you doing? Are you in my Hall of Fame? He said, ‘You are now.'”

“He said Duffy helped him get started,” Wolfe said.

Holtz was a college football coach from 1960-2004 except for one year with the New York Jets in 1976 and three years after retiring from Notre Dame in 1996.

“It was always a dream of Lou Holtz to coach at Notre Dame,” Duffy said. “I’m sure he’ll be buried there. That is where his wife (Beth) is buried.”

Holtz entered hospice care in January.

“He was always true to East Liverpool,” Wolfe said. “He was a tremendous man and I’m glad his suffering is over.”