Lou Holtz's "Pre-Game Speech" To Michigan Was Awkward

The Steve Phillips fake press conferences were bizarre. Steve Phillips having a fake argument with himself was even weirder. And ESPN's coverage of fake basketball (the WNBA)--I thought--was the strangest thing I'd ever seen. That was until this morning when on SportsCenter, Lou Holtz gave a fake speech to the University of Michigan Football team. As of yet, there is no Youtube account of this speech but it was uncomfortable at best and tragic at worst. Lou was dressed in a loosened tie and his nose and face were so red he looked like he'd just killed a fifth of Doc McGillicutty's before going on air. There was spit flying everywhere. He was Hooch to Mark May's Turner (though May was nowhere in sight). It just wasn't inspiring, it was sad. And what makes it even more odd is that Lou Holtz is on record as stating that he doesn't believe in pre-game speeches as a motivational tool:

"The pregame speech in the locker room is overrated," said former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz, who's an analyst for ESPN. "I remember when I was in college, the coach gave the greatest pep talk pregame. I was so fired up and then I go down on the opening kickoff and a guy hits you in the throat and you can't remember a word he said. Where you have to do it is during the week; to me, Thursday and Friday were the most important (days)."

So it would seem that the suits at ESPN decided that Lou had to do this against his will. While it serves as great comedy fodder, it's not really all that nice a thing to do to parade an old dude with a lisp out in front of the cameras and make him shout in a manner which he believes is completely useless in real game situations. Show some backbone, Louis!