Holtz pondered Congress, now says he’ll keep Perpich pledge: no politics

Photo: ESPN

One-time University of Minnesota football coach Lou Holtz now says he’s not mulling a run for Congress in Florida, as reported. If so, he’d be keeping a promise made in 1983 to the late Rudy Perpich, then governor of Minnesota, on WCCO-AM: “I assure you, I will have nothing to do with politics.”

Holtz had just taken the coaching job at the U of M at the time, and he was trying to live down appearances he had made in campaign ads for Sen. Jesse Helms, whose latest exploits then included filibustering a national holiday for Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In two seasons, Holtz led the Golden Gophers to a 10-12 record, en route to more illustrious coaching gigs, including the University of Notre Dame.

Lending credence to the idea that he at least was interested in challenging first-term Democrat U.S. Rep. Suzanne Kosmas are meetings he had on the topic with Republican leaders in Washington, D.C., last week — not to mention his three donations of $500 each to the National Republican Congressional Committee in June.

Indeed, Holtz’s campaign donation history indicates that he strongly favors the right side of the political field — although his donations last year included $2,300 to Hillary Clinton in March. Holtz also gave then-fellow-71-year-old Sen. John McCain $1,000 in May.

Something he said as a TV sports commentator last fall in praise of Adolf Hitler as a leader was impolitic enough for him to later clarify that in his view, Hitler was bad — and that was good enough for ESPN.