It wasn’t all warm and fuzzes to play for Lou Holtz.

“He threw me out of practice tons of times and he grabbed my facemask and poked his finger in my chest a bunch,” former Irish national champion nose tackle Chris Zorich recalls with a smile.

Holtz was tough on his players but he loved them and they showed how much they loved him on Monday.

40 years after Holtz first became the head coach at Notre Dame, hundreds of former players returned to campus to pay their respects as Holtz was laid to rest following his passing on March 4th.

“He challenged me extremely hard,” recalls former Irish captain and cornerback Shawn Wooden, who played for Holtz from 1991 to 1995. “When I first got here, I had a lot of self doubt.”

Wooden questioned whether he belonged at Notre Dame and whether he was good enough to play at Notre Dame. Then when he missed an entire season because of back surgery, he wondered if he would ever play again.

It was Holtz who was there for him.

“He challenged me in a way to bring the best out of me, to make me the best person I could be,” Wooden continued. “That’s what you really remember about him. He was an amazing individual. Certain people can motivate you for one moment, one game, one season, one career. Coach Holtz was the type of person that would motivate you for the rest of your life.”

Zorich shared that bond with Holtz to his dying day but that doesn’t mean it was always easy.

“People think hey you guys were so close and yes we were but you didn’t want to be the guy that got called into Coach Holtz’ office right?” Zorich explained. “It wasn’t just to say hi. If you weren’t Tony Rice or the starting quarterback, then you didn’t want to be called into his office. You wanted to stay as far away from him as you can and then he’d put his arm around you. As many times as he kicked me out of practice, he’s grabbed me afterwards and said, ‘Chris you realize I need you, I need you to be a part of this team.'”

Zorich said it took a while for him to realize the good intentions Holtz had. He couldn’t see it his freshman year but by the time he became a sophomore, he started to see it.

“You learn he has your best interest at heart,” Zorich said.

Zorich and Corny Southall were both about of the 1988 Notre Dame national championship team that was led by Holtz but for Southall, the introduction to Holtz wasn’t the easiest.

Southall was a safety that played on Lou’s first three teams at Notre Dame. He remembers losing at Miami 58-7 on the final game of the Gerry Faust era in 1985. The team got on the plane and flew back to South Bend to meet Holtz who had already been hired.

Coach Faust came in to say his goodbyes and left out the front door.

“Coach Holtz comes in from the back, comes down, steps on stage and immediately takes over,” Southall explains. “At that point, we were like “oh my God, who is this guy and we are in trouble.’ But he had a goal.  He knew what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it and how he was going to do it but he had to have us buy into it.

“But at that point, if we had the transfer portal 40 years ago, we all would have transferred that day,” Southall says with a big laugh. “That’s how tough he was.”

Southall says by the end of that first spring practice, they understood what Holtz was going to do for them in their lives.

Wooden concedes he couldn’t appreciate what Holtz had taught him until after his time at Notre Dame ended.

“I’m very fortunate and glad I got to tell him how much I appreciated him, how much I loved him,” Wooden says. “But you want more moments like that.  But you have to move on and know that he will be a part of you and hopefully his legacy is a part of my family.”

Quarterback Steve Beuerlein, who played 17 years in the NFL, only played one season for Holtz but it shaped the rest of his football career and life.

“If Lou Holtz didn’t become the head coach at Notre Dame, I think my football career would have been over before my senior year at Notre Dame,” Beuerlein explains. “I don’t think I would have gotten another chance.”

Beuerlein remembers coming off a horrible junior year where he physically was not able to perform due to an injury but was needed to play because of the situation the program was in.

“I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life and fortunately for me he gave me a chance,” Beuerlein said. “I got myself back in shape. I got my arm and shoulder back and was able to play at a much higher level, was able to get drafted in the 4th round and had a nice little run for only about 17 years. I always go back to him. If it wasn’t for Coach Holtz, I never would have had that opportunity.”

“The value of that relationship was much more significant than the obvious football success,” Beuerlein continued. “It was the life lessons learned and the way over the course of the next 40 years, literally exactly 40 years. It was 1986 that I met him. The impact he had on my life, my family and all of us together was immeasurable. So so grateful for all of it.”

It’s that lasting impact that sticks with all of Lou’s former players.

“We had an event [Sunday] night with all the players and you think of all of the lives he’s touched and what he’s about and he wasn’t about Xs and Os,” Zorich said. “When we hear about someone from another team tell the same story, we kind of laugh and chuckle. You realize it’s not going to be final. This is a legacy that is going to live with all of us.”