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3 December 2020
The honor: On 3 December 2020, President Donald Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Lou Holtz in an Oval Office ceremony, the White House calling him one of the greatest football coaches of all time. The tie is a worked-here one, at the same boundary as Hesburgh's: Holtz was born in West Virginia and raised in Ohio, and the career the medal crowned was made in many places — but its summit was here. As Notre Dame's head coach from 1986 through 1996 he went 100–30–2, and his 1988 team finished 12–0 as the consensus national champion, the program's last title of the century. The coaching record stands whole in the Notre Dame Football section of this history; the ledger entry is the medal, its date, and the fact that the years it chiefly honors were spent on the campus adjoining this city.
Sources:
- University of Notre Dame, presidential statement on the award, 3 December 2020 — the Oval Office ceremony and the medal.
- The White House release, December 2020 — Holtz as "one of the greatest football coaches of all time."
- The Notre Dame Football section of this history — the 1986–1996 record of 100–30–2 and the 12–0 championship season of 1988.