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Who really said it

He had shoulder surgery on his elbow

Attributed to Lou Holtz 1937–2026 · college football coach; Notre Dame national champion, 1988
Attributed In copyright

Almost certainly a Holtz line, and exactly the kind of tangle-tongued slip he was known for. But we could not find a record of him saying it. Wikiquote ↗ places it in its Attributed section and offers two citations — a Bleacher Report listicle and a video clip captioned as an ESPN broadcast — and neither is reachable from our network, so we have not confirmed either. We cannot tell you the game, the season, or even whether it was said on air.

Last verified 29 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“He had shoulder surgery on his elbow” attributed to Lou Holtz (1937–2026), college football coach and ESPN analyst. No primary source located; Wikiquote lists it as attributed only. Traced by Quotle.info

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Lou Holtz). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Lou Holtz — American college football coach · Notre Dame, 1986–1996. Theme: "He had shoulder surgery on his elbow". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "He had shoulder surgery on his elbow". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

What we could and could not check

Wikiquote section
Attributed — not sourced
Citations offered
A Bleacher Report listicle and a video clip; neither retrievable from here
Setting
Described elsewhere as an ESPN broadcast — unconfirmed
Primary source
None located

He had shoulder surgery on his elbow.

The line as Wikiquote ↗ records it. We have no transcript, broadcast date or recording to check it against.

Wikiquote: Lou Holtz (Attributed)

How we verified this

  • Wikiquote ↗ files this line under Attributed, which is its own signal: the page has no sourced section at all, and every quotation on it carries the same kind of second-hand citation.
  • That citation is a Bleacher Report listicle, “Top 15 Funniest Lou Holtz Quotes” by Ben Weiximann. We could not retrieve it — the host is unreachable from our network — so we can neither confirm what it says nor what it cites. We are not counting it as corroboration.
  • Wikiquote also points to a video clip titled “Say What??? ESPN Broadcaster… a little confused”. That host is likewise unreachable from our network, so we cannot confirm that such a clip exists, that it shows Holtz, or that it comes from an ESPN broadcast. We are not repeating the broadcast setting as fact.
  • Holtz’s own books would be the obvious place to look. The Internet Archive holds Winning Every Day (1998) ↗ and Wins, Losses, and Lessons (2006) ↗, but both are lending-restricted and cannot be searched full-text, so this line is neither confirmed nor ruled out there.
  • Quote Investigator has not examined this quotation, so there is no specialist finding to defer to.
In copyright

We cannot name a first publication for this line, so we cannot point you at a document. What we can say is that it is not in the public domain: Holtz’s coaching and broadcasting career ran from 1969 to 2015, and everything published in the United States from 1931 onward is still under copyright protection. Treat it as in copyright and quote it as a quotation, with attribution, rather than reusing it as free text.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Context

Why this one is hard to pin down

Spoken slips are the hardest quotations to source. Nothing is published, nothing is filed, and what survives is a clip passed around until the clip itself disappears. Holtz spent ten years as an ESPN analyst ↗, which is a great many broadcast hours to search and no index to search them with.

So this page says what it can: the line is universally credited to him, and nobody has produced a record of it.

Spoken slips are the hardest quotations to source — nothing is published, and the clip outlives the citation.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Character Simplicity

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: Lou Holtzen.wikiquote.org

Carries the line in its Attributed section — not its sourced section — citing a Bleacher Report listicle.
Wikipedia: Lou Holtzen.wikipedia.org

Life dates, the full coaching record, the 1988 national title and his 2005–2015 ESPN years.
Wins, Losses, and Lessons (2006)archive.org

Holtz’s memoir — held by the Internet Archive but lending-restricted, so we could not search it.
Winning Every Day (1998)archive.org

His book of coaching maxims, also lending-restricted and not full-text searchable from here.

The author

About Lou Holtz

Lou Holtz

1937–2026 · American college football coach · Notre Dame, 1986–1996

Lou Holtz (6 January 1937 – 4 March 2026) coached at six colleges and one NFL team across nearly three decades, most famously taking Notre Dame to an undefeated 1988 season and the national title. He finished with 249 college wins, spent a decade as an ESPN analyst after retiring from the sideline, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2020. He was as well known for the one-liners as for the coaching — which is exactly why lines attached to his name need checking.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Wikiquote, s.v. “Lou Holtz,” Attributed section, citing Ben Weiximann, “Top 15 Funniest Lou Holtz Quotes,” Bleacher Report. No primary source located.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘He had shoulder surgery on his elbow’?” Last verified 29 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/he-had-shoulder-surgery-on-his-elbow/

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