Lou Holtz, the current head coach of the South Carolina Gamecock football team, and one of the winningest active coaches in the history of Division 1-A football, is in Bowling Green tonight for a fund-raising dinner hosted by BG football coach Urban Meyer. Meyer was the wide receivers coach at Notre Dame during Holtz’s tenure there.

“I’m nervous, we are all nervous about the whole event. We’ve put on this event, which should have taken a year, in about two months,” Meyer said.

Meyer’s situation when he arrived at Bowling Green was similar to Holtz’s situation when he arrived at South Carolina. Both took over teams after consecutive losing seasons and turned their teams around. Meyer took over a team that had only won two games in the 2000 season. In his first season, BG compiled an 8-3 record.

Holtz will speak at the dinner and is also in town to speak at Meyer’s second annual Legends of Coaching Clinic. Holtz is already considered a coaching legend in the college football world. He is the third winningest active Division 1-A coach, behind Joe Paterno of Penn State and Bobby Bowden of Florida State.

Holtz is the only coach in NCAA history to lead six different programs to bowl games. He is also the only coach to finish the season in the top 20 with four different programs.

Holtz instilled his winning philosophy and values in the minds of his players during his first year at South Carolina. In only his second year, he turned around a team with the nation’s longest losing streak and finished the season with an 8-4 record.

Last season, Holtz led South Carolina to a 9-3 record, defeated Ohio State in the Outback Bowl, and was ranked 13th in the final polls by the Associated Press and the USA Today/ESPN coaches poll.

While at Notre Dame, Holtz won a national championship in 1988 and was named the National Coach of the Year. He led the Irish to nine consecutive bowl game appearances. For five consecutive years, the NCAA voted Notre Dame’s schedule as the most difficult in the country.

Tonight’s event will be held in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom of the Student Union with a social at 6:30 p.m. and dinner at 7:30. The event was sold out weeks ago at a price of $100 per person.

“We had to turn a lot of people down for this event. We have 635 people reserved, and we could have 1,000 tomorrow if we wanted to,” Meyer said. “We only did one real advertisement for the event, and we have that many people. We are all excited about it.”