Landholm bringing a veteran’s touch to UH
When UH loses a football game, Donn Landholm says don’t blame him.
When they win games, he doesn’t want any credit, either.
Win or lose, though — expect much more of the former — Landholm will be an invaluable part of head coach Willie Fritz’s staff.
Fritz’s right-hand man — with the official title of special assistant to the head coach — is charged with a host of behindthe-scenes duties that will affect game outcomes.
Landholm was with Fritz at Tulane for the past eight years as director of player development before getting a new title at Houston.
So, what is a special assistant to the head coach?
“It’s an interesting title,” Landholm said, chuckling. “Really, I’m helping coach Fritz out with the big picture of things. For example, we’re like a lot of people; we try to do things analytically. So when we practice, we practice the right situations. I will sit with coach Fritz and help him develop the practice schedules.”
Trust that whatever Landholm is being paid, he’ll earn it.
Along with coordinating practice planning and management, ensuring that the right amount of time is devoted to each aspect of the game, he will be in charge of in-house scouting. He will evaluate the team’s roster during spring football and provide Fritz with a summary of each player’s strengths and weaknesses.
Landholm has a crucial role as the school’s liaison with Big 12 officials. He will grade them after each game, generating reports that he will send to the conference office.
Landholm is also UH’s contact person with the Texas High School Coaches Association, a vital element in building a successful recruiting operation.
The days after UH games, Landholm and Fritz will go over the game tape together — grading the team, the units, the players — before Fritz meets with the rest of his staff.
With their history together, Landholm knows how Fritz thinks.
“Because the head coach gets to be a very busy individual, a lot of times the assistant coaches, offensively or defensively, will come to me and ask me a question,” he said. “Because of my background with coach Fritz, I will be able to give them an answer.”
Landholm, a Nebraska na
tive who played college ball at Wayne State, first worked with Fritz at Blinn College, where they led the Buccaneers to back-to-back JUCO national championships in 1995 and ’96.
A 30-year friendship was built in Brenham.
For Landholm, the move to junior college was a promotion from his previous job as linebackers coach at Pharr-San Juan-Alamo North High School just outside McAllen.
Blinn had a staff of only three full-time coaches: Fritz, who also served as defensive coordinator; Landholm, the offensive line coach; and Jeff Conway, offensive coordinator. Each of them taught classes two days a week.
Dennis Hickey, who went on to become the general manager of the Miami Dolphins and is currently the assistant director of player personnel for the New York Giants, was one of two graduate assistants.
Landholm says he and Fritz had great chemistry almost immediately. After four years together at Blinn, Fritz and Landholm went different directions before reconnecting at Tulane in 2016.
“We’re similar in age, very similar in philosophies of football, backgrounds, and how we deal with people,” Landholm said. “There are a lot of similarities.
“The consistency with coach Fritz has been something that’s been very good for me and my family.”
Prior to Tulane, Landholm spent 12 years at Eastern Kentucky, then four as a defensive coordinator at Purdue and three at Tennessee Tech.
One would think Landholm, with more than four decades of coaching on his résumé, would have been a head coach by now. He looked into a few opportunities over the years, but selfevaluation led him down a different path.
“In a couple cases, it was just timing, where it didn’t work out. But I feel that my skill set is one that I can really help people achieve their goals,” Landholm said. “I think that’s been one of the things that’s kept me in the profession this long and, obviously, kept me with a guy like coach Fritz. It’s just being self-aware.
“In today’s football, some people don’t necessarily have the makeup to be a head football coach, because you do have to be able to multitask and do a lot of different things. Being able to understand your role is very critical, I believe.”
Landholm, who started coaching in 1979, the year after his final season at Wayne State, hasn’t given any thought to how long he will keep at it.
“We just jumped in with both feet and came over,” he said. “I’m not ready to retire yet. I think I’ve got a lot left, and I don’t know what I’d do if I did retire. I need to probably come up with a plan for that.”
All he is thinking about is the plan to build a winner at UH.
“The plan that coach Fritz and we’ve followed throughout the years — this is my third takeover with him — is a plan we believe in. It has been proven to be successful. So we do feel confident, especially coming to a place like Houston.
“Without a doubt, we think there’s great possibilities here. There have been great things happen here in the past, and we think it can happen again.”