Stepping Out on His Own : College football: Having been an assistant at Notre Dame under Lou Holtz, son Skip takes reins at Connecticut.

When the University of Connecticut hired its new head football coach last week, Notre Dame’s Lou Holtz gave him his blessing and three pieces of advice:

“Surround yourself with people who care about the end result.

“Be yourself. Don’t be me.

“Don’t call collect.”

Skip Holtz, who has served on his father’s coaching staff for four seasons, the last two as offensive coordinator, is certain he can master the first two, especially the second. He knows not even one magic trick.

As for the third, his annual salary of $89,000, plus an additional $6,000 for public relations duties, should enable him to pay for his telephone calls between Storrs, Conn., and South Bend, Ind., for the four years of his contract.

It is a substantial deal for a 29-year-old, head coaching novice, but it also is a substantial challenge that he will undertake beginning Sunday, one day after he directs Notre Dame’s offense for the final time in the foreseeable future, in the Cotton Bowl game against Texas A&M.;

Connecticut, a member of the Yankee Conference, has never advanced to the Division I-AA playoffs, and although Holtz’s predecessor, Tom Jackson, had a respectable 62-55 record in 11 seasons before resigning last month, the Huskies gave no indication under him that they were on the verge of gaining the national stature in football that they have in basketball.

It can be argued that the university did not make the same commitment in football that it did in basketball, in which it plays in the Division I-A Big East Conference. But Athletic Director Lew Perkins said on the day Holtz was selected as coach that a new era is beginning. An on-campus committee has been formed to evaluate whether Connecticut should promote its football program to Division I-A.

“We wanted to hire somebody that sent a message to the rest of the country that the University of Connecticut is serious about football,” Perkins said.

Holtz was convinced when he went to the campus for his initial interview.

“Everyone I met, from the president to the janitor, told me how badly they wanted to have a successful program,” said Holtz, who was born in Storrs while his father was an assistant at Connecticut.

If Holtz expects to win, perhaps it is because he has seldom been exposed to life on the other side of the scoreboard since he served as a ball boy during the one season his father coached the New York Jets. While in high school in Fayetteville, Ark., he studied his father’s University of Arkansas game films and later played under him as a walk-on special teams player at Notre Dame in 1986.

Still, Lou Holtz was caught off-guard when his son told him he wanted to follow him into coaching. Skip, a management major, had told him before that he wanted to run a business of his own.

“He tried to talk me out of it for a while,” Skip said before a Notre Dame workout in Dallas on Tuesday. “He said, ‘I didn’t send you to Notre Dame to be a coach; I could have sent you anywhere to be a coach.’ I think he was just trying to find out if coaching was really what I wanted to do. But he said, ‘When you tell your mother, make sure she’s unarmed.’ ”

Skip said the more he thought about business, the less he thought about the idea of working 9 to 5.

“I thought coaching was something I would enjoy so much that I would do it even if they didn’t pay me,” he said, “and in fact, I did do it when they didn’t pay me.”

He spent two years as a graduate assistant under Bobby Bowden at Florida State and one as the receivers coach under Earle Bruce at Colorado State before his father asked him to return to Notre Dame as a volunteer coach in 1990. The next year, he became a full-time member of the staff.

“I wasn’t looking to leave Notre Dame, and I had to decide before I went back (to Storrs) for an interview whether I’d leave,” Holtz said. “The decision tore me apart. But everything was a plus at Connecticut. It’s a great starting point to be a head coach.”

Skip said he hopes Connecticut does not expect him to be his father. They certainly do not bear much resemblance. Lou is a manic 5 foot 9, 155 pounds, and Skip is a laid back 6-0, 200 pounds.

“They’re not getting Lou Holtz,” Skip said. “I’m my father’s son. I will say things he’s said in the past, and I have some of his characteristics. But whether it’s good or bad, we’re different in a lot of ways. I’m my own man.”

Lou Holtz, who became a head coach at 32 when hired in 1969 by William & Mary, said his son will have much to learn on his own.

“I know he’s excited about it and he’s happy,” Holtz said. “I hope he feels that way a year from now. I hope he realizes he’ll never be more popular on the job than the day he got it.

But if Skip is as successful as his father, who knows where his career will take him?

Back to Notre Dame?

“Possibly, in 100 years,” Skip said. “I’d love to come back here as head coach. But who knows? I might stink as a head coach. Notre Dame might not want me back. They’re not going to give someone a job just because his last name is Holtz.”

Neither, he hopes, did Connecticut.