By Louise Mathews
This week, I have been struck by the contrast between one death in the United States and three deaths in Iran.
The first was the peaceful death of the 89-year-old Lou Holtz, legendary football coach at Notre Dame and other teams, including the University of South Carolina. The three deaths are the hanging of 19-year-old champion wrestler, Saleh Mohammadi, and his two companions.
For some reason, videos of Lou Holtz’s funeral have popped up in my Facebook feed. AI widgets must have figured out I have two brothers who graduated from Notre Dame; brother Ed has avidly followed Irish football ever since.
I was once at Ed’s house when Notre Dame played Clemson, where Ed’s wife and middle daughter completed undergraduate degrees. The Clemson fans hollered in the living room while the Irish fans roared in the basement rec room that had the bigger screen. I stayed neutral.
I knew little about Lou Holtz. The videos I watched showed me much more. Coach Holtz was loved. Crowds waited outside the basilica where the funeral took place, enduring driving wind and snow. The Notre Dame trumpet band stood hatless in the circle near the front of the church in the near blizzard and played the alma mater as his casket was carried down the steps to the hearse. Mourners marched in the snow to the grave site, many of them arm-in-arm.
Notre Dame put out a video of moments from the funeral Mass, scored with the choir singing Mozart’s Ave Verum. There was more love expressed. Burly men with tears in their eyes unabashedly hugged each other. The homilist stated that he was sure God welcomed Lou with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
In his elegy, one of Lou Holtz’s sons said that the last words spoken by his father were those he asked everyone he met throughout his life, “What can I do for you today?”
What a message to the world! With those words, Lou Holtz asked not what the other could do for him, but what he could do for another person. That is a beautiful testament to freedom, faith, and love.
Saleh Mohammadi, Mehdi Ghasemi, and Saeed Davoudi were hanged on March 19 in Qom, Iran. They were young men accused of killing two policemen during a protest against the theocratic dictatorship of Iran in January 2026.
Reports by journalists and Iran experts assert that accusations the condemned had “waged war against God” were false, and the trials were a sham. All who have heard nothing but lies from Iran for 47 years cannot believe that these victims committed the crimes for which they were executed.
Saleh Mohammadi was Iran’s national wrestling champion. His death and the executions of his fellow protesters are seen as a warning to the Iranian people that the regime is still in power and will not tolerate dissent. Amnesty International described the trials as “involving forced confessions and fast-tracked proceedings.”
Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior Iran program director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, stated the executions in the midst of a war reveal the regime is equally at war with its own people as it is with the United States and Israel.
In Iran, a young man, who in this country might have competed under an encouraging coach like Lou Holtz has been killed because he protested for what we consider fundamental human rights. He was murdered because the regime hates and fears anyone who does not surrender human dignity to the power of the mullahs and their militant henchmen.
The contrast could not be starker. Lou Holtz’s life, death, funeral, and the people he touched were wrapped in love. Saleh Mohammadi and his companions were killed because of hate. If God is love, who is the deity of Iran’s current leaders?
Louise Mathews retired from a career in community colleges and before that, theater. A 13-year come-here in Beaufort, she has been a dingbatter in North Carolina and an upstater from New York.