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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 27, ISSUE 4 52 into the built-in bookshelves in the landing area and at least a dozen on the table near his bed, creased lines from dog-eared pages on some, passages highlighted in yellow in others, considerable use evidenced in all. The hundreds of titles are wide-ranging from "Good to Great" by Jim Collins, "The Liberation Trilogy" by Rick Atkinson and "Boys in the Boat" by Daniel James Brown. Clearly, football isn't the only subject that captures Holt's attention. He likes to study different types of leaders and management styles (Collins). He loves learning about strategy, even if that means reading military history books (Atkinson). He even has books about the brain to glean insight into how people's thoughts are formed and how best to motivate. "It's a never-ending process," said wife Julie Holt, a former college women's basketball head coach who's been married to Nick for 25 years. "Nick is never like, 'Man, I'm the greatest. I'm on top of my game.' He's always trying to find the next cutting edge." That quest for knowledge simply is part of Holt's makeup. Studying, whether reading or watching film, has been a key piece of Holt's preparation since he played linebacker at University of the Pacific in the 1980s. He wasn't the most physically gifted player, he said, so he looked for what he called "hidden gems." Soak- ing up every aspect of the opponents he could in film study and taking each technique tip from coaches and perfecting it helped Holt end his career as a team MVP, captain, first-team all-conference player and an hon- orable mention All-American. (A relentless competi- tiveness and ridiculous toughness — playing about a week after a ruptured appendix? — didn't hurt either.) He hasn't stopped looking for ways to gain an ad- vantage. In 2014, Western Kentucky's defense allowed nearly 510 yards and 40 points in Holt's second season as co- ordinator. Over the next two seasons, he helped mold the roster and shaped the system to maximize play- ers' abilities, worked to disguise defenses and con- fuse offenses — "it's like Coach Holt knows what the offensive coordinator is going to do," McCollum said — and, by 2016, the unit had cut about 130 yards and 15 points off those averages. Ward said it was Holt's attention to detail that helped spark the progression. "We just started focusing on the littlest things you can think of and it had an impact. That was his thing," Ward said. "After every year, he breaks down every single coverage we've ever done and he chops down numbers to see which coverages work best. He looks at stuff from a very good angle and just figures out what needs to be worked on every year. "He's a very smart guy. He knows what he's talking about. He knows schemes. Obviously, he deserves to be where he is. He didn't get there just from yelling at people. You can look at his track record. Purdue will be another great stop for him. He's the most passion- ate guy some people will ever see, but he's very smart and he knows football. The Purdue defense will benefit from that." Holt already is working to create the right defensive package for Purdue. He'll keep exploring different ways to get pressure on the quarterback and force turnovers while playing what he called a fast and furious kind of football that's physical, passionate and, of course, smart. They're qualities that happen to be extensions of the coach. "I think every year you need to grow as a coach, in your knowledge," Holt said. "You've got to work at it. You've got to study it. You've got to research it. You need to stay abreast of the competition and you need to get better. You keep growing and keep being green, even though age-wise you get older, (the) mentality, you've got to stay young and you've got to stay ahead of the curve. The more experience you have and the more years you're around, the more knowledge you should get, and the more knowledge you have, the more pow- er you have and you should be a better coach. "I was taught the more you look at things and the more you peel back the layers, you start finally get- ting to the truth of it and getting to the core of what you need to do to stop an offense. I've gotten that just through experience and just really being around re- ally good coaches and seeing how they do things. It's rubbed off on me." Those "really good coaches" Holt had the opportu- nity to learn from? The list is long, and they're really