WASHINGTON — Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said Fri­day he intends to award the Pres­i­den­tial Medal of Free­dom, the nation’s high­est civil­ian hon­or, to long­time foot­ball coach Lou Holtz.

Trump made the announce­ment at the White House as Holtz looked on. He did not announce a date for the cer­e­mo­ny but said it “won’t be in the too dis­tant future.”

The pres­i­dent said he had received let­ters from foot­ball coach­es across the coun­try, as well as oth­er peo­ple, rec­om­mend­ing Holtz, 83, for the hon­or. Trump said he’s known Holtz for a “long time” and called him a friend.

“We’ve ana­lyzed it very close­ly. We’ve looked at all those rec­om­men­da­tions. We’ve looked at Lou’s life and his career and what he’s done for char­i­ty, and the foot­ball is obvi­ous,” Trump said. “He was a great coach but what he’s done beyond even coach­ing, so Lou will be get­ting the Pres­i­den­tial Medal of Freedom.”

Holtz spent 34 years coach­ing both col­lege and pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball teams and is per­haps best known for an 11-sea­son stint as Notre Dame’s head coach. Holtz end­ed his career at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na, where he was head coach for six sea­sons from 1999–2004.

He coached the New York Jets in 1976.

The West Vir­ginia native was among speak­ers at last week’s Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion. In his remarks, Holtz called Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Joe Biden a Catholic “in name only.” Biden is a prac­tic­ing Catholic.

Notre Dame’s pres­i­dent, Rev. John I. Jenk­ins, lat­er issued a state­ment admon­ish­ing the for­mer coach for using the university’s name in his remarks, say­ing it “must not be tak­en to imply” that Notre Dame endors­es Holtz’s views, any can­di­date or any polit­i­cal party.

Jenk­ins also admon­ished Holtz for ques­tion­ing the “sin­cer­i­ty” of the for­mer vice president’s faith.