His Choice Brought Irish Ayes

A Trojan tragedy: Notre Dame’s resurgence as a collegiate football power this season has brought joy to South Bend, Ind., where Coach Lou Holtz has turned Irish angst into new-found glee.

Top-ranked Notre Dame is 8-0.

But according to the school’s former athletic director, Gene Corrigan, now commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, the turnaround occurred during Sweet Lou’s first season, 1986.

Corrigan told John Eisenberg of the Baltimore Sun: “The first thing he had to do was make believers of the players. It happened, really, in one game.”

That was the last game of the season. Playing at the Coliseum in late November, the Irish trailed USC going into the fourth quarter, 37-20. Had they lost, they would have finished with a 4-7 record, worse than any of Gerry Faust’s. But the Irish rallied and won, 38-37, on a field goal in the final second.

“At that point, I think, everyone said, ‘OK, Coach, we’ll do this your way,’ ” Corrigan said. “Lou was the perfect choice” for Norte Dame, he added.

Corrigan should know. He hired him.

Add Irish: Notre Dame returns to the Coliseum Nov. 26 to play USC, currently ranked No. 2.

Nothing’s left to chance: It was reported that Chance Johnson, who is a UCLA defensive leader, was named after a movie character or actor. But his mother, Toni, told Jerry Crowe of The Times that for the life of her she couldn’t remember the title of the film that prompted the name 22 years ago.

With the help of reader Harold L. Dittmer of Los Angeles, however, Mrs. Johnson’s memory was jogged. After reading the Johnson article, Dittmer wrote to suggest that the film was the movie adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play, “Sweet Bird of Youth.” Paul Newman played a character named Chance Wayne.

Toni concurred, sort of.

“Yeah, that’s probably it,” she said.

Nunn of those jokes, please: Despite his wealth of boxing talent, there are a few things about Michael Nunn that hard-core fight fans hate, writes Wallace Mathews of Newsday.

For one, the guy doesn’t sound as though he’s gargling golf balls when he talks. For another, his face is smooth and unlined, topped with a stylish haircut and often creased by a smile that shows a mouthful of pearly whites, all intact.

For a third, he’s a bit of a yuppie, with a condo in San Fernando Valley, a wardrobe of designer clothes and a following that includes a bevy of Hollywood stars and California beach-girl types.

But what boxing types seem to resent most of all is that Nunn, the International Boxing Federation middleweight champion, who will defend his title Friday in Las Vegas against Juan Roldan, is a finesse fighter in a division known for bruisers.

No raging bull, Nunn is more Giorgio Armani than Jake LaMotta. Even with his unexpected and masterful destruction of Frank Tate in winning the title in July, Nunn is getting little or no respect from his peers. People joke that his squeeze bottle must be filled with Perrier.

Covering all bases: Before the Edmonton Oilers played in Los Angeles, Wayne Gretzky invited 14 former teammates to visit him at his rented mansion in Encino, a few iron gates from Michael Jackson’s palace. It was in the nature of a farewell party.

He misses the team. The team misses him.

Bill Tuele, the Oilers’ director of public relations, misses Gretzky as much as anyone in Edmonton.

“The first thing Wayne said to me when the Kings were here was, ‘Bill, come down to L.A. and help me out.’ I guess the media is driving him crazy. Would you believe--even the Antelope Valley Press is covering the Kings on the road?”

Quotebook

Carl Scheer, general manager of the NBA expansion entry in Charlotte, N.C., told Newsday: “As Bill Fitch once said, ‘War is hell and expansion is worse.’ Still, it’s exciting, because everything is fresh. It’s the strangest feeling. We beat the Knicks in a meaningless preseason game, and the next day here, you’d think we won the Super Bowl.”