Tour of Duty in Saudi Arabia Might Ease Pressure on Holtz

For the media’s benefit, Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz likes to conduct a weep-in during the week before facing a clearly inferior opponent. Just call him the Voice of the Golden Doom.

This week, as his team prepared to play USC, Holtz chose to reflect on the terrible toll coaching the Irish takes on a man.

Judge for yourself whether he isn’t singing the same old song.

Invoking one of his predecessors, Holtz said: “Frank Leahy was here three years and went to war. I think sometimes that would be a welcome relief to get away from the pressures.”

Trivia time: The last non-back to win the Heisman Trophy was Notre Dame end Leon Hart, in 1949. How many passes did Hart catch that season?

She flipped, he’s hooked: Gymnast Mary Lou Retton, who won the all-around gold medal at the 1984 Olympic Games, will marry former University of Texas quarterback Shannon Kelley on Dec. 29.

Kelley told Matt Harvey of Associated Press: “We lift weights together, run together. Not gymnastics. I can’t do a cartwheel. But anything competitive, we do it against each other, whether it’s racing each other up the stairs or whatever. . . . If I want to go hunting deer, Mary Lou will go along and try to shoot a bigger one than me.”

Said Retton: “We’re big kids. We could spend hours at Children’s Palace or Toys R Us.”

Trying to Hack it: The University of Pittsburgh (3-6-1) finishes a disappointing football season today as a big underdog to Penn State.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Ron Cook recently took Coach Paul Hackett to task for the Panthers’ miserable showing in 1990.

Cook criticized Hackett for making excuses when asked by a talk-show caller about his players’ taunting opponents.

The first-year coach told her: “I didn’t recruit them. I just coach them.”

Add Pitt: Cook did have some kind words for Hackett:

“These Pitt players are a hard group to please. A portion grumbled about (former Coach Mike) Gottfried and a portion is grumbling about Hackett, apparently because he has had the audacity to demand they go to class. Hackett has suspended nine players, the majority for academic violations. For that, he should be applauded.”

Lost Art: Reader Pat Rose of Santa Barbara has news for anyone who swallowed a remark by Steve Hubbard of the Pittsburgh Press, who was quoted in Friday’s Morning Briefing as saying that the Cleveland Browns had not appeared in an NFL championship game in the 30 years Art Modell has owned the team.

Rose pointed out that not only did the Browns appear in the 1964 title game against heavily favored Baltimore, they beat the Colts, 27-0.

Trivia answer: 19.

Quotebook: British angler Barbara Hargreaves to Wilma Paterson, co-author of the book “Salmon and Women: The Feminine Angle,” which contends that fish might be sexually attracted to the women who land them: “I have better things to do with my hormones than catch fish.”