COLLEGE FOOTBALL / DAILY REPORT : AROUND THE NATION : Notre Dame Book Offensive to Mirer

Former Notre Dame quarterback Rick Mirer, now with the Seattle Seahawks, is no fan of the controversial new book about the Irish football program, “Under the Tarnished Dome.” Said Mirer in a conference call with Raider writers Wednesday:

“I think it’s a horrible misrepresentation of the university. If anybody knows what happened there in the last four or five years, I would definitely be one of those guys. . . . I’m sort of disgusted with the things I see, particularly from the people who wrote the book, the interviews and the comments they have.

“It’s not good, either, to see some of the guys that you played with talking about how they were treated unfairly and how coaches encouraged certain things. It’s a tough game and it’s a tough life. Some guys can’t deal with that and some guys can.

“I feel badly for Coach (Lou) Holtz because he does so many things for the benefit of the players, to make you a better person, to make you a better student, to make you a better athlete. It’s just not fair that the rap he’s taking right now has to be so ugly. But he’s a strong guy, and he’ll work through it.”

Asked if he was interviewed for the book, Mirer replied, “No, they’re not going to look for guys who went through and didn’t have problems. That’s not the way they wanted to approach it. They looked for people who had a reason to be angry about whatever happened in their career there. They have no reason to talk to me.

“It’s too bad that one guy can write down on paper something that can influence the opinions of so many people who really don’t have a reason to believe one way or another, but they do because this guy writes it. It’s not fair.”