Holtz Finally Comments on Book

Lou Holtz, Notre Dame football coach, defended himself and the university Sunday against allegations in a new book, marking the first time he has commented on the subject since the book’s contents became public two weeks ago.

“Look at our graduation rate, look at our drug-testing program, look at the people who have played at the University of Notre Dame and the response that they have had,” Holtz said during an interview on CNN’s “Coaches Corner.” “Look at the way our football players play. Go talk to the millions of people, there are thousands of them, who have done well.”

The book, “Under the Tarnished Dome: How Notre Dame Betrayed its Ideals for Football Glory” uses interviews with former Notre Dame players to accuse Holtz of encouraging steroid use and abusing players, among other things. The book says the university has lowered its academic standards to rebuild a football program that sagged in the early 1980s.

University officials have refuted all allegations.

Pro Basketball

Reggie Lewis, who died from a heart defect July 27, reportedly was born with a heart murmur and his family had a history of cardiac illness.

The Boston Globe reported Sunday that the Celtic star suffered five or six dizzy spells in the four months before an earlier collapse April 29 on the basketball court, and had a run of extra heartbeats while he was in the hospital.

The paper also said that, like several of his teammates, Lewis occasionally sniffed ammonia capsules during games to stay alert.

Lewis apparently told his doctor, Gilbert Mudge, that one of his two brothers was born with a hole in his heart and had undergone open heart surgery in Baltimore when he was 4 years old.

But, according to the Globe, Lewis failed to tell Mudge and the team of 12 doctors who also examined him that he was born with a heart murmur diagnosed at a Baltimore clinic and detected in elementary school physicals. Apparently, the murmur went away when he was 12.

Lewis also concealed that his mother, Inez Reid, has had two heart attacks, one of them when she was 17, the Globe reported.

Miscellany

Jessica Davis of Anselmo, Calif., and Brooke Bushnell of San Rafael were among four athletes who qualified for the U.S. team that will compete in the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships to be held Nov. 4-7 at Alicante, Spain. . . . Uruguay kept its World Cup hopes alive by defeating Bolivia, 2-1, in a key South American qualifying game at Montevideo, Uruguay. . . . The first game between the USC and UCLA women’s soccer teams will be played today at Caltech at 2 p.m. . . . Eight Bosnian tennis players entered the United States as part of a multinational effort to save young athletes from their war-stricken country.