Six-term United States Senator Jesse Helms died Friday, the Fourth of July, an appropriate exit date for one of the modern lions of Congress' upper house.
You will read a lot today about his complicated political legacy, a man who once called the University of North Carolina the "University of Negroes and Communists," but who also, in his later years, worked with U2 singer/humanitarian Bono on relieving the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
In an indirect but unmistakable way, you could also say that Helms was responsible for helping change the course of Notre Dame football in the 1980s.
At least Lou Holtz seems to think so.
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