Greg Hansen: Tucson embraced Julius Holt, and he never stopped returning the favor

The October morning after Arizona stunned undefeated Notre Dame in 1982, Julius Holt was awakened by a phone call from fellow Wildcat defensive lineman Joe Drake.

“Your picture’s on the front page of the newspaper,’’ Drake said.

Holt walked to a 7-11 near Speedway and Campbell to buy a copy of the Star’s Sunday issue but discovered he didn’t have 75 cents in his pocket. He told the cashier that he was the person pictured next to All-American linebacker Ricky Hunley, engulfed by a mob of about 600 UA fans who greeted the Wildcats at the airport.

“The cashier asked my name and checked the picture,’’ Holt said. “He gave me the paper and said to take an extra copy to send to my parents.’’

Holt was telling me this story a few days before he put on a cap and gown and walked across the stage to receive his UA bachelor’s degree in 1995, which was 13 years after he played his last college football game.

“Anyway,’’ he said with his trademark laugh, “I lost those papers and am calling to ask if you can get me a copy.’’

Holt wanted to give the old picture to his fifth-grade teacher, Teresa Snuges. She was flying to Tucson from Washington D.C., to celebrate Holt’s graduation.

If you were fortunate to spend any time with Julius Holt over the last 40 years, it didn’t take long to learn that he was often as close to a laugh as he was to tears. An emotional man, Holt began to cry when talking about Mrs. Snuges.

“My parents both died the same year, when I was 10,’’ he said. “Mrs. Snuges took me under her arm and treated me like her own. She was a second mom to me. I wanted to give her something special for flying all the way out to see me graduate. That’s why I called. Could you get me a copy of that picture?’’

Mrs. Snuges didn’t need a newspaper picture to make her proud of Julius Holt. She followed his rise from the dreaded 14th Street ghetto of Washington D.C. — one of nine children left adrift by the death of their parents — to a successful life in Tucson.

“I know the difference between heaven and hell because I grew up in hell,’’ Holt told me in 2004. He found his own plot of heaven in Tucson.

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Holt died early Monday morning at a Tucson hospital, with his wife, Lisa, and daughter, Julia, at his side. At 60, Holt’s once-strong, 6-foot 1-inch, 250-pound football body, had been overpowered by kidney and heart disease, as well as Valley Fever. They were much stronger opponents than the undefeated Fighting Irish of 1982.

The lives Holt positively touched in Tucson can’t be documented by numbers. Let’s just say it’s a much larger number than the 600 people who greeted him and his teammates at the Tucson Airport 40 years ago.

He worked as a counselor for Child Protective Services, and for several Group Homes in Tucson. He worked for an anti-Gang Task Force. One year, he lived in a tepee, in the middle of the desert, counseling troubled teenagers. Holt was a guidance counselor at Catalina High School, worked with at-risk teens for the Tucson Urban League and at the Our Town Family Center. He worked for TUSD as the coordinator for middle school sports programs.

When Holt was hired in the late ’90s by his alma mater to work in the CATS program as an academic counselor, one of those he came to influence was Adia Barnes, then the greatest women’s basketball player in UA history.

“Julius was such a good father figure, not just to his kids, but to all kids,’’ says Ricky Hunley, who was Holt’s UA teammate in ’81 and ’82, becoming a fraternity brother and a lifelong friend. “When you grow up without a father figure, like many of us, you want to help others who are going through what you went through. That was Julius’ mission: helping Tucson’s disadvantaged kids.’’

Holt was a good football player. He was an honorable junior-college All-American at Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls, Iowa, a big part of ECC’s perfect 10-0 season, 1980, which drew the attention of Arizona coach Larry Smith. Once Arizona out-recruited Michigan State and Minnesota, Holt joined an Arizona defense that stunned No. 1 USC, No. 9 Notre Dame and, famously, in 1982, knocked No. 6 ASU out of the Rose Bowl, changing the trajectory of the Territorial Cup rivalry.

“The night we beat ASU, the students tore down the goal posts and paraded them around campus,’’ Holt told me in a 1999 interview. “Somehow, the goalposts wound up at Dirtbags about 2 in the morning. Someone called me and I hurried over to Dirtbags. Me and Joe Drake carried them around on our shoulders up and down Speedway. I’ll never forget it.’’

Holt never strayed far from football or his alma mater, at which he earned a master’s degree in 2005. His closest friends have been ex-Wildcat NFL players Randy Robbins, Ricky Hunley and Lamonte Hunley. For almost 20 years he was an official — including president — of the Tucson Youth Football and Spirit Federation Football.

A year ago, Holt told me that his daughter, Julia, a coveted softball recruit from Salpointe and Canyon del Oro, had signed to be a pitcher at Howard University in Washington D.C. He paused, his voice breaking.

“The campus at Howard is about four blocks from where I grew up and went to Cardoza High School,’’ he said. “That area used to be a place where pimps and drug dealers hung out. Now it has all changed. Julia can go back to my hometown and find a better life than I found there.’’

Julius Holt found his life in Tucson.