| Commentary |
Football Teams Evacuate,
Schools Cancel Classes
9/4/05
11:50 pm edt
by
Michael Louis
Hattiesburg is the home
of Southern Miss' main campus. Though the town is located some
90 miles away from the gulf shore, winds topped 100 miles per
hour and caused significant damage. As of Sunday, power was still
not restored to some areas around Hattiesburg. Mississippi Power
estimated that nearly 70 percent of the company's facilities
would need major repairs.
Hurricane Katrina's massive destruction in the southern parts
of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama caused two games to be
postponed and another to be canceled altogether even though it
was scheduled to be played hundreds of miles away.
Nicholls State, a 1-AA program located 60 miles west-southwest
of New Orleans in Thibodaux scrapped its game at Utah State scheduled
for Thursday night. The college is the site of a tent city for
evacuees but plans to reopen on Tuesday after the Labor Day weekend.
Saturday's North Texas-LSU game will be rescheduled. Sunday's
Tulane-Southern Miss affair was pushed back to November 26.
Tulane, located in New Orleans, has canceled the entire fall
semester. The Green Wave football team was evacuated to Dallas
and is practicing at Dallas Jesuit High School. Thankfully, not
one football player or family member became a statistic in the
storm's mounting death toll. Contact was established with the
last mising parent on Friday.
Tulane's next scheduled game was supposed to be played in the
Louisiana Superdome on September 17. A definitive decision has
not been made regarding that contest but it obviously won't be
played at the Superdome.
LSU is 80 miles up the road in the state capital of Baton Rouge
whose population has reportedly doubled in the past week with
the influx of displaced residents from New Orleans, Slidell and
surrounding areas. The LSU campus has been serving as an emergency
medical operations center. Classes have been canceled since August
29 but are expected to resume September 6.
Southern Miss issued a statement on Friday that said classes
were originally scheduled to resume September 6, but logistical
issues concerning power on campus and the clearing of debris
forced moving the date back to September 12.
The Southern Miss football team was relocated to the campus of
a conference rival - the University of Memphis - where it will
stay until its game at Alabama this coming Saturday (9/10). The
Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger reported that Coach Jeff Bower
said Friday he is concerned about the absence of junior safety
LeVance Richmond. He has not been heard from since Wednesday
and has not joined the team in Memphis.
The return of college football was a welcomed sight to millions
of fans around the country, but we doubt that anyone was able
to escape their thoughts and mourning for the victims of Hurricane
Katrina. |
|
|