In the post-Hurricane Katrina era, the future remains uncertain for New Orleans college athletics.
Eddie Francis bursts out laughing when he recounts his unexpected coaching debut for Southern University at New Orleans this past semester. The men’s track team was planning to travel to Tennessee for a national indoor championship meet, but their part-time coach, a runner himself, couldn’t accompany them because of a race he would run in Europe that same week. Furthermore, neither of SUNO’s basketball coaches could fill in because of scheduling conflicts.
So Francis accompanied the team and cheered the players to an 11th-place finish out of 44 teams. It gave him a crash course not only in coaching, but also in track and field in general. That’s because he’s the interim director of public relations and sports information at SUNO.
“All I knew to tell the guys was to run fast,” he recalls. “And they did! They did a great job. Who would’ve thought the PR guy would be up there coaching? I never coached a team in my life!”
All jokes aside, Francis’ coaching cameo illustrates how New Orleans’ historically Black colleges have resurrected some sports programs in the post-Hurricane Katrina era — any way they can.
Massive flooding from the storm nearly three years ago not only pounded campuses and forced the cancellation of classes for a semester, it also leveled intercollegiate athletics for at least two semesters. Many coaches and athletic directors were laid off.
Gymnasiums and equipment were damaged or destroyed; trophies and uniforms washed away. Student-athletes, like other young people, signed up for classes elsewhere around the country, most of them unable to play sports because of scholarship restrictions.
As Dillard University president Dr. Marvalene Hughes puts it, “The fact that we’ve got any athletics today is a miracle.”
In the aftermath of the flood and mass evacuations, much media attention focused on the New Orleans’ Saints in football and the Hornets in basketball, professional teams that played home games elsewhere the latter part of 2005. Pro sports phasing in their return to the city in 2006 became a metaphor to the overall rebuilding.
