Tulane taking no chances (Can you blame it?)

August 29, 2008

By Ken Rogers

Tulane’s football team’s visit to Tuscaloosa for next Saturday’s Alabama home opener has turned into a college road trip.
In advance of Tropical Storm Gustav, Tulane’s athletic department has evacuated its student-athletes, coaches and staff out of New Orleans.
The university closed at noon today and classes will resume on Thursday, Sept. 4.
The football team, which will play in Bryant-Denny Stadium next Saturday night at 6 p.m., will leave for Birmingham on Saturday and practice all week in the Magic City.
“We have an annually revised plan that assures the safety of our 280 student-athletes, which is our top priority,” Director of Athletics Rick Dickson said in a statement released by the university.  “It gives us the flexibility of determining the manner in which we evacuate.  We chose the option of sending two of our active teams—football and volleyball—to their competition sites earlier in light of the fact that classes are cancelled through next Wednesday. Additionally, an efficient model of tracking every out-of-season student-athlete will occur at the conclusion of classes on Friday. This tracking system is monitored by our athletic staff and coaches and assures that all our student-athletes reach safe harbor.”
The TU volleyball team flew out of New Orleans on Thursday for their season opener at the BYU Molten Classic in Provo, Utah, and will remain on a West Coast road trip. It will travel directly to its next tournament, the Paso Robles Marriott Invitational, Sept. 5-6, at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
The Green Wave women’s golf and tennis teams, along with the men’s and women’s cross country teams, will relocate as well on Saturday, but to the campus of Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss.
Tulane has cancelled both the Green Wave Invitational cross country meet, which was scheduled for Friday afternoon at City Park, and the TU volleyball home opener against Florida A&M on Monday, Sept. 1.
Tulane was crippled in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As Gustav gains strength in the Gulf of Mexico, school leaders clearly want to be as proactive as possible. Being reactive after Katrina simply didn’t work. Can’t blame them for thinking safety first. They’ve seen what can happen if you wait. Nobody wants to go through that again.