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After the Hurricanes Perspectives from members of the Louisiana prep track and field community and others on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the effects they have had: Andrew Huston's perspective - From DyeStatCal.com, Story of Karjuan Williams and Nick Sparks |
Effects of Katrina on Louisiana High School Cross CountryBy Andrew Huston, 5th year senior running at LSU (lasseviren on the DyeStat message boards)
I didn’t even know the hurricane (Katrina) was on her way until the Friday before she hit (she hit that weekend). I was doing some odd jobs for a friend (mowing grass, painting, etc) and he mentioned that he wanted me to finish up everything before the weekend because of the hurricane. I was like, “What hurricane?” He laughed at me and told me to go watch The Weather Channel, so I did. Katrina took up half of the Gulf of Mexico. Half of the largest gulf in the world. Supposedly this was “THE ONE” that was going to wipe out New Orleans. BS, I said … and so did many others. For years I had heard weather forecasters cry wolf. Twice, in 2002, LSU was let off school for such weather events and the weather turned out to be perfect. Another time, in 2003, the same thing happened. People down here are used to storms and hurricanes and, unfortunately, forecasters crying wolf. Except this time there really was a wolf in the gulf, her name was Katrina, and New Orleans really was destroyed. New Orleans was Louisiana’s largest city, right around 1.5 million. Now Baton Rouge is. New Orleans hosted a lot of cross country meets. Owing to the large size of the city, there was a large amount of kids that were displaced due to the hurricane. Some came up to Baton Rouge, some to Houston, some to North Carolina. The only people in New Orleans were the National Guard and rescue personnel. The question on everyone’s minds dealt with the impending cross country season (as well as other sports). Meets were rescheduled and the start of the season was delayed as officials figured out what to do. Many schools in Baton Rouge started offering night classes, providing education without straining resources, by adding many students and giving displaced teachers necessary employment. My own alma mater, Episcopal, took in many students from Newman High School and St. Martin’s Episcopal. My mom is a 4th grade teacher at Episcopal and took in a few students. Many parents’ jobs permanently relocated to Baton Rouge, so they relocated their families. Some of my New Orleans friends’ parents moved out of state and decided they didn’t really want to come back after all; they’d just lost pretty much everything – except a cross country season. The LHSAA went ahead with the season. In order to give everyone an opportunity to compete, the LHSAA did not mandate a waiting period if a student transferred to another school from out of district. Enter Jimmy Swanson. Jimmy ran for Newman High, third in Class 3A XC. Newman had dropped down to 2A for the 2005 season and they were expected to compete with Episcopal and St. Martin’s for the title, until Katrina. After Katrina, it was Episcopal and University High competing for the title. Jimmy came up to Episcopal and enrolled and participated in cross country. Episcopal was chasing their 10th consecutive title and 18th in the past 20 years. Jimmy proved to be a valuable help to the Knights. He placed 4th overall, with a 3-mile time of 16:22. During the year, he broke 16 for 3 miles and helped Episcopal place in the top 5 in several meets. At the state meet, Episcopal put 4 in the top 10, winning their 10th consecutive title. Jesuit High School in New Orleans was the defending 5A champion. They were set to do something that had never happened in 5A, win a third consecutive title. Jesuit re-opened in time for them to compete at Metro, District, and State. Brett Guidry won his second state title and Jesuit pulled off the three-peat. Brother Martin came in second, but they took a different path. Rather than attend an out of state school, their students went to night school at Catholic High in Baton Rouge. They worked out in the mornings, then went to school from roughly 3:00 PM to 10:00 PM, Monday through Friday. They managed to place second in 5A for the third consecutive year. These are a few stories of how displaced athletes managed to have their cross country season that they had trained all summer for. The qualities that many good distance runners possess – perseverance, mental toughness, self discipline – were all necessary for them to pull through this tragedy and ultimately have a successful season.
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