Green Wave coach guided team through Katrina

Originally Published: September 22, 2006

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By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
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The sympathy for Duquesne will last throughout the season, except during the games.

The feel-good story of a team that had five members victimized in a senseless shooting won't matter once the games tip. The opponent will want to win just as badly as against anyone else.

Ron Everhart, in his first season as head coach at Duquesne after coming from Northeastern, told his team that earlier this week prior to individual workouts.

"We're not going to feel sorry for ourselves under any circumstances," Everhart said. "We're going to represent this university. We're going to be there for each other. We're going to get through this."

The speech wasn't written. It wasn't copied, either. It was a natural response -- of the same type that Tulane's Dave Dickerson delivered a year ago when his Green Wave were forced to seek refuge from Hurricane Katrina on Texas A&M's campus for the first semester.

"There's no manual for this, no one I was going to call," Dickerson said this week from his office in New Orleans, ready for his first preseason on campus. "The worst thing to do is to run away and hide and not be visible.

"No matter what happens, you won't get a free pass in this deal," Dickerson said. "No one gave us wins. You can't expect the other teams that recruit and play against you to take pity on you on the court. No one did it to us and they're not going to do it them."

As soon as Dickerson heard about the shootings last Sunday, he gathered his team together. Tulane had no control over the natural disaster a year ago. The Duquesne players' worst crime apparently was talking to a woman who hung with a group of guys who let guns do their talking for them.

"I told our guys whatever you do, take the high road," Dickerson said. "You've got to walk away and don't retaliate."

Dickerson also said he put in a call to Everhart, who had sent a note a year ago immediately after the hurricane. Everhart was the top assistant under Perry Clark when Tulane's program was resurrected in 1989 after a three-year shutdown. Now, Dickerson wants to help.

"I'd love to talk to him," Everhart said.

Dickerson knows how quickly things changed last year after Katrina. He had to move into a bunker within Kyle Field at Texas A&M, but was still able to get his players quickly into a routine.

"He's going to have to do a really, really good job of making sure his team is stabilized," Dickerson said. "He's got to be mentally tough and strong enough so he can be there for his players."

Everhart already has canceled recruiting visits because he still has two players in the hospital. He did conduct the team's individual workouts this week.

Dickerson did the same thing, choosing to stay with his team rather than attempt recruiting. Post-Katrina was a bit different. Dickerson didn't know if he had a school to recruit to for this season, since it had been closed for the fall semester. Everhart doesn't have that issue, but he's not going to recruit while he's in the middle of a crisis.

"I had to make sure they knew we were having a season," Dickerson said. "I told them that our love for the game would get us through. It was tough because everything we had planned to do as a coaching staff had to be scrapped because we were starting on someone else's campus."

Dickerson said from what he has read, the Duquesne staff's job of ensuring that the players are safe is critical. Like Katrina, what happened to the Duquesne players isn't likely to happen again.

"Ultimately, you have to have good leadership skills, because he'll have to be a leader now more than ever," said Dickerson. "It's not about X's and O's or recruiting. That's not as important right now. Being a leader is the most important."

Dickerson got the Green Wave to have a better season than anyone could have imagined. Tulane, which went back to New Orleans at Christmas, finished 12-17, winning seven of its last 12 games. The 12 wins were more than Tulane had the previous two years combined and the six conference wins were the most since 2003.

Duquesne is in a similar conference (A-10 versus C-USA) and Everhart is facing a comparable rebuilding job after the Dukes won only three games a year ago. Anything would be an improvement. Duquesne won't be displaced from its campus, but there is more emotional trauma to heal than for the Green Wave players who were evacuated before the levees broke and New Orleans flooded.

Everhart is trying to handle the emotional part by getting the players on the court this week. With plenty of counseling available, he's also ensuring that they know they're not alone. Still, ultimately, it will rest with his staff to get the players to believe they can emerge from what appears now to be an abyss. Tulane did. Duquesne should, too.

Andy Katz is a senior writer for ESPN.com.