Tulane's Athletes Prepare for Next Move

The loss of its home stadium, training facilities and disruption of student life is yet another blow for a Tulane program that was nearly eliminated or dropped to Division III status in 2003 to help the school erase a $7 million annual deficit by its athletic department. Without a home stadium and facilities, it could be very difficult for the Green Wave to recruit high school players. So far, none of Tulane's players have transferred to another school.

"The bottom line in this whole thing is three and a half months, that's our focus," Scelfo said. "We want to persevere for three and a half months. If we can't recruit, and I get let go and I don't have a job, I've got to go get another job."

For now, the Tulane football program is being operated out of a couple of ballrooms in the Doubletree Hotel. The players' locker room is in one ballroom, with jersey numbers hanging over basic banquet chairs. Another ballroom serves as the team meeting room and players' lounge. The Green Wave uses the same projector to study practice film and watch television. Donated goods are kept in a storage room, sorted in bags that include toiletries such as deodorant, soap, toothpaste and shampoo.

Each position coach has his own meeting room, although the team's wide receivers are cramped into a small corner. There's a meeting room for the coaching staff and a local sports medicine firm donated massage tables and other necessities for a makeshift training room. Players eat a breakfast buffet at the hotel, and lunch and dinner at an SMU dining hall.

On Friday, players were taken to a department store, where a Tulane booster purchased them shorts, shirts, slacks and underwear (the NCAA relaxed its rule prohibiting student-athletes from taking gifts from boosters). The University of Oklahoma donated a truckload of Gatorade and the Indianapolis Colts sent T-shirts and shorts for practice gear. The players went to the SMU-Baylor football game on Saturday, and the parents of a Tulane freshman from Dallas hosted the team for a barbeque on Sunday.

"We're holding up pretty good," quarterback Lester Ricard said. "The great thing is we all have our families and they're safe and we're being taken care of."

Ricard, from Denham Springs, La., is more at ease after learning that his uncles who were missing in New Orleans had been found. He received the good news in a text message on his cell phone Friday. He said he's eager to start playing football again.

"We need to win," Ricard said. "When the day comes, we can help people forget about the past and focus on the future and let them know things can get better."

Senior linebacker Anthony Cannon, from Atlanta, sat at a coffee table in the hotel lobby Tuesday night filling out an application for admission to Louisiana Tech. He wondered what was left of the house he shared with cornerback Sean Lucas on Napoleon Avenue near the Tulane campus. The teammates rented the bottom floor of a duplex.

"We had the choice between the upstairs or downstairs floors and we chose downstairs," Cannon said. "I guess that was a bad choice."

Scelfo still isn't sure what became of the house he shared with his wife, Nancy, and children, Sarah, 13, and Joseph, 11. Although he has heard the home didn't suffer much flood damage, it might have been looted and burned. "I have no idea and don't care," Scelfo said.

One of Scelfo's brothers, Frank, is Tulane's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. An older brother, Sam, lost many of the six bakeries he owned in New Orleans and probably lost his house in the floods, too.

"It's all gone," Scelfo said. "He's going to have to rebuild. His whole financial life went down the tubes there. He's going to have to raise three kids in a different way. The economy there isn't going to be operating."

So it's easy to see why Scelfo says he isn't worried about the Green Wave's win-loss record this year.

"I want to be able to say when that final horn sounds, 'We persevered,' " Scelfo said. "When we do it, everybody in the city of New Orleans and everybody that was affected by this, whether they lived there or not, if we affect one person by giving them hope to persevere, I'm the first one on the train to heaven."