When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Louisiana coastline, thousands fled the area. Families were torn apart as the hurricane took its toll on the city of New Orleans. Yet despite the horrifying effects of Katrina, one family managed to stay together.
 
Escape from New Orleans
Before Hurricane Katrina, UNO track and field coach Willie Randolph was preparing for his third season. He was planning to on finalize a purchase of a new home in Slidell. It was not until Randolph received a phone call from assistant coach Trent Ellis that he was made aware of a possible hurricane.
“Considering it was the first couple of weeks of school and I was very busy, I had not personally watched much TV,” Randolph said. “When I got that call, it was a surprise to me.”
The Saturday before the hurricane hit, UNO athletes were taking physicals at the Lakefront Arena.
“The kids started saying that the doctors weren’t going to do any more physicals,” Randolph said. “The doctors were packing up and were planning on leaving.”
Following a team meeting later that day, Randolph and his staff decided to head to Baton Rouge.
“I told [the athletes] to go back to their rooms and get some important papers, just in case,” Randolph said. “I was trying to keep the mood light. I saw a lot of them were beginning to get nervous.”
Randolph said there was never an overwhelming feeling that everyone needed to get out of the city.
“There had still not been a warning from the mayor that Saturday night to get out,” Randolph said. “Even though we realized it was looming, we never had that sense of major urgency that we needed to get out of the area.”
With some athletes going on their own to Baton Rouge, Randolph organized a ride for the following day at 5 a.m. A number of the athletes, especially international students, with no relatives in the immediate area, had to rely on Randolph for help.
 
From the Big Easy to the Big Apple
Junior Frenchie Joulain runs the 4×400 hurdles. He had been in America for only two months prior to the storm. Joulain, a Paris native, ended up thousands of miles from New Orleans following the hurricane. After evacuating with two teammates, Joulain travelled to Memphis, Tn., the home of one of his teammates. Days later, Joulain ended up in New York after flying with another teammate. Joulain said the hardest part was not being in contact with his mother in Paris.
“I talk to my mom everyday,” Joulain said. “But during the hurricane, I wasn’t able to talk to her for four days.”
Joulain said his mother was happy to find out he was alive, yet a bit surprised at his trek across the east coast.
“She was happy,” Joulain said. “But she didn’t expect me to go to New York. She was just glad I was okay.”
Now, Joulain is enrolled at LSU, where he lives in the Pentagon with two roommates. Joulain said going from a four-bedroom apartment in New Orleans, to a one-room dorm in Baton Rouge is not as bad as it appears.
“It’s all right, so long as we have a roof over our heads,” Joulain said. “We have a great place to live, and we’re at a great university, so we’re not going to complain.”
After deciding to leave France to come to New Orleans, aware of the possibility of hurricanes each year, Joulain said he does not regret anything.
“I didn’t know such a big hurricane could hit New Orleans,” Joulain said. “But I was able to see a whole new aspect of America, so it was all right.”
 
Getting Settled
After the 90-mile drive from New Orleans turned into a five-and-a half hour trip, Randolph arrived in Baton Rouge and began getting in contact with members of the track and field team. He had to rely on text-messaging because his cell phone was not working.
After finally touching base with the track and field athletes scattered across Baton Rouge, Randolph now had to worry about assistant coach Glen Jenkins, who decided to stay behind and ride out the storm. Randolph received a call from him the day after the hurricane hit.
“He told us he was OK,” Randolph said. “He had to put some things higher in the apartment as the water was rising, but we knew he was alive. And then we didn’t get to talk to him for another seven days.”
With the team finally in Baton Rouge, starting to settle down involved Randolph taking money from his own pocket.
“Luckily, I had taken a good amount of money out of my account when we left [New Orleans],” Randolph said. “And nobody in Baton Rouge wanted to accept a credit card from New Orleans. So we had to ration our cash out.”
His next issue involved where he would stay. Randolph contacted LSU’s assistant athletic director Eddie Nunez, who he had worked with at Vanderbilt University. Nunez offered a place for the coaches to stay.
Nunez said Randolph stayed with him for the better part of three weeks.
 
A Lending Hand
Upon getting settled in Baton Rouge, the LSU Athletic Department allowed the team to use the track stadium, but times of practice had to be scheduled around LSU’s practice times. According to track and field coach Dennis Shaver, it was no problem for LSU.
“It’s more inconvenient for him than it is for us,” Shaver said. “He had to work around our practice times, which is different from what they did in New Orleans.”
Shaver said LSU was unable to move its practice times, because they had already been shaped around the athletes academic schedules.
It was at this time, that Pastor Drew Rollins of St. Albans Episcopal Church on campus became aware of the team’s situation. After a meeting the following day, Rollins decided to work to assist the track and field program.
“We’ve provided assistance in the form of refrigerators and microwaves, and they’ve all gotten Wal-Mart gift cards,” Rollins said.
In addition, Rollins opened the church for the team to hold meetings. Each Wednesday night the team gathers in the church’s loft.
“What we can do is provide a home for them,” Rollins said. “They’re just displaced, and they need support, relationships and someone to listen to.”
The track team has also taken part in a dinner-party at the church.
“They’ve been a joy to be around,” Rollins said. “They have the benefit of being a team together. I’ve just found them to be very resilient and very courageous.”
St. Albans is not the only organization that has helped the UNO track team. Students at Sacramento State have gotten in touch through e-mail and have offered support.
“Their kids adopted our kids,” Randolph said. “It wasn’t about what school was better, but how they were able to reach out and help.”
 
New Beginning, Same Goal
Randolph left Nunez’s house, and has found a home of his own in Baker. It’s not the home in Slidell, now greatly damaged by the storm. But it is a place to live.
According to Nunez, a lot of credit should be given to Randolph for what he accomplished through the hurricane.
“I really commend him on what he did,” Nunez said. “The coach serves as a second parent to these kids, and he took the responsibility of finding somewhere for them to stay.”
Randolph has now set his sights on Oct. 29, when the Cross Country team will head to Miami for the Sun Belt Championship. The athletes are finally settled in with places to live and classes to attend, and can now look ahead to starting over.
Contact Jeff Sentell at [email protected]