Healing starts on the gridiron

Tulane was supposed to open on the road at Southern Mississippi last Saturday.

The Green Wave football team had a shot at being one of the best in Conference USA this season. The opening-week matchup against the Golden Eagles from nearby Hattiesburg, Miss., was set to be the conference's marquee early-season matchup.

That all changed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which has sent the South reeling.

Southern Miss' campus was battered, but fared well in comparison to coastal cities such as Biloxi. In fact, classes are scheduled to resume next week. Tulane, on the other hand, did not fare as well. The campus remains flooded, and students have long been evacuated. Football? The team has relocated to temporary quarters at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The team will at last take the field next Saturday against Mississippi State.

While the logistics of all of this may seem silly to discuss at a time when hundreds of thousands of people are without homes, it is after all college football -- in the South.

Games and scores pale in comparison to the real work that must be done to accommodate the victims of this natural disaster. But that does not mean football should go away. Rather, college sports, as they have in the past, will serve as a powerful tool to bring people together. It is a necessary distraction; something to take everyone's minds off of the destruction at least for a few hours.

In Mississippi, tomorrow night will mark the opening of the high school football season. Residents anxious to get their lives back together will get to return to the Friday night tradition that means so much in that part of the country.

"People I've talked to feel playing these games are just as important to the communities as the student-athletes," Ennis Proctor, executive director of the Mississippi High School Activities Association told The Associated Press.

"It's part of the healing process from the hurricane, so communities can rally around the school and so forth," he said. "Mississippi is a state where high schools and athletic programs are a big part of people's lives."

Tomorrow night a big part of people's lives will become normal again. And in most parts of this country, college football is equally a big part of people's lives.

I cannot speak for residents of Louisiana, but I can only imagine how much of a boost it would be to the spirits of the evacuees if Louisiana State were to beat Arizona State on Saturday. Hundreds of hurricane victims staying in Arizona have been given free tickets to the game at Sun Devil Stadium -- it was relocated from LSU's campus because Tiger Stadium is being used as a base for hurricane relief efforts.

College sports bring out the best in people. The competitive drive and desire to win show through on gameday, but the spirit of camaraderie and good sportsmanship last a lifetime.

Fans across America last week made their schools proud by donating millions of dollars on their way into sporting events. Big-time programs such as Michigan and Ohio State pledged to donate the proceeds from their gameday program sales to hurricane relief funds. Countless other student organizations passed the hat last Saturday as college football season began in earnest.

Many from professional sports are getting into the act as well. Major League Baseball teams are sending their ticket revenues to the American Red Cross. The New York Yankees just cut a check for $1 million. All those who say that pro athletes are just overpaid and jealous should take a look at the charity that is being done by many of those same athletes.

The sports world can be proud of its efforts over the past week to give of itself in service to others.

Quite possibly the best example of sportsmanship, though, comes from Alabama. Thousands of fans regularly make the trek to Tuscaloosa to watch their heralded Crimson Tide. Last weekend the city's hotels would have been packed with football fans. Instead they were overflowing with hurricane survivors. The football fans graciously offered up their rooms -- often booked months in advance -- to the victims who had nowhere else to go. Robert Ratliff, executive director of the local convention and visitors bureau told the AP that many fans even offered to foot the bill.

"This is far more important than football. I think everybody here knows that," he said. Ratliff even donated his tickets to Saturday's game to a group of evacuees.

It is that kind spirit that will get all of us through these difficult times.

Jeff Shafer is a senior marketing and management concentrator from Columbia Falls, Mont., and editorial page editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is jshafer@wharton.upenn.edu. Par for the Course appears on alternate Thursdays.

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