In addition to W's, Character Counts!

[Water Pony]

From Pittsburgh paper:

Fittipaldo's College Football Notebook: A wave of kindness
Vagabond Tulane gets help from some unlikely sources
Wednesday, September 14, 2005

By Ray Fittipaldo, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Tulane football team now more than ever understands the term Southern hospitality.

In the two weeks since the team was evacuated from New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina, it has been temporarily headquartered in three states. The team was first displaced to Jackson, Miss., and then to Dallas, where it spent almost two weeks at fellow Conference USA school SMU. Yesterday, the Green Wave arrived in its new temporary home in Ruston, La., at Louisiana Tech, where they will spend at least the rest of this season.

Tulane's 88 football players are enrolled as students at Louisiana Tech and began their first day of classes yesterday. They will share Tech's athletic facilities much in the same way they did at SMU.

Tulane coach Chris Scelfo and SMU coach Phil Bennett are close friends and the two teams bonded when the Green Wave spent the past two weeks in Dallas. Tulane players attended SMU's opener against Baylor and the players hung out with one another.

So it's going to be a bit strange Sept. 24, when these two teams meet on the field in a conference game.

"There's no doubt, you find out who your real friends are after something like this happens," Scelfo said. "I spoke to Phil's team at their pregame meal [before the TCU game]. I thanked them for their hospitality and everything that they had done. But I told them that for three hours on Sept. 24, we're going to try and kick y'all's butt and y'all are going to try and kick our butt. And after that we're going to go back to the way it was before."

Bennett went above and beyond the call of duty to help the Green Wave. He gave Scelfo his recruiting list so that Scelfo and his staff can begin recruiting again.

"We wanted to do our small part to help," Bennett said.

After two weeks of uncertainty, Tulane opens the 2005 season Saturday against Mississippi State in a "home" game 5 1/2 hours from New Orleans at Independence Stadium in Shreveport, La.

Wins and losses will be secondary this season, Scelfo said Monday. But playing football won't be. It is a necessary distraction his players need to move on from what has been a harrowing few weeks.

"It's important to play," Scelfo said. "We'll play in a Wal-Mart parking lot if you cleaned it up. Our kids need to play for mental health reasons."

Scelfo said he has readjusted his team's goals for the season. Coaches and players are always judged at the end of a season by wins and losses, but Scelfo said there is more at stake for his team.

"Wins and losses are important to me and my football team," Scelfo said. "But, in reality, it's the least of our concerns. I'm not going to judge this team on wins and losses. I'm going to judge this team at the end of the year, that everyone made it through and persevered."

And BEAT THE AGGIES!