LSU Brings Joy to Katrina-Ravaged State

I've had two teams I was rooting for in the NCAA Tournament -- my alma mater, who made it further than I honestly thought they would, and my new home team, who have REALLY made it further than I honestly thought they would. People down South are always talking about the Saints, but it's the college teams that actually do something for their home fans. Go Tigers!!


LSU Brings Joy to Katrina-Ravaged State

INDIANAPOLIS - LSU is going for more than just a national championship at this Final Four. The Tigers are playing for all those people back home who need a reason to celebrate, a reason to believe that everything will be all right, a reason to get on with their lives.

Already, the impact has been profound for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

"We've helped the state a lot," said freshman guard Garrett Temple, a second-generation LSU player. "When people watch our games, they forget they're living in a trailer instead of their house in New Orleans. It feels great to know we're making people happy."

In the days following Katrina, the Tigers came face-to-face with unimaginable pain and incomprehensible suffering. They saw children crying out for mothers and fathers who were swept away by the floodwaters. They saw parents desperately searching for sons and daughters who would never be found. They saw battered bodies and hopeless souls.

They saw people die.

"It makes you appreciate life at a younger age," said Glen "Big Baby" Davis, the Tigers' sophomore star. "You think about the choices you make in life. You want to make sure you go out the right way."

If the Tigers are carrying a greater sense of purpose than UCLA, Florida or George Mason, they also have reason to be the loosest team in Indianapolis. When you've seen as much agony as these guys have seen, there's no reason to get all worked up about a basketball game.

"It kind of woke us up," freshman sensation Tyrus Thomas said Thursday at the Tigers' hotel in Indianapolis. "It could have been any of us."

After the hurricane slammed into New Orleans, crumpled the levees and turned the Big Easy into a lake, most of the victims fled inland to Baton Rouge. The Pete Maravich Assembly Center resembled a MASH unit, the wounded scattered all over the Tigers' home court.

Davis got a chance to pitch in.

A man who was hospitalized in New Orleans after a serious car accident had been moved to higher ground, but his condition worsened on the trip to Baton Rouge. While doctors performed impromptu surgery, Davis was drafted to hold the IV bag.

"One of his lungs had collapsed," Davis said, his voice barely above a whisper as he recounted that awful day. "He couldn't breathe. You could see him struggling for air.

"They made this huge hole in his lung. That was crazy. I had never experienced anything like that before. You want to collapse, but you can't collapse because you're holding the IV up. They're depending on you. That was real, real tough."

It was all in vain. Davis watched the man take his final breath.

There was no getting away from the misery. Temple's mother took in at least a half-dozen of the homeless, both family members and people she barely knew. Two of them are still living with her, trying to put their lives back together.

"We would watch the news and see how much water there was," Temple said. "I can't imagine how they must have felt to see their houses going underwater like that."

Eventually, a sense of normalcy returned to the LSU campus. Most of the refugees moved on to other cities, trying to rebuild the lives they once had in the Big Easy. The cots were packed away. The hoops went back up.

The Tigers had a most unexpected season, winning the Southeastern Conference's regular-season title with a lineup of three freshmen and one sophomore. They kept it up in the NCAA tournament, knocking off top-seeded Duke and No. 2 seed Texas on the way to their first Final Four since 1986.

While Katrina's fallout gave the Tigers an added sense of purpose, it wasn't a factor when they stepped on the court. Coach John Brady made that clear to his players before their opening-round game against Iona.

"He told us that the team we played in the first round wouldn't care about Katrina," Temple said. "They would be trying to win the game."

But the Tigers never forgot all those people who were watching back in Louisiana. After beating Texas to win the Atlanta Regional, Davis donned a gold, Mardi Gras-style boa, grabbed the microphone and sent a boisterous shout-out to Katrina's victims.

He wanted to give them a sense of hope. He wanted to show them some love.

That sentiment has been returned many times over.

"We've helped a lot more than I thought we would," Temple said. "I didn't really think it would be like this going in."

Imagine how good everyone will feel if the Tigers win two more games.

"A devastating thing happened. People lost their homes, their families, their lives," freshman Tasmin Mitchell said. "We want to bring a little joy back to Louisiana. We want do something good for our state and for LSU."

They already have.