Pulling together

Once everyone was safe, a massive effort was needed

How UM athletics dealt with Hurricane Irma.

LAKE BUENA VISTA — As Hurricane Irma churned through the Caribbean and continued making its way toward Florida two weeks ago, 35 members of the Hurricanes football team gathered outside the Hecht Center in Coral Gables.

There, outside the athletic facility where they normally studied film, met with coaches and prepared for games like the Arkansas State matchup that Irma had forced school officials to cancel a day earlier, they boarded several charter buses that would take them away from their school and for some, their homes.

They were joined that Thursday night by athletes from other UM sports, football coach Mark Richt and his wife, Katharyn, and staff members from throughout Miami’s athletic department, including deputy director of athletics Jennifer Strawley. She and athletic director Blake James had spent days working on the decisions they hoped would help the Hurricanes weather Irma safely.

As the buses pulled away from Miami’s campus in the dark of night, there was an eerie silence.

The Hurricanes didn’t know then the kind of impact Irma would have on their program, their school or their community. What would Miami look like after the storm passed? Would their teammates staying behind with families in South Florida be safe? When things settled down, when would football matter again?

Their minds racing with questions, the

Hurricanes began what became a 235-mile, 9½ hour journey to Orlando. Strawley was overcome.

“You pulled out and you went through every emotion,” said Strawley, who serves as the administrator for Miami’s football team, which will play its first game since Sept. 2 on Saturday when the Hurricanes host Toledo at Hard Rock Stadium. “My house isn’t going to be there when I get back. We left student-athletes who chose to be with their families behind. We left coaches who chose to stay behind. We left professors, friends that we cared about. That bus pulled away, and I was crying. I just had to gather myself and pray, honestly, that people would be OK. I had to come to terms with the fact my house could be gone. I was OK with that. It was the people I was worried about. I just wanted to make sure people were going to be safe.”

Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys three days later. It was another two days before Strawley, James and the rest of the evacuated Hurricanes learned all of Miami’s athletes, coaches, and staff made it safely through the storm.

Locating them all wasn’t easy, amid spotty cell phone service and power outages. Some of the football players traveled out of state, one going as far as California.

Another – Elias Lugo-Fagundo – had joined family in his native Puerto Rico, a move that prompted Miami director of football operations Don Corzine to jokingly tell the receiver he had made a bold decision, heading to the Caribbean.

Still, Fagundo managed to check back in with the Hurricanes before some of his teammates, including linebacker Zach McCloud, who had stayed in South Florida.

McCloud was the last Hurricanes football player to be accounted for, his safety not confirmed until Karri Valot – the mother of running back Travis Homer – drove to the McCloud’s home to check on the family and discovered they were all well – just without cell service.

In Orlando, when Valot’s phone call came in, there was rejoicing. Strawley, Corzine and Margie Gill — the director of operations for Miami’s women’s basketball team who had helped track down athletes and coordinated some of the logistics of Miami’s move to Orlando — jumped for joy.

Now, with all athletes, coaches, and staffers accounted for, the Hurricanes began moving forward.

It was time, finally, to start thinking about sports again and find ways for the athletes in their seasons — in football, volleyball, swimming, women’s soccer, and cross country — to get back to work.

Miami weighed its options, including bringing everyone to Orlando, where at some point last week, more than 80 Hurricanes had stopped and spent at least some time after Irma.

Ultimately, though, James and Strawley worked to dispatch teams to the sites of their upcoming competitions. The soccer team headed to Charlottesville, where it faced Virginia on Thursday. The swim team went to Gainesville, where it will compete in the three-day All-Florida Invitational starting today.

Rival programs across the ACC provided assistance, with Georgia Tech even helping Miami’s basketball teams get a bus that would return evacuated players and coaches back to Florida. Virginia’s soccer team took the Hurricanes out to dinner one night.

The football team, unable to return to campus because cleanup in Coral Gables was ongoing, decided to settle in Orlando, where it would begin preparations for Toledo.

With help from Florida Citrus Sports, the Hurricanes secured a hotel that could house the entire team. Then Miami got field space and practice time at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports in Lake Buena Vista, where the team held four practices before returning to South Florida.

Once all of that was set, the next step was getting the remaining Hurricanes — and all their stuff — to Orlando. With power still spotty in South Florida, that too, became a challenge.

James, who’d been in constant communication with Miami president Julio Frenk and the school’s leadership team in Coral Gables, requested permission for a limited number of staffers to get on campus and get everything the Hurricanes would need in order to practice in Orlando.

So, equipment manager David Case and a handful of staffers headed into the still-dark, oppressively hot football facility to load Miami’s equipment truck with all the gear the Hurricanes needed. Athletic trainer Vinny Scavo went into the facility and got the supplies he needed, while video coordinator Andrew Rossetti went in and got the equipment Miami later used to film its Orlando workouts.

That all accomplished, the staff had to deliver all the equipment to Central Florida and set it up so that by Sept. 16, the Hurricanes — finally reunited — could have their first full practice since Sept. 5.

“I’m not going to lie. It was hectic,” Case said. “Coach says ‘This is what we’re doing,’ and we have to get it done and make sure it happens. We started loading up the truck, packed it with everything and were constantly moving for 10 hours or so. We got it done with basically a skeleton crew. But we have a good staff and everybody that was there put in the work, sweating to death and getting everything ready — practice gear, field equipment, one-man sleds, tackling dummies.

“Then after we got everything packed, we had to get on the road, then get everything unloaded in Orlando. I’ve never had a situation like this that was basically a bowl preparation in-season. But once we got here, it’s been a smooth, simple process just trying to get everything back to normal.”

Ultimately, finding that normal amid so much abnormal has been the goal for Miami in recent days.

There was, understandably, relief after Irma’s path turned out to be west of South Florida, as opposed to the possible direct hit that was projected the day of the evacuation. None of the Hurricanes were hurt and no one’s home seriously damaged. Players will take the field on Saturday and look to extend their win streak to seven games, dating back to last year.

And as more than one player or coach has noted this week, the Hurricanes will look to give South Florida a reason to cheer, even as cleanup efforts continue across the area and some remain worried about family and friends in the Caribbean, where Hurricane Maria is now wreaking havoc.

Still, there will finally be University of Miami football again, and no one is taking any of that for granted.

“I think there’s going to be energy from everyone,” James said. “The guys are going to be excited to be back. The fans, there’s going to be energy there because they’ll be able to see a football game. … It’ll just be a real coming together and a moving forward from the storm. We recognize that there’s some still dealing with issues, and we’ll have hurricane relief collections going on that day, but I think it’s important for us to do our part, and one of our parts is bringing the community together and giving them something to celebrate and cheer for, to be a part of something bigger than what may be going on around them. I think Saturday will be an exciting day.”

Added Strawley: “We’re all so thankful, so grateful. That’s how I felt when I saw all the players. … We talk about being a ‘U Family’ and we are. Everybody was worried about everybody. When we got to see each other again, players were asking me ‘Is everything OK with you?’ and it’s just warmed all of our hearts to see that, to see the kids start to be kids again . ... ”

Richt