AFTER THE STORM
UAlbany’s Katie Gowing discusses hometown of Houston
ALBANY, N. Y. » It was pouring rain down on the Casey Stadium field as Katie Gowing sat in a black hoodie and grey sweatpants on the Great Danes sideline. She wasn’t going to enter Sunday evening’s 2- 1 win over Siena. But the rain seemed of little consequence as the game ended or even as she waited calmly on the field for postgame interviews.
The rain in the capital region was of little consequence for the Great Danes soccer player who has seen her home city of Houston ravaged by a tropical hurricane. And though her family and her home all made it out OK, it’s been a struggle for a young freshman away from home for the first time.
“My family has sent me some pictures and pictures of people evacuating,” Gowing said. “Pictures of the damage. I definitely think there’s going to be a couple things ( when I go home) where I’ll be like ‘ Where did that go?’ And ‘ What happened?’ ‘ Where did they go?’ Yeah, it’ll be different.”
Gowing and the team were in Colorado for a game when the stormhit Texas. They even played on Friday night. Gowing said her mother, Susan Gowing, had an escape route planned and a kayak ready to go in their home. The town of Clear Lake, Texas, near Houston wasn’t ravaged in the same way that other areas were, so Gowing was able to communicate with her mom to know everything was OK.
Still there are people that Gowing knows from growing up
that had possessions destroyed or damaged. Her former high school has delayed its start date by weeks until Sept. 11.
“It’s mostly me and my mom at home,” Gowing said. “Her and her two little dogs. It’s a little nervewracking. I was lucky enough to know that her life was going to be safe. She was well- prepared and she had planned.”
Gowing won’t visit home again until Christmas. For now, she’s just talking to her friends that still live in Houston. She’s talking to her friends, that, like her are in their first years at their new colleges, trying to process a tragedy at home while being nowhere near it.
The freshman has
played in three of the team’s five games this year, including one start. She was an All- District first team player in high school. Gowing hopes to be as good a college player some day as she was in high school.
But for now, she has the support of the entire team. Every day, she said, head coach Nick Bochette would ask how she’s doing. And even though her town and her family and friends all came out unscathed, the city where she grew up is still dealing with the effects of one of the country’s largest natural disasters.
“It’s upsetting to see people I know, people I care about, them have to deal with that,” Gowing said. “Luckily nobody that I know has gotten hurt or injured in any of that. But I know that a lot of other people have. And that’s upsetting.”