Texas A&M tries to make six Green Wave teams feel at home

After Hurricane Katrina, Tulane sent its sports teams to four colleges across the southern USA. Texas A&M leads the way, housing six Green Wave teams.

Texas A&M athletics director Bill Byrne called Tulane AD Rick Dickson after Katrina to offer assistance. That offerwas at < rst declined, but Dickson later asked if the volleyball, women’s soccer, women’s swimming and diving and men’s basketball teams could go to Texas A&M.

Both tennis teams, originally slated to go to Rice, later joined the crowd because Rice has no business school.

Texas A&M has taken several steps to accommodate Tulane. The Green Wave have use of the Aggies’ old football locker room, trainers and academic centers.

The schedule of Tulane sports teams is shown at football games and sent to students and donors via e- mail. The Texas A&M band even learned the Tulane < ght song and played it at a Green Wave game.

“ We’ve tried to make them feel like Aggies,” Byrne says.

Still, Tulane athletes say the transition is dif < cult. They’ve had to adjust to a campus with more than four times as many undergraduates as Tulane, live in housing intended for international married students and carpool to practice with coaches.

“ It’s the little things you take for granted that you really miss,” junior soccer player Leah Peterson says. “ We’re adapting to it, but all the routines we’ve established as a team have been thrown off.”

Pool photo by David J. Phillip Underwater: Turchin Stadium, center, home of Tulane’s baseball team, and the Westfeldt track facility, top, still were 3 ooded Sept. 7, more than a week after Hurricane Katrina hit.