A lot of folks around the university have made a big deal about how the Saints’ 0-3 sputter of a start to the 2007 season might break the recovering community’s spirit. And it’s not like Uptowners can turn to the Superdome’s other tenant, the Tulane Green Wave, whose 1-3 record rounds out the city of New Orleans’ combined football mark this autumn at an abysmal 1-6.
Witnessing the city’s quarterback position, usually a throne from which you want a confident stud calling the shots, has been like watching the scene in which Bambi’s mother gets offed on a loop – a depressing affair you can’t desensitize yourself to.
Saints signal-caller Drew Brees and his Wave counterpart Scott Elliot have thrown just one touchdown pass each. Between them, however, they have an astonishingly prolific 11 interceptions, and that infuriates any reasonable sports fan.
But to say those two sinking ships are breaking the spirit of New Orleans just shows that many people still don’t know where to look to be uplifted.
Mass communication senior Mary Erin Imwalle, the best cross country runner in the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference, is one of our own. The defending conference champion and a favorite to repeat, she’s already won an individual meet (the Loyola-Xavier Big Easy Meet at Audubon Park). When coach Al Seither canceled his team’s participation in the LSU Invitational, Imwalle drove her own car to Baton Rouge and placed 25th anyway. Nothing seems to be breaking her spirit.
Your Wolfpack volleyball team, which went into October with one more win than the Saints and the Green Wave combined, also won an award for the best libero and setter in the region just a few weeks ago. For libero Sarah Howard, marketing senior, or setter Tiffany Stafford, psychology senior, their spirits seem to be intact.
And just wait until coach Dobee Plaisance, mass communication senior Kiely Schork and the Smith twins tip off their basketball season late this month as they try to shoot their way to a repeat conference championship – that might lift your spirits, too. Joining them right around that time will be men’s team stars Luke Zumo, psychology junior; Torry Beaulieu, history junior; and Mario Faranda, finance junior, whose heads-above-shoulders play on a struggling team has won them roster spots with USA Athletes International in the May 2008 Adriatic series hosted by Italy and Croatia.
And if that still doesn’t uplift you, the second season of NBC’s “Friday Night Lights” rolls every Friday night from now on through the end of the season. And even though they are Texans, we all know that even if the star running back tears his anterior cruciate ligament, or if the quarterback doesn’t understand the playbook and is about lose his girlfriend to another guy, the Dillon Panthers will put it all together just in time for them to make the playoffs.
See? You just have to look in the right places.
