<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">UNO may be closed for the semester, but there will still be Privateer basketball this season. The school?s men?s and women?s teams will be housed and attending classes at the University of Texas-Tyler. The Privateers will play a full schedule beginning in November, although the site of home games is yet to be determined. ?The fact that there will be basketball teams playing with ?New Orleans,? on their shirts is very important,? UNO men?s coach Monte Towe said Tuesday. ?We are proud to represent a great city that may be destroyed, but is going to bounce back. Showing that spirit is what UNO and the people of New Orleans are all about.? Towe and women?s coach Amy Champion have been bringing in their players from scattered locations this week. Some will begin classes at UT-Tyler as soon as today. ?It?s progress,? Towe said. ?We?ve gotten our teams together and also they will be able to go to school. That?s the best situation we could hope for right now. We had to get some sense of normalcy back.? UT-Tyler is a school of 6,000 located about 90 miles east of Dallas, which competes in Division III. The connection with UNO comes from assistant athletic director Kathy Keene, whose brother, Chris Bizot, is the school?s tennis coach. ?We are extremely gratified by the kindness shown us by UT-Tyler in our time of need,? UNO athletic director Jim Miller was quoted in a release from UT-Tyler. ?This unfortunate event should convince all college athletics administrators of the truth in the passage, ?except by the grace of God go I.? ?It could happen to any of us.? Towe said all of his players had committed to coming to Tyler, but the process had not been easy. ?It was like recruiting them all over again,? he said. ?There were some long, serious discussions. These young men are hurting and they?re worried about the possessions they had to leave behind in Privateer Place. These are young kids and something of this magnitude has been really tough on them because I can?t answer all of their questions.? Two of the UNO men?s players, Bo McCalebb and James Parlow, are from New Orleans. Towe said the families of both players were safe, but he was sure they had lost their homes and that his own home, near the Lakefront, was probably still underwater. ?That?s the least of my worries,? said Towe, who with his wife, P.D., was in St. Augustine, Fla., attending a fund-raising event when Katrina stuck. ?That will take care of itself in time. We?ve got players who don?t have homes anymore.? What did disturb Towe was the reported contacting of some of his players, most prominently McCalebb, by ?intermediaries? from other schools inquiring if they were interested in transferring. McCalebb, a junior guard, was sixth in the country in scoring last year at 22.6 points a game. ?I?m not going to get into the specifics,? Towe said. ?But it did happen and that?s something we don?t need happening right now. No. 1, he was already enrolled in school. If we weren?t going to have a season, that would different. But this was wrong.? Towe said he understood that Lakefront Arena did not suffer major damage despite its location, but he did not know if any home games could be played there this year. ?We might stay here, we might use the Pontchartrain Center or we might use a combination of places,? Towe said. ?This is something you take one day at a time. Right now the important thing is we?re here together right now.? The Privateer men are scheduled to open their season Nov. 19 at home against Belhaven College. The women open that same day at Centenary. ?It?s going to be a challenge,? Towe said. ?But I am a believer that the cup is always half full. It?s a unique opportunity to showcase the ability of our team under adverse conditions. If we can hold up, we can still accomplish our goals for the year.? The UNO volleyball season has been canceled. The Privateers were off to a 4-0 start under first-year coach Dana Launey. The status of other Privateer sports has yet to be determined. Ted Lewis can be contacted at onlyingc@aol.com or (504) 232-5071.</div> Source
