Katrina Memories: Carrying the Torch

Following Hurricane Katrina, Tulane President Scott Cowen and the athletics department decided student-athletes would be given a monumental task: “to carry the torch, be the face, and represent the name” of Tulane University. In short, these students kept competing, far from home, serving notice that the university and the city would not fade away as a result of the disaster.

“What these kids took on was kind of the pulse and the breath that kept going,” says athletics director Rick Dickson. “It demonstrated, externally … that Tulane did survive and would be back on its feet.”

In part four of a five-part series on remembering Hurricane Katrina, Dickson talks about what the student-athletes went through as they picked up the mantle of a university and a city that was down, but not out.

Ryan Rivet produced this video featuring Rick Dickson, athletics director, talking about the impact of Katrina on student-athletes.