A Return To Turchin, A Welcome Sight

Tulane to get back to normalcy in 2007

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Jan. 18, 2007


 
 

Jan. 18, 2007

By Josh Cooper

Special to CSTV.com

 

In his first moment of the 2006 season at Turchin Stadium, Cat Everett wanted to relive his greatest moment of the 2005 campaign.

 

Two outs, bottom of the ninth against Rice with Tyler Henley at the plate, Everett caught the last out in foul territory in front the Owls dugout on the third base side.

 

Everett remembered the pandemonium and the joy of 4,708 fans screaming. He walked to that same area where he caught the ball. But instead of joy and elation, what he saw only gave him thoughts of pain and sadness.

 

He looked around at the field and saw overgrown weeds where green grass used to grow and wind damage where structures once stood.

 

It was time for infield practice at Turchin Stadium, post-Katrina.

 

"I was depressed and I was concerned as to whether we would have a field here again," Everett said. "When we started having those bunting sessions, we just laughed at the situation with what we were doing by taking ground balls in the weeds."

 

The session was an idea hatched by Tulane coach Rick Jones to remind the team where it came from and to keep in mind that it would get back to that point.         

 

"We went back just so we could feel like we had a sense of normalcy that we were missing," said Jones, the 2005 Baseball America National Coach of the Year.

 

Just a few months earlier, Tulane baseball was riding high. After being rewarded the top national seed, the Green Wave won its regional.

 

Then after losing the first game of its Super Regional matchup with Rice, Tulane stormed back in the best of three series to make it to the College World Series for the first time since 2001.

 

Despite losing in the double-elimination tournament, the Green Wave were ready to roll for next season. With another top recruiting class in hand in early July, the groundbreaking occurred for what was supposed to be normal renovations to Turchin.

 

That was before August 29th, when Hurricane Katrina came barreling into New Orleans.

 

Many of the players went home, some leaving behind belongings, thinking that they would be back soon.

Instead, with the destruction that the hurricane incurred, they all found themselves traveling to Lubbock, Texas where they enrolled in classes and shared a foreign baseball facility with an unfamiliar team.

 

Also, with the university having so much damage itself, there was a question of whether the athletics program would be terminated.

 

On December 8th when a renewal plan for Tulane was unveiled, eight of the school's 16 sports teams were suspended. Baseball, though, was not one of them. And as for Turchin, the renovations were set to continue.

 

"The University made a statement when they decided to build this kind of stadium in post-Katrina," Jones said. "Not only baseball, but athletics were important and it was important to demonstrate that Katrina is behind us."

 

While the construction re-commenced, the team still had to face several hurricane-imposed problems for the 2006 season.

 

First was the issue of team-abandonment. Jones and his staff were able to keep almost the entire squad intact with only one freshman -- left handed pitcher Scooter Hicks, who transferred to Texas A&M - deciding not to return.

 

Second was whatever personal issues players had. Some lived in apartments off campus that were completely flooded.

 

Others, like pitcher Daniel Latham, a Covington, La. native, had to deal with destruction not only at school but also at home.

 

Several residences in Covington were damaged by fallen pine trees and the power in Latham's own house was gone.

 

His family got a generator from Baton Rouge and had to make the almost 70 mile drive to Baton Rouge every day just to keep the power running in their own home.

 

"We were kind of living for the day," Latham said. "That is how it amounted."

 

Lastly was the issue of where the team would play.

 

The Green Wave made an agreement to play its games at Zephyr Field, home of the Triple-A New Orleans Zephyrs.

 

Along with the 30-minute commute to the ballpark - Turchin is an on-campus stadium - the Green Wave needed to adjust its style of play.

 

Being a stadium built for older, stronger players, Zephyr Stadium had larger dimensions than Turchin.

 

Zephyr Field is 407 feet to dead center, and around 333 feet to right and left field with

Turchin was 400 feet to center and 325 down the lines.

 

 "You couldn't play for the three-run homer," Jones said. "So we had to be a more patient team. Draw the walks, steal the bases a little bit better and get our bunts down."

 

Despite the distractions, Tulane still played well enough to make it to the NCAA Regionals.

 

After starting 21-14, The Green Wave finished the year 43-21, including a 27-11 record at "home".

 

Tulane will return to the new Turchin Stadium this season. The date is uncertain, though Jones and Athletic Director Rick Dickson seem confident it could happen in a couple of months.

 

Estimates for the original construction costs were around $5 million, but with the increased damage, the bill could be double.

 

The new stadium will essentially be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.  According to Jones it will have around 5,000 seats, field turf, new concessions, a new press box and restrooms to go with countless other amenities.

 

But most importantly, the new Turchin will have baseball, something it hasn't seen since the day Everett caught that pop fly.

 

"We're two months out and I'm dying for it," Latham said. "There wasn't a lot of positive press that was coming out of the city, but we overcame the situation we came through, having to commute to Zephyr Field, and produced. It was a sign that the fans knew that we could do it and everything was going to come back."

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