The Phanatic Magazine
When you cover professional sports for a living, you tend to gain some perspective that the average fan may lack.
At the end of the day, every game, be it a preseason affair in Fargo or the seventh game of the NBA Finals, is just a form of entertainment. It may be fun when your team triumphs, but this stuff isn't exactly life and death.
That said, a sport like basketball can be far more powerful than you might imagine.
Hurricane Katrina made landfall onto the Gulf Coast in August of 2005. Over three years later, its effects still resonate as loudly as ever in the city of New Orleans.
Basketball was rightfully way down on the list of concerns Mayor Ray Nagin had when he thought about rebuilding his city.
After all, Katrina ended up being the costliest hurricane, as well as one of the five deadliest, in the history of the United States. The mega-storm caused severe destruction along the Gulf Coast from central Florida all the way to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge.
The most severe loss of life and property damage occurred in New Orleans, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed, in many cases hours after the storm had moved inland. In fact, the federal flood protection system in the bowl-like city failed in more than 50 locations.
Nearly every levee in metro New Orleans was breached as Katrina passed just east of the city limits. Eventually 80 percent of the city flooded, as did many of the neighboring parishes.
The floodwaters lingered for weeks and nearly 2,000 people lost their lives in the actual hurricane and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. The storm was estimated to have been responsible for $81.2 billion in damage, a number that increases every day.
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"I love New Orleans more and more every day," Hornets superstar Chris Paul told The Sports Network. "To tell you the truth. I tell people a lot of times, it's the people that make the city, and not any of the buildings or the streets or anything like that."
To that end, the New Orleans Recreation Department is working to restore the city's communities by rebuilding facilities that house the athletic and recreational, as well as educational and cultural programs, which shut down following Katrina.
City operated playgrounds, stadiums, basketball courts, swimming pools and multi-purpose centers suffered an estimated $60 million in damages from the storm, according to NORD.
Today, NORD is operating with a staff of only 55, down from the 264 it employed before the storm and with just 60 percent of its pre-Katrina budget, Despite those funding challenges, NORD Director Larry Barabino Jr. and his staff have been able to reopen 80 of its 150 facilities, and reestablish successful youth sport seasons for over 5,000 of the city's youth.
"We're working very hard to return everything our communities lost after the storms including those centers that our youth became so accustomed to using for various reasons," Barabino said. "NORD was devastated, our budget went from $8.7 million to $87,000 at one point but thanks to the generosity of corporations and foundations, we have been able to provide New Orleans youth with safe, wholesome, fun and educational activities."
A New Orleans native and alumnus of the NORD programs, Barabino once played as a youngster in the parks and recreation centers that were flooded and then shut down to New Orleans youth and understands how important they can be.
"NORD's athletic and vocational programs are giving people a reason to return home to New Orleans," says Barabino, "The Hornets have been great with that. They always give us tickets to award the kids and just to give you a sense of their commitment, Chris Paul and the team set up a meet-and-greet after a Lakers-Hornets game where the kids got to meet Chris and Kobe Bryant. You can imagine how exciting that is for our youth."
Barabino has created a coalition of corporate, non-profit and community volunteer organizations that includes business giants like Nike and Wal-Mart to help rebuild New Orleans' basketball courts and playgrounds. The NBA and its players have also been heavily involved.
"We have been able to rebuild in these trying times because of the generosity of people like Chris Paul, Chris Duhon and Mo Pete (Morris Peterson). The spirit of care in their hearts for the kids is overwhelming."
Duhon, the New York Knicks point guard and a New Orleans native, has refurbished 16 basketball courts on his own, while the Hornets have also been a key component in New Orleans' resurgence. Owner George Shinn has committed to refurbishing five local courts and Paul has personally committed to restoring three more.
"He dedicated one to his high school (West Forsyth in Clemmons, N.C.) and one to his college (Wake Forest). I guess he will surprise us with the third," Barabino said of Paul.
"Giving back to my community is very important," Paul added. "Through my foundation and the Hornets I have been able to help the community and will always do so. New Orleans is home to me and giving back to New Orleans is something that is very important to me."
The Hornets organization is well aware of how devastating Katrina was. The hurricane caused extensive damage to the New Orleans Arena and the team was without a real home, playing the majority of its games in both the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City, Okla.
"I feel like the people here in New Orleans are my family, Paul said. "When I was drafted, I was drafted here to New Orleans -- and the storm hit (about two months) later. So, I felt the devastation."
Permanent relocation was a serious possibility but the Hornets finally returned to the Big Easy for the 2007-08 season. This past January, the State of Louisiana and the Hornets ended 10 months of negotiations by signing an amended lease agreement that extends the club's lease for two years, effectively keeping the team in New Orleans through at least 2014.
"The people could easily have turned their backs on us, because there are more responsibilities than us winning basketball games. But they haven't," Paul said.
A certain sense of normalcy surrounds the city now, but there is still a long way to go. Nagin regularly battles with FEMA over aid due to his city and the surrounding parishes, but Barabino is excited and optimistic that the new Obama administration will makes things easier.
"Right now we are getting 30 cents on the dollar from FEMA but the new administration has been receptive to the city and what we think needs to be done," Barabino said.
Money is certainly the most important piece to the puzzle but a shared sense of community is also relevant.
Nothing helps bring a community together more than a championship, and that's where the Hornets come in. The Larry O'Brien Trophy wouldn't be tangible to the hundreds of thousands of people that call the city home but the sense of shared accomplishment and civic pride it would bring can't be underestimated.
Perhaps no city deserves to feel that more than New Orleans.
"Everyone here has a different story, and that's just why every time you hear a story you can't help but to get teary-eyed and get goose bumps because when you see the pictures and you see the footage on TV no way can that actually compare to the people that were here during the storm," Paul said. "We talked about it as a team, how great of a story it would be. Being back in New Orleans full-time and making a run for this thing (the NBA Championship).
"From my perspective, playing for the New Orleans Hornets, one of the best things I could do is give the city something to cheer about. People are working hard on different projects and trying to get things back to normal but it's still not where it wants to be. I understand that I have New Orleans on my chest so I represent this city and all the people in it, and that is one of the reasons why I play so hard."
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