By Carmen K. Sisson

NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans has had a few days to get used to its newfound gridiron hero status, but if Tuesday night’s Super Bowl parade is any indication, the city –indeed, the entire state as well as the South in general – will be celebrating the 43-year old franchise’s first NFL championship for a long time.

As the smell of barbecue filled the air and the sounds of competing boom boxes, high school bands, and car stereos rang from the buildings, thousands of people lined the streets to cheer, welcoming the Saints home to a Mardi Gras-flavored tailgate party. Gold confetti littered the air as “the boys” waved and threw beads from atop their perches on borrowed floats.

The parade culminated at the foot of Convention Center Boulevard, where Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter, Gov. Bobby Jindal, and Mayor Ray Nagin toasted the team with champagne.

It was a different atmosphere than the stunned, overwhelmed amazement in Sunday night’s French Quarter following the Saints’ win over the Indianapolis Colts. Then, no one could quite believe the news, and people couldn’t stop high-fiving and greeting one another with shouts of “Who dat? We dat!”

Tuesday’s parade had the usual bacchanalian rapscallions – fun lovers like the self-appointed “Popes of the Who Dat Nation,” who showed up in foam fleur de lis mitres and purloined Hilton Hotel bathrobes. But amid all the revelry lay something deeper – a quiet, humble appreciation for the city’s beloved team.

Debby Wood said she was overcome with emotion as she and her husband Donald drove over from Metairie Tuesday afternoon for the parade. After all the partying, reality is still sinking in, and with it comes the memory of just what this win means for not only the Saints and their devoted fans, but for all of New Orleans.

“The Saints – they’re like wayward sons,” Mrs. Wood said. “They don’t do the right thing sometimes, but you keep giving them money and keep supporting them. Finally it paid off. It’s like the prodigal son finally came home.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Everyone in this city was so sad,” she said, recalling the dark days following hurricane Katrina, which left the majority of the city underwater and claimed more than 1,800 lives. “We’re not sad anymore.”

By Carmen K. Sisson

NEW ORLEANS — Nearly 24 hours have passed since the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl, but the party is far from over. Everywhere you go, people are talking about “the boys” — Drew Brees and Co. In a city that’s known far too much sorrow over the past few years, finally there is a reason to smile again.

Who can blame residents for wanting to laissez les bon temps roulez a little longer? For those who missed the party Sunday night — and what a wild party it was, in the French Quarter at least — there will be another chance Tuesday beginning at 5 p.m. as the streets turn black and gold once more, this time with an official parade featuring the team, as well as the original Saints mascot and local school bands.

Attendees better plan on arriving early. Thousands of fans surged to the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport Monday afternoon to greet the team’s plane, and even more are expected to hit the parade route Tuesday. Think of it as Mardi Gras, Saints-style.

Indeed, the parade will have a decidedly Carnival flair, thanks to an unprecedented joining of 10 Mardi Gras krewes, which have donated floats for the event. Festivities will begin at the Louisiana Superdome on Poydras, then turn right onto Loyola Avenue before snaking down Howard Avenue, around Lee Circle, then up St. Charles to Canal Street. A special staging area will be set up at the foot of Convention Center Boulevard, where partygoers can shout “Who dat!” long into the night.

So is the Saints’ first Super Bowl victory just another excuse for Party Central to throw a blowout, or is there something deeper at play here? Slidell resident Ed Hardy says it’s about appreciation for a team that could have moved permanently to San Antonio following hurricane Katrina, but instead, chose to return home.

“We want to show them they have all the support in the world they need right here,” said Mr. Hardy Monday at the Waffle House in Slidell. “They don’t need to go anywhere else. People here have been hungry for anything [since Katrina]. It’s been a healing process, and it helps. Anything right now helps.”

Still, it may be a long time before the city comes down from this high. As one reveler was heard saying in the French Quarter Sunday night: “Work? There’s no work tomorrow. It’s All Saint’s Day!”

Apparently, surrounding city leaders agree. If you have business in New Orleans, Slidell, or surrounding areas, you may want to finish earlier in the day. City of Slidell offices will close at noon in order to give employees the chance to attend the parade, and Orleans Parish public schools will close at 1:30 p.m.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Every good Southerner knows there are only two religions in Alabama – football and football. This week, a new maxim emerged: When it comes to the state judicial system, there’s a lot of crimson hiding beneath those billowing black robes.

Circuit Judge Dan King announced Wednesday he would grant a delay in the civil suit Traywick v. Energen Corporation, which was scheduled for trial Jan. 4 in Bessemer, Ala., a suburb of Birmingham.

The reason?

Energen’s defense attorneys want to attend the showdown between the University of Alabama and University of Texas at Austin, scheduled for Jan. 7 at the Rose Bowl. If Alabama wins, it will be the first time in 17 years that they’ve claimed the Bowl Championship Series national title, considered by many to be the apogee of college football achievement.

“Such an event only comes infrequently during a person’s lifetime and is an achievement of such a magnitude that all involved in this litigation should want everyone to fully participate in this achievement,” writes Jon Terry, attorney for Energen, in his nine-point motion for a delay.

Because so many lawyers, jurors, and witnesses are planning to travel to Pasadena, Calif., for the game, it would be a hardship, he says. February would be better. Much better.

After all, who could have anticipated the Alabama Crimson Tide’s 32-13 romp over top-ranked University of Florida, the 2008 national champion, on Dec. 5? The shock even got to unflappable Gator quarterback and demigod Tim Tebow, who was spotted on the sidelines in tears as Alabama cavorted in the end zone.

Attorneys for plaintiff Mark Traywick aren’t as supportive. In the suit, Mr. Traywick seeks damages for the March 2004 death of his mother, Irene Traywick, whose car exploded when she struck a gas meter and power box.

“Some things are more important than football,” Birmingham attorney Rip Andrews writes in his counter-response. “Plaintiffs’ counsel would respectfully argue that Mr. Traywick’s right to his long-awaited day in court fits squarely within that category.”

Energen’s Mr. Terry has a different take. Point six of his motion to delay suggests that Traywick and counsel are fans of Alabama’s nemesis, Auburn University.

“The reply has been that they are for the other great team in this State [sic] who did not make the playoffs,” Terry writes.

Judge King told The Birmingham News he granted the motion because, as an Auburn alumnus, he didn’t want people to accuse him of pigskin partisanship.

Legal delays are common, but this may be the first time a football game has pre-empted a trial, says Scott Vowell, presiding judge of the 10th Judicial Circuit for Jefferson County in Alabama. Of course, he’s heard a myriad of other excuses over the years. Funerals. Illnesses. The dog ate my briefcase. The best was the time an attorney asked for a delay so he could join an evangelical rock band and a troupe of Russian ballerinas on a tour of England.

“I had to grant his motion because he was just so innovative,” Mr. Vowell said in a phone interview Thursday afternoon. “When they’re that outrageous, they’re probably true.”

Judges like honesty. Some also like football.

But there’s also something else at play here – regional pride. For all the progress that remains to be made in the South, football is an area where Alabama excels. It’s nice to be first in something, Vowell says. It’s even better when it’s served with a side of championship ring bling.

In this case the judge’s verdict is final: Sports take precedence.

TALLADEGA, Ala. – The Silent Warriors aren’t a big football team. They’re not a heavy team. Only five of the 33 players tip the scales at more than 200 pounds, most at considerably less, but they’re light and they’re quick.

Underestimate the Alabama School for the Deaf (ASD) if you want. They like it that way. You won’t know what hit you until you’re facedown in the turf, inhaling the scent of fresh-mown grass and Alabama soil, staring at the final scoreboard, which illuminates your flawed logic. ASD, billed as “home of the champions” and winner of four national football titles against hearing and non-hearing teams, is one of only 30 deaf high schools in the US playing 11-man football. The team shows up ready to compete.

The shady, oak-strewn campus sits in the heart of downtown Talladega, Ala., a city known mostly for its international speedway. But it is heavily influenced by the presence of the 150-year old Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind (AIDB), of which the ASD is a part.

The institute began as a school for the deaf and hard of hearing and expanded to include students ages 3 through 21 who are blind or vision-impaired. Local restaurants offer menus in Braille. Churches and businesses have deaf interpreters. The fire department provides strobe smoke alarms. Every aspect of life in Talladega and at AIDB is geared towards helping residents live independently.

Some students attend class and return home in the evenings, while others live in dorms. They learn everything from math and history to preparing meals, washing clothes, and socializing in a college-like environment. Afternoons and weekends belong to athletics, with more than 60 percent of the school’s 112 students participating in one of six sports: football, basketball, volleyball, track, soccer, and cheerleading.

But on Friday nights, in a state where there are two religions, football and football, there’s only one game in town – ASD’s weekly matchup. Every week, fans flock to the stadium to see the Silent Warriors trounce their competition and prove something you’ll hear a lot around here: Deaf people are like everyone else; they just can’t hear.

•••

As you enter the stadium, two things are immediately apparent – the Warriors are winning and the game is loud. Though the players can’t hear them and 70 percent of the fans can’t hear either, they chant with the cheerleaders anyway, stomping their feet against the metal seats and keeping rhythm with the drum, an integral component not only of deaf football, but deaf culture.

The game flows smoothly. ASD head coach Paul Kulick sends plays via sign language to the quarterback, who signs them to players in the huddle. Someone on the sideline then bangs the snare drum, which the players feel, and the play begins. At times, deafness becomes a strategic advantage. Since no offensive play can begin until Mr. Kulick signals for the drum sequence, he controls the tempo – even when the opposing team has the ball.

Yet problems arise, too. When the Warriors are playing another deaf team, the opponents can interpret the plays Kulick signs from the sidelines. So in these games, he sends in plays by number, which the quarterback translates by looking at a wristband. Hearing teams can be just as nefarious. Kulick says they sometimes hire interpreters to read his signals, forcing the team to resort to the wristbands.

Ordinarily, the snare drum also signals referee calls and other key elements of the game. But Kulick has decided to see how the players perform tonight without it. Last week, vibrations from fireworks at the nearby motor speedway left the players confused. The double-wing formation the team prefers doesn’t require the drum, anyway, and it sometimes messes up the line, because not all players can feel it well.

If the scoreboard is any indication, Kulick’s hunch is right – they don’t need it. It’s the beginning of the second half, and the Silent Warriors hold a 24-8 lead over Frisco City. Considering the two schools’ records – ASD is 4-2 and the Whippets are 1-5 – that’s not entirely unexpected, but there are other factors to consider. Frisco City is bigger, stronger, more physical. They’re a hearing school, one of four the team will face this year.

A flag is thrown, and Kulick looks back and forth between the referee and assistant coach Chris McGaha, the only member of the coaching staff who is not deaf. Kulick signs a question to Mr. McGaha, then nods and looks at the players on the field, yelling and stabbing the air with his hands: “Pay attention!”

Two quarters later, he can breathe more easily. The Silent Warriors have spoken, upping their record to 5-2 with tonight’s 30-20 win.

Unlike his team, Kulick remembers a time when there were no pagers or BlackBerries, a time when deaf schools like the one he attended in North Carolina were traditional institutions with silent hallways and teachers who signed in English instead of using the more expressive American Sign Language, which conveys concepts rather than individual words.

“It was very boring,” he says, as McGaha translates.

It was the same way at home. His parents could hear, and though they could communicate with English and unique family signs, the breadth and depth of the world was squeezed through a narrow parameter of vocabulary. The word “hit” in signed English held no semblance to the intensity of “tackle.”

It gave no sense of the jarring crunch of helmet to body, but Kulick hadn’t learned American Sign Language and neither had his parents. There was no other word they could use. He found his voice as a quarterback.

“All my life I’ve played football,” he says. “It’s the only sport that involves both mind and spirit. I know what the kids are going through. It’s easy to discuss with them, because I’ve had that experience.” His hands become a blur as he talks about his team. “We have many speedsters,” he says. “We’re like a factory here. We produce them. People think the deaf can’t play football. They’re really surprised when they play us.”

Kulick likes that, but then, he likes everything about the game. He looks around the locker room and inhales the sweat-drenched air. “Smell that? I really love that stink,” he says, laughing. “I still love that stink. It brings back so many memories. It just feels good.” His wife, who is also deaf and has been waiting patiently by the door, wrinkles her nose and laughs. He can wax philosophical about the finer attributes of perspiration next Friday. For now, it’s time to go home.

•••

The season is over, and ASD finished an impressive 6-3, but the players are still talking about Frisco City. They are shy at first, elbowing each other and giggling slightly. Justin Carter is a wiry coil of nervous energy, perched on the edge of his chair.

Beside him, Kwentavious Boyd is playing it cool as he slouches in his seat and buries his hands deep in the pockets of his oversized football jacket. Jerrod Cunningham leans forward and intently watches their interpreter, who can barely keep up as they start, interrupt, and finish one another’s sentences. “They [Frisco City] thought, ‘Poor little deaf team,’ ” Carter says, grinning.

“ ‘Poor little deafies,’ ” Boyd interjects. “But we whooped ‘em. It was exciting to prove we could.”

On and off the field, the players think their shared experience of being deaf, plus living together at the school, gives them a bond many other high schoolers don’t have. “We have a brotherhood even after the season ends,” says Carter. “We have fun together.”

As graduation looms, they’re headed out into the world, away from the security of their brotherhood. But as they tease one another, hands slapping shoulders and cuffing heads in the common language of all athletes, the bond they’ve made is evident.

Frisco City, they say. That was a great game. The best.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The gray Cape Cod is easy to overlook on this quiet street in Knoxville, Tenn. No team pennants hang in the windows, no collegiate flags wave in the breeze. The parlor is surprisingly devoid of sports paraphernalia as well.

Paintings adorn the walls, and an eclectic mixture of books lines the bookshelves. There’s a mounted bass above the fireplace, and a cowhide rug covers the floor. If you ask, Ken Mink will show you the modest display of basketball medals he’s received. Otherwise, he won’t mention them at all.

This isn’t your typical college athlete’s home, but then, Mr. Mink isn’t your average basketball player. He’s climbed the Matterhorn. Parasailed over the Caribbean. Water-skied in Jamaica. And this fall, at age 73, he became what may be the world’s oldest college basketball player, joining Roane State Community College as a shooting guard and shattering stereotypes in a sport where youth is everything and players over the age of 25 are anomalies.

But Mink’s not looking to break records. He says he’s seeking redemption, attempting to fulfill a dream he’d abandoned and forgive a betrayal he can’t forget.

He left college in 1956 believing he’d never touch sneakers to hardwood again. Now he’s running suicide sprints, practicing free throws, lifting weights, and trading passes with players half a century younger.

Last fall, joining a college basketball team at his age seemed as likely as lapping Michael Phelps in the pool. He’d considered returning to school in his 20s, but by then he had a family. He played ball with his three children, but as the years passed, he thought less and less about joining a team again.

While shooting hoops in his neighbor’s driveway not long ago, though, he noticed something remarkable – he was nailing every shot.

“He said, ‘I’ve still got it!” his wife, Emilia, recalls. “And I said, ‘Got what?’ I didn’t take him that seriously, but then a week later, he told me he’d contacted all these colleges.”

Mink wrote to eight schools, knowing it was the longest shot he’d ever taken. Weeks passed. No one replied, not even to say, “You’ve got to be kidding.” Then coach Randy Nesbit called from a small college in Harriman, Tenn., 35 miles away. Mr. Nesbit was willing to give Mink a chance. Most of all, Nesbit was intrigued: He wanted to know if Mink was serious.

“I reply to everybody, whether they’re 8 or 73,” he says. “I didn’t 100 percent believe it was real.”

It was one thing to play ball in your driveway, but Mink hadn’t undergone any sort of formal conditioning, nor played competitive ball, since the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

There was no way he could match the speed and intensity of the 19-year-olds he’d be playing against, but years of swimming, golf, tennis, skiing, and other activities had kept him at an enviable fitness level. More than that, he had what every athlete needs – a little talent, a strong dose of moxie, and a whole lot of heart.

The season was already under way, but Mink didn’t waste time. He sat in on practices and got to know his future teammates. He trained at his church gym and joined a senior basketball league, the Smoky Mountain Papas.

“The first game, I scored one basket,” he says. “I was so sore I could hardly stand up. When I got home, I thought, ‘Well, my basketball career is over.’ ”

Still, he ignored the naysayers and pressed forward. “I didn’t have anything to prove to anyone except myself,” Mink says. “I wanted to replicate a dream that got interrupted.”

•••

Growing up in Eastern Kentucky, Mink couldn’t imagine far beyond the confines of Vicco, where most men earned a living as his father did, deep within the bowels of the earth, clawing through rock to find coal. The area was too mountainous for most sports, but basketball was popular, and before long, Mink was a starter, earning a name for himself as well as the occasional free milkshake from the corner soda jerk.

He graduated from high school – the first person in his family to do so – and accepted a scholarship to Lees College in nearby Jackson, Ky. By the end of his freshman year, he had a 1949 Ford, a steady girlfriend, and a good shot at a scholarship at a four-year school.

Then the bomb dropped. Someone had covered the coach’s office in shaving cream, and school authorities accused Mink. Before he could plead innocence, he was kicked off the team and expelled.

“I went to the dorm, packed my bags, got in my little car, and drove home,” Mink says. “It was too late to get into college or get on a team, and I didn’t want to hang around.”

The next morning, he enlisted in the Air Force, and for the next 38 years worked as a journalist, garnering bylines in papers where his name had once been headline news as a ball player. In 1998, Mink retired, but he didn’t want to sit home and “vegetate.” He had mountains to climb, links to conquer. Age wasn’t about to stop him. Plus, in the back of his mind, the humiliating end of his college basketball career continued to churn. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t let it go.

“I’d still like to know to this day who, and why, I was blamed,” he says. “I would dearly love to find the answer to that 52-year-old mystery. I hold no animosity, but it would be a great relief to me to find out what really happened.”

•••

Returning to college basketball at his age is physically humbling. His vertical leap barely clears 20 inches, less than half that of teammate Larriques Cunningham. His 6.6-second 40-yard dash is a relative crawl. At 6-feet tall, he’s half an inch shorter than the last time he donned a jersey.

The game, too, has changed. Along with his required 12-hour college course load – Spanish, computer science, US history, and criminal justice – Mink must learn new defensive and offensive schemes. Vintage moves perfected by players like Bob Cousy and Cliff Hagen – the Michael Jordans of their day – are outdated.

Still, Mink brings his own magic to the court, not so much in his athletic prowess as his strength of character. He knows he’s the 11th man on the team, and he only leaves the bench when the Raiders have a comfortable lead. So far, he’s only played once, making two free throws, in Roane State’s 93-42 victory over King College.

“I’ve been competitive all my life,” he says. “I like to be a winner. If I don’t win, I don’t get bitter, but next time, I think, next time I’m going to get that sucker.”

His determination and love for the sport have earned respect from his teammates. Sophomore Chase Bell says he thought Nesbit was joking when he told them Mink was joining the team, but on the first day of practice, they realized it was real.

“It was odd,” Bell says. “We didn’t want to be too rough on him, but as the days went on, we realized we could play hard against him. He’s just like a regular player. He gives you motivation, and you know, players like me, we need that kind of stuff. Every player’s going to have his bad days.”

In a few months, Mink will step off the court one more time, and the lights will dim permanently on his college basketball career. When that day comes, don’t look for him on the bench or in the bleachers – that’s not where dreamers live.

Instead, seek the shadowy corners, the obstacle-strewn paths, the harrowing chasms where limits meet determination and hopelessness meets conviction. That’s where dreams flourish, and that’s where you’ll find Mink, lacing up his shoes, living out his passions.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – It’s a tough crowd, this assembly of silver-haired Southern gentry. But David Pollick surveys his audience coolly, flashes a megawatt smile, and says something you might not expect to a room full of well-heeled college alums: “Anyone who would aspire to be a college president is a lunatic.”

No doubt some have wondered about the sanity of Dr. Pollick, the 12th president of Birmingham-Southern College (BSC), who arrived at the school in 2004. Last year, he and the board of trustees decided sports had become too prominent at the private liberal arts college – a controversial stance in a state where people still revere Paul “Bear” Bryant, the legendary University of Alabama football coach, even though he died nearly a quarter century ago.

BSC, with 1,300 students, had just completed a rigorous seven-year process to reach the pinnacle of college athletic competition, Division I, but Pollick says it was burning its endowments to stay there. Just one of 117 full scholarships was going to academics. In effect, the school was paying students $3.5 million a year to compete – making them, in Pollick’s eyes, professional athletes – and doing so as relatively small players in a big arena.

So on June 7, 2006, Pollick and the trustees made a highly unusual decision: to move BSC to Division III ranking. Neither the athletic director nor the students were consulted. As protesters, including parents and coaches, marched from the coliseum to the quad, Pollick and the trustees, escorted by police, filed into the student center by the back door and cast their votes. Shortly thereafter, the associate athletic director and five coaches quit, taking 60 athletes with them.

“I was flabbergasted,” says Joe Dean, the athletic director, who stayed on. “I had no idea this was being considered, and I was disappointed I hadn’t been brought into the loop.”

But Pollick didn’t blink and still doesn’t. Mark Lester, chairman of the history department, says that’s typical. “He’s a risk taker, and I’ve never seen him second-guessing,” says Dr. Lester. “Once he gets his mind on an idea, it’s difficult to move him.”

Pollick attributes his boldness to strong moral conviction, saying he saw in Birmingham-Southern a place to nurture an unwavering sense of mission. That single-mindedness has taken him from teaching in a one-room schoolhouse to leading a college. “This is my third college presidency,” he tells the alumni gathered here. “If it were my first, I’d always be putting my toe in the water. You may have noticed I don’t do that. It’s very clear in my mind what our institution is, and that’s all I care about.”

His style takes some getting used to. Lester says that although Pollick is liked and respected by the faculty – most of whom supported the move to Division III – he keeps himself distant. It’s a contrast to former president Neal Berte, who Lester says was close to faculty and knew every student by name.

For his part, Pollick admits he’s not around a lot. He’d like to be with students more, but his days are spent doing what he says is a college president’s main job: catering to alumni like the ones gathered here today and convincing them to part with large chunks of money.

Without a doubt, the impeccably dressed president is an effective salesman – and forthright. At this year’s alumni event, he’s continuing something he started last year – an official “mythbusting” session to separate fact from fiction. He insists rumors that he doesn’t live on campus are unfounded. “This is where my underwear is, and that’s where a guy lives, I’ll tell you,” he says to some laughter.

Likewise, he’s heard scuttlebutt about his marriage, and he’s out to refute that today as well. Yes, his second wife, Karen, is younger. Yes, they’re practically newlyweds. Yes, her demanding career as a concert musician and conductor keeps her on the road a lot. “We’re not the Ozzie and Harriet couple,” he says.

***

Pollick’s trajectory hasn’t been straight. His parents divorced early, and he was raised by his mother in a working-class neighborhood of San Diego. Contemplative as a youth, he loathed high school but reveled in the culture of the University of San Diego (USD). He spent long hours in coffeehouses talking about philosophy and life, often skipping class. He was happy, but there was a problem: He was flunking freshman year.

He quickly decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the Navy, serving in the Pacific during the Vietnam War. When he returned to the civilian world, everything had taken on a sense of urgency. “I had a real need for things to be significant and relevant,” Pollick says. “I was trying to make sense out of a world that had no trouble swallowing itself up in war.”

His search led him back to USD, where he finished his degree in philosophy, then to a Franciscan seminary. Eventually, he fled to the desert, teaching emotionally disturbed children. He studied in Canada and Poland and held administrative and academic positions – including acting president and provost at the State University of New York at Cortland – before landing as president at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pa. “I’ve been very deliberate in building my career,” he says.

But after eight years at Lebanon, he wanted a high-quality liberal arts college that would allow his wife to nurture her career while feeding his own sense of mission. Birmingham, with its rich civil rights heritage, seemed like the place. “The name evoked a power that few words did,” Pollick says. “I thought, this is a place I can go learn – the epicenter for the kinds of things I care about.”

Two years later, in 2006, Pollick was thrust into the spotlight when two Birmingham-Southern students confessed to torching nine Baptist churches. “I was dumbfounded,” he says. “It was so out of the box. I didn’t know how to do this.”

Yet it took him less than 20 minutes to make a decision: BSC would help rebuild the churches. Returning from a fundraising trip to New York, he wrote press releases and scheduled press conferences. By the time he walked on campus, he was ready to act.

Adelia Patrick Thompson, vice president for institutional advancement at BSC, says Pollick changed that day. “He stood there in front of the entire campus and moved from being the new president to being the leader everyone looked to and trusted,” she says.

***

So far, Pollick’s approach seems to be paying dividends. Freshman applications are up 50 percent since 2004, and African-American enrollment jumped from 6 to 14 percent last year. With the savings from the scholarship redistribution, the school will be able to field its first football team since 1939, along with four new sports. Alumni contributions have increased significantly, though officials are unsure if it’s due to the athletic decision.

But the abdication of Division I still reverberates through school locker rooms. Duane Reboul stepped down as basketball coach, but has stayed on to teach. “We’d just finished recruiting and signing players to come in under the pretense of playing Division I,” he says. “It’s a monumental task, having to rebuild the entire program without any players.”

Still, the decision seems to have garnered broad approval off the court. “I was for it,” says Nan Wingo, whose granddaughter received an academic scholarship. “There was too much money being poured into athletics here.”

Pollick saw the move as necessary for the school’s fiscal, as well as moral, well-being. He believes students now play sports for the love of the game instead of scholarship money. Plans are under way to begin a global studies center to promote concepts like human dignity – a pet Pollick cause. “By being clear about who you are and what you believe in, you lose some and you gather up others,” he tells alums. “You just have to decide where you’re going to plant your flag.”

PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. – The first strains of the national anthem waver and all eyes turn to the flag hanging limply in the humid air from a striped flagpole. Hands clasped firmly over their hearts, the Pass Christian Pirates stare at the slash of bright blue paint that stops 14 feet above the ground. A water line. You see a lot of those around here these days.

Hurricane Katrina didn’t leave much behind in this rural Mississippi town, making what remains even more poignant for the 6,500 people who called this coastal village home – home being a relative term in “post-K” life.

For the players, the closest thing to home they have is this field. For the few hours they are within its chain-linked environs, everything is normal.

That’s exactly what coach Kelly Causey had in mind when he resumed practice after the storm. Five blocks from the Gulf of Mexico, Pass Christian High School was gutted by a 35-foot storm surge that swept six miles inland. The field house was destroyed, their helmets ruined, and their jerseys washed into trees or buried in the fetid mud. Of the 48 players, only 19 returned.

Quarterback Chad Moore, a senior, remembers those dark days. He and his brother, Phillippe, a freshman on the team, went to Atlanta while their father, John Dedeaux, remained in Pass Christian with the rest of the police. They spent a tense week watching the news, hearing about every town but “The Pass,” as it is affectionately known. Softly, the 17-year-old recalls what they heard from locals: “Everything is gone. Destroyed.” When his father called, he was so relieved he didn’t care about anything else. “He said we’d lost everything, but that was OK,” Chad says. “We came back and there was nothing.”

Coach Causey knew his team needed the lessons football could teach because he was clinging to those same lessons himself, trying to fathom the ups and downs of life in a hurricane-ravaged town.

He turned to local contractor Jerry Caffey, whose son Micah plays on the team. Mr. Caffey allowed them to scratch out a primitive practice field at his home in the country and offered facilities to store whatever equipment could be salvaged. While he and other volunteers worked on the stadium, the players divided their days between storm cleanup and football practice.

“It wasn’t about winning or losing at that time,” Causey says, watching his players file into their new field house, which was once a cafeteria. “Football means a lot to this community, and it gave the kids an outlet to escape. When you see the lights in the stadium and the field in the middle of it all, it gives you hope.”

Beyond the gates lies reality: concrete slabs where homes used to be, salt-burned palm trees snapped off mid-trunk, gnarled live oaks festooned with vivid blue tarps and pieces of clothing. Ninety percent of all homes were destroyed; 85 percent of the town’s tax base is gone; most of the town’s residents are sandwiched into shoeboxes known as FEMA trailers. Scenic Drive, renowned for stately antebellum mansions facing the Gulf, now seems like a cruel joke – most of the century-old homes have been wiped away. The once pristine white sands remain littered with storm debris, and the once blue waters are dull beige, laden daily with refuse.

Friday night’s game allows residents a chance to get away, but no one forgets. Approximately 236 people died in Mississippi, 95 in Harrison County. Seventeen of those people were pulled from the muddy waters of this field, where the Pirates are now battling Poplarville. Rather than being sacrilegious, it seems appropriate – football is a fiercely loved pastime here, and there’s never been a better place to be, even before Katrina made the Pirates the only show in town.

They only won one game last season, the first. After Katrina, they suffered two cancellations and seven losses. They’re headed toward 1-3 Friday night, but no one minds, least of all Sammie Barnes, who has lived here since retiring from the Army 42 years ago. Dressed in the Pirates’ traditional red, white, and blue, and with his gold teeth flashing in the stadium lights, Mr. Barnes laughs when asked why a single man without kids spends his Friday nights watching high school football.

“I come to see my friends,” he says, gesturing to the thousand or so fans scattered in the stands.

People take pleasure in simple things now, a hot shower at the end of the day, the bright stars newly visible thanks to less light pollution. At the concession stand, Stephen Dupree and his wife Tina sell bottled drinks to an orderly line of students. “They aren’t real cold,” Mr. Dupree tells a girl asking for a Sprite. She hands her dollar bill to Tina and smiles as she takes the tepid beverage.

“Everybody’s so easy to please,” he says, wiping sweat from his face. Like the rest of the town, the Duprees and their four children have grown accustomed to doing without. A three-hour wait for a hot meal served in an even hotter tent isn’t unusual. Neither is taking a FEMA trailer “military shower,” turning the water on just long enough to lather and rinse. Six gallons of hot water doesn’t last long – even when there aren’t multiple people jockeying for the luxury.

Mrs. Dupree says being able to have the football games at home again means a lot. “The Pass was a beautiful, quaint little community,” she recalls. “The kids would walk to school, stop at grandma’s for breakfast, walk home, stop at grandma’s for an afternoon snack…” Her voice trails off. The elementary school is gone, the middle school is gone, grandma’s house is gone, and the high school won’t reopen until November. Meanwhile, the cost of living has tripled, and two bedroom “cottages” rent for as much as $1,800 per month. “But we’re still here,” she says.

Standing with other police officers guarding the entrance to the stadium, Mr. Dedeaux says he plans to stay as well. “We had 20 officers, and now we have eight,” he says. “Every department is looking to hire, but nobody wants to come here. I had an opportunity to go to California, but that’s not home. I’ve lived here 38 years. If everybody leaves, there’ll be no Pass.”

A murmur of excitement washes through the concessions as the Pirates make their first touchdown late in the third quarter. “We got six!” a student says appreciatively. No one mentions the turn-overs or the lackluster defense. When the players limp off the field, the fans reach out to shake hands, pat shoulders, thank them for their effort.

And as the scoreboard goes dim on the 14-44 loss, there’s no doubt where everyone will be next Friday. From Bay St. Louis to Biloxi, from Gulfport to Pass Christian, the consensus is loud and clear: Katrina may have knocked Mississippi down, but she will not win. Slowly but surely, life is getting back to normal.