After being displaced by Hurricane Katrina exactly one month ago, the University of New Orleans women’s golf squad located a new home for the fall season at Nicholls State earlier this month, but it will still represent UNO.Following Katrina, Jimmy Headrick, UNO’s golf director and head women’s golf coach, said the athletics director at UNO gave him the opportunity to find a school to fit the needs of the squad. Headrick said he found everything he needed at Nicholls.
“I informed (UNO Athletics Director) Jim Miller, and he called Nicholls State Athletics Director Rob Bernardi,” Headrick said through E-mail. “I called Rob and he immediately took a can-do attitude. He said ‘we will find a way to make this work.'”
Bernardi put Headrick in contact with Associate Athletics Director Louise Bonin, who, along with Nicole Smith, assistant athletic director for athletic academic services, Director of Health Services Dorothy McDonald and Marilyn Gonzales, assistant director of international student admissions, all helped the students enroll at Nicholls.
Juniors Josefine Danielsson and Matilda Forfftrom and freshman Therese Nilsson, all from Sweden; freshmen Theunette VanDerwalt from South Africa and Maria Camey of Guatemala and graduate student Tara Watters of England comprise the six-member women’s golf squad that resides in La Maison du Bayou.
While the fall season will be held at Nicholls, Headrick is unsure where the squad will hold its spring season or when UNO is expected to reopen.
While in Thibodaux, the squad is practicing at Ellendale Country Club in Houma.
The team’s normal golf course, Eastover Country Club in New Orleans, is flooded.
Headrick said Nicholls head golf coach James Schilling came out to practice the first day at Ellendale to welcome the team, but Michelle Fakier, sports information director for men’s athletics, said Schilling had no comment on anything involving the UNO squad.
The team will play in three tournaments this fall with the first one scheduled for Oct. 9-11 at Jacksonville State University in Gadsden, Ala.
The team’s journey to Thibodaux began when the members evacuated New Orleans along with Headrick and his family Aug. 28, the day prior to Katrina’s arrival. All 11 members of the party traveled to Florida and ended up staying in Bainbridge, Ga.
Headrick and his family along with VanDerwalt, Carney and Nilsson then went to Nashville, Tenn., where they stayed with Headrick’s family.
Danielsson, Forfftrom and Watters drove to Atlanta, Ga., where Danielsson stayed with her brother, a student at Georgia Tech, while Forfftrom and Watters took a train to Albany, N.Y., where they stayed with Forfftrom’s aunt.
Headrick, who was in St. Louis, Mo., staying with family, E-mailed his players allowing them to go to LSU.
“When we got to LSU, the only housing was a trailer for student athletes, and it was so small we couldn’t stay there,” Daniellson said. “We heard classes were closed, and then at the same time our coach called us and said we might be able to go to Nicholls State.”
The team registered for classes and moved in on Sept. 12. All six golfers said their experience at their new home has been positive.
“It’s been good,” Nilsson said. “Everyone is so nice. It’s been so smooth getting classes in order.”
Although their experience has been good, all said they would return to UNO when the University reopened again.
