Katrina brings change for SU cross country

The 2006 Southern University men’s and women’s cross country season started on a sore foot due to Hurricane Katrina. The evacuees of the Gulf Coast area have relocated to Baton Rouge and other major cities leaving no available hotels for visiting teams for meets.
“Because of everything that was going on with the hurricane, it caused us to have a lack of transportation,” said head coach Johnny Thomas. “The cancellation of the meets puts us back, but we’ll just have to make them up.”
The cross country team has already postponed their first four meets. The invitational that was scheduled for this weekend at Louisiana State University had to be postponed due to limited hotel accommodations.
“LSU has the same problem due to the hurricane,” Thomas said. “There aren’t enough places for the visiting teams.”
Although, Katrina has changed the outlook of the season, there are still high expectations for the men to be in a good position to win the SWAC championship. With the team consisting of nine dynamic runners they are expected to be more victorious than ever.
“This will be a good season for the men. We have a lot of experience coming back,” Thomas said. “We have great leaders such as senior Darnell Parker and junior Erik Henneghan, so I expect a great season out each of them.”
The women however, have suffered from the loss of one of the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s top runners Errika Thomas, but Thomas has found security in another runner.
“Errika was a vital runner on this team, but I have recruited an excellent distance runner, freshman Precious Collins,” Thomas said. “I believe that she has the ability to lead the women into the SWAC championship.”
Collins, a Belaire graduate from Baton Rouge, has been running cross country for two years. With not that many women eligible or interested in running cross country this year, Collins is the only eligible distance runner.
“Nowadays, a lot of our girls just aren’t passing the ACT and the SAT,” Thomas said. “I recruited nine women but only three were eligible to run.”
The majority of the women runners on campus prefer to run sprints over long distance, so it is difficult to recruit women to run for cross country.
“Most of the women want to sprint and get it over with,” Thomas said. “But Collins actually enjoys running long distance, so I expect her to do well.”
Her teammates have high expectations for the young runner; some even compare her to Thomas.
“My teammates expect me to take Errika’s place, they even call me ‘little E.T.,’ ” said Collins. “But I don’t want to be compared to Errika. I want to be known by my own name.”
The Jaguars are scheduled to compete Saturday at Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss.