Nature's Wrath


randolph_working

There was a time four years ago when Willie Randolph refused to take calls from his own mother.

No, there was not a rift in his family. In fact, his mother is a cornerstone in his life.

“You only get one mom,” Randolph said.

But Hurricane Katrina had just ripped through the heart of the University of New Orleans. Suddenly, coaching became less of a priority. Randolph no longer was just a coach, but a surrogate father to his athletes.

Some of them came from other countries – Uganda, France and Zimbabwe, among others – with distant support systems, and many just needed someone to lean on.

Although he did his best not to show it, the pressure and emotional turmoil surrounding him began to crack his shield. The circumstances would affect him for quite some time after he left UNO. Even now, as CMU’s new director of track and field and cross country, he still recalls the struggle.

“I did go through a certain amount of depression,” Randolph said.

His mother wanted him to come home to Nashville in the aftermath of the storm, and it forced him toward a critical decision. He could listen to his mother’s plea, or do what he felt he was set out to do.

A spiritual man, Randolph knew he could not leave. He had a greater purpose. He had to stay and be the shepherd to a herd of sheep.

Willie Randolph had to do what he does best: lead people.

A first impression

Randolph, a former CMU student athlete under Jim Knapp and Craig Fuller, took the UNO job after stints as an assistant coach at both Belmont University and Vanderbilt.

UNO Athletics Director Jim Miller said he and Willie saw eye-to-eye on a number of things at their first meeting.

“He had everything I was looking for in a head coach – very personable,” Miller said. “He’d be a good guy in the living room talking to mommy and daddy about their child. He just had the whole package.”

Randolph was even endorsed by Dean Hayes, one of the most renowned track and field coaches in the nation.

“He had been at some schools and he didn’t have the real good athletes,” said Hayes, who coached at Middle Tennessee State since the 1960s. “(But) he was getting pretty good production out of the ones that he had.”

The endorsement from Hayes was enough to win over Miller. Randolph was hired to head the track and cross country program at UNO.

‘All hell broke loose’

Randolph’s transition to New Orleans was smooth. The track program was having success through two seasons, and one of Randolph’s sisters and his nephew lived in the city.

But in 2005, his third season at UNO, the tides turned — quite literally.

New Orleans was unprepared for Hurricane Katrina. Randolph recalled a poor level of communication in the city.

“There was no warning (issued by the city),” he said. “It’s funny now, but it’s sad at the same time.”

Worse, the university did not know how to react, either. Randolph was unaware of the storm because of the busy workload he had before the cross country season. Then, he finally turned on the TV.

“I’m seeing this great big blob start to come,” Randolph said, “and I’m like, ‘What do we do?’ “They basically were telling me there was no real plan (and) they were waiting to hear back from the president (of the university).”

Randolph was unwilling to wait. He took it upon himself to get his team to safety.

After a team meeting Saturday night, Randolph organized a way out of New Orleans for the 47 members of the team who stayed.

The next morning, they headed to Baton Rouge, just 50 miles away on the campus of Louisiana State, where Randolph had a contact – LSU Assistant Athletics Director Eddie Nunez.

The team made it out, but the university was left vulnerable.

On Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, a Category-3 storm upon touching land, ravaged across the southern Louisiana landscape, killing more than 1,800 people and imposing more than $110 billion worth of damage.

“All hell broke loose,” Miller said.

Privateer Place apartment complex, where most student athletes lived, was damaged and did not reopen until May 2006. The basketball arena – Lakefront Arena – could not be used for the following three seasons because of damages. The second floor of the University Center and other student housing facilities are still closed to this day.

The death count made Katrina the deadliest U.S. hurricane since 1928 and the third deadliest of all time to hit the U.S. mainland.

“That storm was, I guess you could call it, one in a thousand years,” Hayes said.

A promise

“Now think about this,” Hayes said, laying down a scenario. “All of the sudden, I’ve got to move … and I’ve got to find a place to live and somebody to live with. I’m not taking all of my possessions because I think I’m coming back in a few days. Only thing is, after I get there, I find out I’m not coming back for weeks or maybe months.”

This was the situation Randolph encountered, but worse.

He also had his athletes to think about. He took $800 out of his bank account before leaving New Orleans and rationed the money to his staff upon arriving in Baton Rouge.

“They weren’t taking credit cards anymore, so that money became even more important within the next two days,” Randolph said. “Everybody was evacuating now. It was like mayhem.”

Through the process, Miller said Randolph was one step ahead of everyone else.

“Willie probably did as good or better job than any of our coaches knowing the task at hand,” Miller said. “And Willie just basically scarfed up all the vacant rooms on the LSU campus for his athletes. I wish all of our coaches had done that.”

But Randolph still had a promise to keep – a promise to his athletes; a promise to their parents. He guaranteed each athlete would get an opportunity to obtain a degree through athletics, and he would not lose sight of his goal.

“I always taught him to help others more than himself,” said his mother, Grace Randolph.

The foundation she set for him as a single mother – she has been divorced since Willie was very young – was based on faith, and it forced him to stay after the storm. Although she wished him to come home, Grace understood.

Through the entire process, there were times Randolph’s tank was running on ‘empty.’

But even the smallest presence of support can change a situation for the better. Still living at Coach Nunez’s home at LSU, Randolph became re-energized.

“Coach Hayes was the first person that found me,” Randolph said. “I remember the day coming back from a cross country practice and going into Eddie’s house, playing the answering machine and hearing Coach Hayes’ (voice).”

Hayes told him he had some money coming. More importantly, he told him he had support.

“That gave me a jolt, just knowing that I had support,” he said. “I started to find out what people really thought about people and not about the sport and not about the area.”

There were still hurdles. Conducting a cross country schedule was manageable. Randolph was able to get his athletes back in the classrooms in New Orleans as well. By Jan. 2006, classes were reopened on campus and the team had returned.

However, Jim Miller was forced to drastically trim the UNO athletics budget. The department was forced to cut $1 million from a $4 million budget, and the track program – a non-profitable sport – was expendable.

“That was the most difficult day I’ve had as an athletic director,” Miller said, “when I met with Willie and told him that we’ve made the decision to suspend the track and field program.”

Randolph pleaded with Miller to let the team finish the 2006 spring season. But he knew this chapter of his life was nearing its end.

“I remember standing there in the corner in the backstretch by the long jump watching the four-by-four going on, looking in the stands, looking at the kids celebrating and talking with their other teammates,” Randolph said. “But standing there saying, ‘OK what am I going to do now? What’s the next step?’”

A new chapter

By season’s end, Randolph upheld his promise. He was able to move his athletes to other schools for the opportunity to pursue a degree.

Randolph said the trust his athletes put in him enabled them to persevere through the difficult situation. He had been through a lot by now.

He took a leadership role that bypasses the responsibility of any coach. And once the team got back to New Orleans, he had no place to live.

Randolph and his staff were living in a hotel, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency – FEMA – told him his vouchers were running out.

“I was one of those people that almost got kicked out of the hotel,” he said.

Randolph had to live out of trailers until season’s end.

After the season, he returned to Nashville where he had a house since his coaching days at Vanderbilt.

His mother moved there from Saginaw, Mich., after a heart attack in 2003, and she lived alone until Willie returned. Now he was searching for employment.

Contacted by Michigan State and Memphis for vacant positions, he was eventually passed over. But finally, he caught a break. Randolph was told about an assistant coaching vacancy at the University of Louisville and, after a slight hesitation, he pounced on the chance.

With a new opportunity, he began to emotionally heal. Randolph could look back at the entire situation with a different light.

“I think it showed me as a person,” he said. “The coaching piece is a part of me. But I’m Willie Randolph, with character, and I focus on who I am spiritually.”

Back home

randolph_workingAfter spending three years at Louisville, Randolph is back at Central Michigan as the head of the program he once competed for. He credits his former coaches — Knapp and Fuller — with teaching him how to motivate.

And now, a sense of comfort accompanies him with his return.

“This is home,” he said. “This is where I was raised. Back at my alma mater, it’s more personal.”

Randolph experienced what many people never could imagine. He swears there was a lot of good to come out of the situation, including making him the person he is today. But, at one point while he recalled the situation, tears ran down his face. He still holds a lot of emotion inside.

“He’ll have a deeper appreciation for things,” Hayes said. “All of the sudden, you appreciate each day, each hour a lot more than you did before that incident happened.”

His mother said she is happy Willie maintained his dignity while achieving success.

“He took a lot of things just to get to where he is,” Grace Randolph said. “I told him since he’s at the top, don’t forget where he came from.”

Judging from the past, that should not be an issue.

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