Tulane to play first game in Superdome since 2004

	WELCOME BACK, SUGAR! Classic bowl game returns to New Orleans Just like the Saints and Tulane, the 73-year-old Sugar Bowl will return to New Orleans this season following a one-year absence (last season's West Virginia-Georgia game was played in Atlanta). The game will be played at the Superdome on Jan. 3. "I'm obviously very satisfied that we have made the progress we've made," said CEO Paul Hoolahan, whose staff is operating out of temporary office suites in nearby Metairie. "It's a great credit to the people in this city that they realized restoring Superdome and the Sugar Bowl are vital to the economic growth of the city." There were concerns earlier this year about a potential shortage of hotel rooms for visiting fans, but that doesn't appear to be the case. According to a recent report from Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, the New Orleans area currently has 28,000 rooms available, down from 38,000 prior to Katrina. Hoolahan said he expects the area to reach 90 percent of its original capacity by the time of the game. "If there was any concern for travelers coming to the city, seeing the event on TV Monday night should allay that," he said. "We're expecting a lot of people to come in for the game."

There will be no eight-hour pregame shows, no performances from U2 or Green Day, no visits from former presidents. But just as Monday night's Falcons-Saints game served as a celebration of New Orleans' recovery from Hurricane Katrina, Tulane's return to the Superdome for Saturday night's game against SMU will showcase a team, athletic department and university whose perseverance over the past 13 months has mirrored that of their city.

Lives were disrupted (the university had to shut down for a semester). "Families" were relocated (the football program moved to Louisiana Tech's campus for the semester). Sacrifices were made (eight of Tulane's 14 sports teams were eliminated).

While the Green Wave returned to campus last January, Saturday marks their unofficial return home. After playing 14 straight games in other schools' stadiums -- including 11 games in 11 different venues last season -- Tulane (1-2) will host an opponent at the Superdome for the first time since Dec. 4, 2004.

"We haven't been home in so long," said coach Chris Scelfo, "that half our team's never been in the Dome."

"People told us at one point the Dome was going to be torn down," said senior quarterback Lester Ricard. "I thought I'd never get to play there again."

Reflecting back on the events that have transpired since Aug. 28, 2005, the day Tulane's campus was evacuated, Green Wave athletic director Rick Dickson pauses and sighs. "It's been a long road," he says.

He remembers in vivid detail those frantic weeks following Katrina, when the members of the football, volleyball and soccer teams -- many of them freshmen yet to attend their first college class -- were sent first to Jackson, Miss., where they slept on a gym floor, then to SMU's campus in Dallas and, eventually, dispersed to multiple schools. He remembers sending his wife to a sports-apparel shop to have the volleyball team's names and numbers stitched onto a set of blank uniforms supplied by Arizona AD Jim Livengood so they could have them in time for their "home" opener in College Station, Texas. He remembers making frantic arrangements to find alternate locations for the football team's six scheduled home games.

But most of all, he remembers the vacant stares on the players' faces following their first trip back to New Orleans after the storm, the day before an Oct. 1 game against Southeastern Louisiana in Baton Rouge. Because hotels across the state and region were filled with hurricane evacuees, Tulane had to bus in on the day of its games for most of last season. For this game, however, Scelfo, a member of English Turn country club, had arranged for them to sleep on air mattresses in the clubhouse the night before the game. While in town, they saw the destruction to New Orleans up close for the first time.

"It was a pretty sobering experience," said Dickson. "That first month, they were going on adrenaline. From that point in time on, the weight of knowing they'd lost everything set in."