Hurricanes' Season

WHEN Hurricane Katrina bore down on Plaquemines Parish three years ago, Port Sulphur (La.) High coach Cyril Crutchfield Jr. was too absorbed in preparations for a game with archrival Belle Chasse to evacuate. Hours after the storm made landfall, while marooned atop the bleachers of the school gym as floodwater crested the rims on the backboards, Crutchfield made a vow: Lord, get me out alive and I'll never stay for a storm again.

Thus begins The Hurricanes, by New York Times sportswriter Jer� Longman (PublicAffairs, $26), which is the richest, most engrossing treatment of high school football and community since Friday Night Lights . Longman conveys the pride of place felt by a people determined to live where and how they always have, marbling his story with science (without extensive coastal restoration, Plaquemines won't likely last this century) and history (as recently as the 1980s, the parish's segregationist political machine enforced Jim Crow; there was a high school for white kids, another for black kids, a third for everyone else). And Longman limns the folkways of bayou life, from "coonin' for oysters" to "slap-yo-momma" food—stuff so good, locals say, it makes you want to hit your mother upside the head.

Crutchfield may have survived Katrina, but Port Sulphur High didn't. Nearby communities Buras and Boothville- Venice lost their schools too and, after a year's absence, the three reemerged as South Plaquemines High, with Crutchfield as coach, a gumbo of kids who had left, then returned to the parish as players, and the new nickname of Hurricanes. In 2006, with no stadium, hot lunch program, locker room or weight room, the Hurricanes endured daily 60-mile bus to a practice field and still won five of seven games. But they lost to Belle Chasse, the largely white and well-to-do Class 4-A school at the upper end of the parish. Last year, even as they won an unlikely and inspiring state 1-A title, the 13--2 Hurricanes lost again to Belle Chasse. Longman's book ends with a South Plaq player wondering aloud during this year's spring practice, "You think we gonna beat Belle Chasse?"

The answer will have to wait. Just before Gustav lashed lower Plaquemines 10 days ago, Crutchfield was again preparing for Belle Chasse, when he made good on his promise to God and lit out for Baton Rouge; the game was later canceled because of flooding—even while Ike loomed as a potential threat. South Plaquemines, with 16 starters back from its title team, including quarterback Ridge Turner, might have rued the missed opportunity to beat its nemesis. Instead Crutchfield considered that his school had reopened within a week and that his team had survived Gustav intact. He told SI last week, "I'd say we received a blessing from the Lord."

The Skinny on Heavy Hitters

TVS AND elementary-schoolers aren't the only things getting bigger. In 1972 the average major leaguer weighed 186 pounds; this year he's 209. Pound for pound, which are the best teams? Here are the heaviest and lightest (based on the 25-man rosters of Aug. 31). The first-place White Sox are living large, while the struggling—and svelte—A's can't carry their weight.

[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]

[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]