The U.N-O (submitted by Jason Plotkin, Assistant Sports Information Director, 8/26/08)
As rosters have been announced over the last few weeks for the
University of New Orleans athletic department, much has been said about
the student-athletes who have come to the Lakefront from countries
outside of the United States.
One of our loyal boosters, Dan Harper, sent an e-mail around to one of his many e-mail lists of Privateer supporters showing the countries represented up to that point. At the time of his e-mail, 20 countries were represented. These countries represented a general cross-section of the globe, covering every continent outside of Antartica.
The list of countries where Privateers call home has since grown as we recently made available the men's basketball roster, which includes athletes from France, Liberia, Cameroon and the Czech Republic.
A large reason for the increase are the additions of our three newest programs -- men's tennis, women's tennis and men's swimming and diving -- which are set to begin representing our institution in September.
In addition to our men's basketball program, volleyball head coach Jozsef Forman's first recruiting class, which includes two student-athletes from his native country of Hungary among a group of four international student-athletes, also deserves an assist for his efforts.
Head golf coach Chris McCarter will have a few more international student-athletes to add to the count and countries represented when his roster is soon made available.
Head swimming and diving coach Randy Horner and I discussed the names that were rolling in just ahead of the announcement of his rather large recruiting class that resembled something closer to the signing classes that we see in February on football signing day. In jest, Coach Horner and I came up with the name for our athletic department as being "the U.N-O". Is there a name more fitting of such a group?
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of my first meeting with members of this group, as most of the international student-athletes from the swimming and diving program stopped by my office. The task at hand was to produce a pronunciation guide for when our team competes at meets, which makes the job of public address announcing much easier. As I learned last year, it also helps our coaches!
This experience was very rewarding as I was able to take a little away from each athlete that came through my doors. As a consolation prize, I can also now say the names of student-athletes like Bo John Wullings, Eva Hannesdottir and Birkir Mar Jonnson with confidence.
I hope that over the next year, we can share some stories about many of our international student-athletes. In doing so, our Privateer family can gain some insight into the unique stories of how these student-athletes ended up as Privateers and why they are so proud to call UNO their home.
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