NEW ORLEANS ? Talk to anyone who called New Orleans home in the summer of 2005, and you'll get a story. Stories of hope, despair, joy and sorrow. The national media still harps on the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, sometimes creating a perception that the city is still flooded.
For many New Orleanians, the hurricane is becoming a part of their past. Even for UNO senior James Parlow, who still deals with it everyday, he is finally starting to put that past behind him.
Still, his story is haunting.
Aug. 29, 2005, the day Hurricane Katrina ripped across the southeastern tip of Louisiana, originally seemed like a lucky day for the Big Easy. The storm had gone just to the east of the city, keeping it ? for all intents and purposes ? free from damage.
Then, the levees broke. And Parlow's life was changed instantly.
“I had my whole family ? everyone ? with me everyday,” said Parlow, who lived in the lower ninth ward. “After that, it just got crazy.”
Imagine your home, your high school (Carver) ? everything you used to see daily ? gone. But the hardest part was losing his circle of support.
His son, three-year old James Jr., is in Dallas, along with another infant son, Michael. His parents are in Gadsden, Ala. He has a sister in Atlanta, an older brother in South Carolina, another brother going to school in Alabama and a pair of aunts in Houston.
Following the storm, Parlow and the rest of the UNO basketball team relocated to Tyler, Texas ? sending a New Orleans kid to an environment he had never experienced.
“When I first got there, I didn't know what to think,” Parlow said. “I thought we were just going to walk around with the cows. I definitely did not like it at first, but the people in Tyler really welcomed us and made it as good as it could possibly be.”
The team finally came home in January 2006, and finished off a season that saw Parlow average 10.6 points per game and knock down 66 3-pointers. Then, the coach who signed him, Monte Towe, left to take an assistant coaching job at North Carolina State.
Enter Coach No. 2, Buzz Williams. A badly sprained ankle right when practice began sidelined Parlow through the first four games of the season. But he rebounded to set a single-season school record with 85 treys and had nights like Jan. 4, 2007, when he set a new school mark with nine 3-pointers and 29 points.
But then Williams left for an assistant job at Marquette, giving Parlow and his six fellow seniors their third coach in three years.
With all of that going on, Parlow has managed to keep a focus on basketball.
Basketball was the only constant, the only thread of normalcy in Parlow's life. He clung to it. Thoughts of disruption, his home, his child, were kept at the door with jump shot after jump shot.
“It has been a great distraction,” Parlow said.
Off the court, contrary to popular belief, the hurricane is becoming an afterthought ? Parlow included. It took about 18 months, but he says he and his teammates rarely talk about the events after the storm. It is about the future now, which includes Coach No. 3 (New Orleans native Joe Pasternack).
“We've definitely been through a lot together,” Parlow said of his teammates. “Honestly, though, it really has helped us grow as people. Everything is not simple and easy, but we've fought together to make this work.”
Parlow is beginning to see his life get back to normal. He still misses his kids terribly, having not seen them in two months. His parents are in the process of trying to move back to New Orleans, which may help give him an opportunity to be with his own children.
He is intent on going out in style at UNO and after that, who knows.
“I don't ever want to leave New Orleans,” Parlow said. “I would go somewhere, maybe overseas, to play ball. But this is home.”
