Credit Where Credit is Due


Here's to the Ohio State fans who understand the difference between real life and games, unlike some others.

(Note: I'm aware--well, more or less aware for a non-New Orleanian--of the controversy surrounding the demolition of public housing in the city. However, I'm still absolutely grateful to those Ohio State fans who are doing the right thing...and, no, I don't expect them familiar with all the ins and outs of the matter. As for Eddie George, regardless of how you feel about his company participating, he gets right to the heart with his statement, at least as far as I'm concerned.)

Although Sunday finished with partying late into the night, the day started with hundreds of Ohio State and LSU fans, faculty, students and football players teaming up to build new baseball fields at the NFL Youth Education Town Boys & Girls Club -- formerly Rosenwald Playground -- next to the now-condemned B.W. Cooper Housing Development just outside of downtown.

The playground took on nearly 8 feet of water from Hurricane Katrina flooding and it has slowly come back since, even though most neighborhood buildings still have spray-paint markings from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

...

Sunday was first time LSU freshman defensive lineman Will Blackwell of West Monroe said he got to see some of the city’s really devastated areas.

"You read about it and you see it on TV," he said. "But you don’t realize what happened until you come down here, and it makes you want to help."

LSU Chancellor Sean O’Keefe, who graduated from Loyola University in New Orleans, showed up in jeans and a tattered LSU cap to work.

"This (project) is an expression that this is not just about coming in, enjoying the hospitality and blowing out of town," O’Keefe said. "This shows they (LSU and Ohio State supporters) really want to give something back."

Former NFL star and Ohio State Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George was shocked by the state of B.W. Cooper.

George also has his landscape architect company working with fellow former Ohio State player Keith Kay and KBK Enterprises to tear down B.W. Cooper and rebuild it as mixed-income housing in what was a recent and controversial decision by the New Orleans City Council.

...

"It’s amazing the things I'm looking at," George said. "This is America we live in, and it's almost like a Third World country. It's unfathomable that two-and-a-half years later we’re still in this state."