Tulane athletes deserve credit

After this week’s 45-0 thrashing at the hands of LSU, it’s easy to be critical. It’s important, however, to remember that Tulane’s football team is not made up of professional athletes. It consists of students, just like us. In almost every case, these students play their hearts out for Tulane week in and week out.

Tailback Andre Anderson has been a model for constant effort throughout his career.

This includes players like running back Andre Anderson. Anderson, who was a preseason candidate for the Doak Walker Award—which is presented to College Football’s best running back each season — was elected one of Tulane’s two permanent captains for the season by his teammates. Playing behind a largely inexperienced offensive line, Anderson has not put up the numbers he had hoped. Despite that, he runs hard every week. After the LSU game, Anderson was the first Tulane player to face the media, fresh from the field before he even had a chance to take off his pads. Rather than blaming others for the loss, he took sole responsibility for the failures of the running game. Rather than lay the blame on the fact that Tulane had played one of the best teams in the nation, he instead declared that they played to win the game and that “a loss is a loss.” Rather than giving up on the season, he looked ahead to next week, vowing to do everything in his power to win that game. Nobody on this Tulane team plays harder every week than Anderson.

This also includes players like backup center Joey Ray. Ray, starting in his first game of the season after last week’s injury to starter Andrew Nierman, broke his right hand in the first half against LSU. Lining up against LSU defensive tackles Charles Alexander, a 298-pound sixth-year senior, and Al Woods, a 316-pound senior, while controlling Tulane’s offensive line is no easy task under the best circumstances. Doing so with a broken hand, however, is Superhuman. And that’s exactly what Ray did.

It includes players like strong safety Chinonso Echebelem. Affectionately referred to as So-So by his teammates, the 208 pounder from Texas has pushed his body to the limit this season. Largely ignored as a key to Tulane’s defense before the season began, he leads Tulane’s defense in tackles with 79, has one of Tulane’s four interceptions this season, and has forced four fumbles, tying him for fifth-best in the country in that category. Every week, Echebelem is one of the most consistent players on a Tulane defense that has been plagued by an inability to create pressure on the quarterback, often leaving him and his secondary-mates in coverage for far too long. Rather than pointing the finger at those around him, he simply continues to gear up and play the game with a ruthless efficiency that leaves those watching in awe.

This includes players such as the eight fifth-year seniors on the team left from the “Hurricane Season” of 2005, when Tulane was forced to play eleven games in eleven different stadiums in an 11-week period. Those players are defensive tackle Reggie Scott, cornerback Charles Harris, linebacker David Kirksey, lineman John Landa, linebacker James McMurchy, linebacker Tyler Rice, safety Corey Sonnier and wide receiver Jeremy Williams. All eight went through one of the roughest seasons in college football history in 2005. They could have quit but they didn’t. And herhttp://thehullabaloo.com/wp-admin/media-upload.php?post_id=7670&type=image&TB_iframe=truee they are in 2009, still on the team and still unwilling to quit.

Tulane has four games left and needs four wins to qualify for a bowl game. If it seems unlikely, that’s because it is. Before we criticize the team, however, for what we see as a failed season, remember that they are students just like us, trying as hard as they can to make good things happen.