Gustav Changes Tulane Plans For Tide Game

New Orleans – The Tulane University Department of Athletics will evacuate its student-athletes, coaches and staff out of New Orleans with the impending weather threat from Tropical Storm Gustav. Tulane's football team does not play this weekend and opens its season a week from Saturday against Alabama in Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Tulane University announced it will close at noon Friday, and classes will resume on Thursday, Sept. 4.

The Tulane football team will depart New Orleans on Saturday for Birminghamm where the Green Wave will continue its preparations for the 2008 season opener at Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Saturday, Sept. 6. That game will kick off at 6 p.m. with television coverage on a Pay-Per-View basis.

Published reports have said that Tulane will work at Samford University in Birmingham.

Meanwhile, the Crimson Tide has its season-opener in a nationally-televised (ABC) game against Clemson in the GeorgiaDome in Atlanta Saturday. Kickoff is at 8 p.m. EDT (7 p.m. central time).

The Wave women’s golf and tennis teams, along with the men’s and women’s cross country teams, will relocate on Saturday to the campus of Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss.

The TU volleyball team flew out of New Orleans on Thursday for their season opener at the BYU Molten Classic in Provo, Utah, and will remain on a West Coast road trip and travel directly to their next tournament, the Paso Robles Marriott Invitational, Sept. 5-6, at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Each of Tulane’s remaining sport programs that are not in season this fall will follow their personal university evacuation plan.

“We have an annually revised plan that assures the safety of our 280 student-athletes, which is our top priority,” Director of Athletics Rick Dickson said. “It gives us the flexibility of determining the manner in which we evacuate. We chose the option of sending two of our active teams- football and volleyball- to their competition sites earlier in light of the fact that classes are cancelled through next Wednesday. Additionally, an efficient model of tracking every out-of-season student-athlete will occur at the conclusion of classes on Friday. This tracking system is monitored by our athletic staff and coaches and assures that all our student-athletes reach safe harbor.”