TULANE TALK

December 3, 2004

Good Morning:

“Wear Your Green Weekend” begins tonight. Please wear green and come cheer on our athletics teams as they face three important home contests: Saturday’s game against 7th-ranked Louisville, which could make the Green Wave bowl eligible for the second time in three seasons; tonightís 7 p.m. menís basketball game against Loyola and the women’s basketball game against Auburn on Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are as low as $5 for the football and menís basketball games and a ticket stub from either gets you free entry to the womenís basketball game.

Weekends like this are part of the reason Tulane Athletic Director Rick Dickson will receive the 2004 Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award from the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame next Tuesday in New York City. Rick has built the Green Wave into a model Division I-A program. Our student-athletes have excelled in the classroom, while our teams have won 12 Conference USA championships and advanced to NCAA postseason play 19 times in the last four years.

I will be in New York myself next week to meet with the presidents and chancellors of Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Ohio State, the University of Kansas, the University of Tulsa and the NCAA. We will gather at the Third Annual Street and Smithís Intercollegiate Athletics Forum to discuss the leadership role that presidents and chancellors must play if model athletics programs (like Tulane) are to be adopted nationwide.

Have a great green weekend,