Anderson Independent-Mail (Anderson, SC)
December 14, 2005
Sports

Jonathan Kay Anderson - Independent-Mail  

Back Home: Walhalla wrestler returns to New Orleans after fleeing Katrina WALHALLA - Kevin White's head was down, his voice soft, late Monday night as he walked along an empty corridor in Walhalla High School. A few minutes earlier, White he had informed his teammates that he had wrestled his last match as a Razorback. Next week, he and his family will return to their home in Metairie, La., just outside New Orleans.

"It was probably the toughest thing I've had to do - ever," White said of addressing the wrestling team.

White's house in Metairie suffered no water damages during Hurricane Katrina. The all-boys' Jesuit High School will be ready to serve students next month at close to pre-storm capacity. Jesuit's powerhouse wrestling team, with which White has spent much of his time since eighth grade, will begin practicing soon.

Part of White eagerly awaits his return to Metairie. But going home also means saying goodbye to Walhalla.

"It's going to be very tough for me to leave," said White, a 103-pound junior whose record was 8-1 this season, all of his victories coming on first-round pins. "I've made all new friends. I've been with this team for a few months now. And it's going to be sad just to see it go. Just to go home."

White, 16, his sister, Liddy, 13, and their parents, Jerry and Betsy, packed three days' worth of clothing and left Metairie about 24 hours before Katrina hit in late August. They went to LaGrange, Ga., to stay with family.

By Wednesday, the extent of the hurricane's destruction had become apparent, and the Whites realized they would not be returning home anytime soon. They left LaGrange for Salem, where they own a cabin on a lake, near most of Jerry's side of the family. That Friday, White enrolled at Walhalla High, Jerry's alma mater.

Early in his first school day, Kevin White sat in the principal's office, awaiting his tour guides. In walked wrestling captain Matt Freeman, the 5-foot-11, 220-pound reigning heavyweight state champion from Class AA. He greeted the wiry, 5-foot-6 White.

"I thought they were just going to show me around, and it was going to be all right," White said. "Then (Freeman) said, 'Wait, you wrestle and you're a 103?'

"I said, 'Yeah.'

"And he just said, 'Yes!'

"So right then and there I felt like I was going to be liked and I was going to fit in pretty well."

White's nerves were further calmed at lunch, when Freeman brought him to a table of friendly faces. That night, White accompanied the crew to Freeman's football game.

"Because of his personality, people didn't even have to go out of their way (to make him feel welcome)," Freeman said of White. "He's outgoing, friendly, fun. ... You don't even think about him just moving here a couple of months ago."

The Whites soon had word that their home was intact. A railroad track runs through the middle of Metairie, and it essentially served as a second levee, White said. South of the track, houses were flooded by roughly three feet of water. Everything north was exposed to just a few inches.

Jesuit High School sustained severe water damage on the first floor. It reconvened a few weeks after the storm at a satellite location, operating from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. The satellite could serve only about 600 students, compared to the 1,400 who had attended in 2004-2005, White said. Students who had enrolled in other schools were told to stay there for the time being.

When the Walhalla wrestling squad began its preseason conditioning, the team would work out on the track, next to football practice. Freeman looked over from his spot at linebacker and noticed White leading stretches and runs.

"You usually don't expect your smaller kids to be so energetic and outspoken and project such a spark," Freeman said. "He came in with a sort of different style of wrestling and a different style of practice. The energy he brought into the wrestling room transferred over to everyone else."

White was brought up on the Granby system of wrestling, which focuses on maneuvering from the bottom. Walhalla wrestlers had been taught to battle for the takedown.

The Razorbacks' first-year coach, Rick Somerville, is a veteran of the Granby system. He was thankful for White's presence, because it made Granby an easy sell to his new team.

During the summer, White won the freestyle division at the Cincinnati Nationals, and he finished second at the National High School Coaches Association Open in Virginia Beach, Va. Saturday, he topped all competition in his weight class at the 19-school Anderson Invitational.

"When he won the championship the other night, I had tears in my eyes, because I was thinking, 'This was just such a wonderful experience, and I'm gonna miss him,'" Somerville said.

During Walhalla's fall break in October, the Whites returned to the Gulf Coast. They observed destruction in Bay St. Louis, Miss., where a home of theirs once had stood.

When they returned to Metairie, they took note of how lucky the North side of their little town was. Their house had sustained some wind damage, but the family's only significant loss was an Infiniti Q45. The chimney cap had blown off their home and crashed through the sedan's sun roof, exposing the car's interior to the storm.

White already had returned to finish the semester in Walhalla when Betsy and Jerry told their children that the family would move back to Louisiana in December. White said someone could stay in Salem with him. He did not want to leave until after the state wrestling meet on Feb. 28.

Jerry and Betsy asked him to reconsider.

"We just felt like it was important for our entire family to be faced with the same issues together," Betsy said. "We've had a good taste of what it would be like just to leave and never go back. It would be just as easy to do that. But just as important is for people to return and have a part in the rebuilding of (New Orleans)."

Another factor is that Jerry has spent the past several weeks in New Orleans, restoring his business as a salesman for the medical company Medtronic. He told his son that he did not want them to be apart any longer than they had to be.

And White had another team to think of. His wrestling coach from Jesuit, Carlos Bertot, told White that he could not throw the last three years of work in Louisiana "down the drain" by staying in Walhalla.

"I feel a huge responsibility to (the Jesuit) team," White said. "I'd be letting my team down in New Orleans if I just abandoned them. But I also feel that I'm letting this team down by just abandoning them."

As White battled through contrary emotions, his parents' words held the most sway. Above all, he wanted to do what was best for his family. He soon agreed that returning was the proper course.

"We understand his situation," Freeman said. "Sometimes we have to stop and put ourselves in his position and realize, 'What if we were displaced from our home and our school was finally ready to open back up?'

"We would want to go back and see our friends and family again, too, and get back on with our lives."

Naturally, Freeman said, he was disappointed to lose a teammate and a friend. But after White addressed the team on Monday, Freeman immediately spoke up.

"He said, 'On behalf of the guys, this is just bad luck, and we're happy to see you going home, and be happy with your family,'" White said.

Once again, Freeman had helped calm White's nerves, and the team encircled White in a group hug.

"I just felt a whole lot better," White said. "It's a little bit indescribable. It really felt like they appreciated me being here, and that they know what I'm going through, and they know that I'm not doing it just to abandon them."