WholeHogSports
WALLY HALL’S DIARY : New Orleans OK, still under weather
Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2008
URL: http://www.wholehogsports.com/adg/234493/
NEW ORLEANS — It was just past 7: 30 a. m. here Saturday and soapy foam was thick on the streets of the French Quarter.
It was a bit early to be entering the area famous for booze, food, booze, shows and booze, and a little late for the few who stumbled out of the bars and into a new day.
The day before had been spent at LSU, Day 5 of the Sports Animals SEC tour, heard across the state on the Arkansas Radio Network.
Herb Vincent, the LSU assistant athletic director and a North Little Rock native, and sports information director Michael Bonnette went out of their way to make sure we got interviews with Brett Helms of Stuttgart and Coach Les Miles.
We even got a tour of the almost-new football facility, which is nice.
You enter the building in the trophy room. Unfortunately, the architect, obviously not an LSU graduate, left out one tiny thing — electrical outlets in the floor. Thus, the trophy cases are lit by batteries, which have to be recharged every night.
There is a wall of glassed-in banners celebrating every bowl game. Well, they sort of celebrate them. If LSU won, the score was on the banner. If LSU lost, it was not.
Still, it was impressive and another example of why Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long is considering renovations at the Broyles Complex.
After the interviews it was back to the Big Easy, where we did the radio show. Then began the tour for Shawn Arnell, host of Sports Animals, who had never spent any real time here.
Lunch was at Deanie’s, a block off Bourbon Street, and our waiter Patrick Melancon grew up in Bryant
The first stop after finishing the show was Felix’s. The line outside Acme Oyster House, which is across the street, was almost a half a block long, and I’ve found Felix’s to be as good.
Dinner was at Ralph and Kacoo’s. Yes, everyone has a favorite, and while this is not the best in town, we are on a bit of a budget. Plus we were planning on K-Paul’s Saturday night.
There was a short stopover at Pat O’Brien’s and then back to the hotel and bed.
It was only the second night since we left six months ago — OK, it was last Sunday — that we were not driving. In fact, we covered 370 exhausting miles Thursday night.
Saturday morning was time to walk off a few calories, which is why we ventured into the Quarter so early.
It appears the bounce-back from the flood three years ago is slow and tedious.
At least one of my favorite eating places (awesome fried chicken ) and art galleries are gone.
There are still dozens of forsale signs for condos and too many empty businesses.
It will take at least two more years of no hurricanes for this city to really start to recover.
New phone books were on many stoops and they were not much thicker than Little Rock’s.
Yet, by the time the walk was finished, the quarter was starting to fill with sight-seers and even some in search of a 24-hour watering hole.
New Orleans has changed but has managed to stay the same. Democrat-Gazette Sports Editor Wally Hall is traveling to all the SEC schools while on a tour with the radio program Shawn & Wally: The Sports Animals.