by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
It’s safe to say that Lauren Peek will have a lot of stories to tell her grandchildren about the things she did while she was in school.
The 21-year-old left Jacksonville for Tulane University on a soccer scholarship following an exemplary career at The Bolles School. She was Bolles’ scholar-athlete of the year and best all-around athlete in 2003. When she graduated, Peek was the recipient of the Bartram Award, given each year to Bolles’ most outstanding student. In her first season at Tulane, she was the only freshman who played in all 12 games.
She enjoyed classes, playing soccer and campus life in New Orleans until late August 2005.
Peek and her Green Wave teammates were playing in a tournament on their home pitch as Hurricane Katrina approached the gulf coast. The decision was made to evacuate the campus. The soccer team packed their bags and headed for Jackson, Miss.
“We were there for two days but Katrina followed us and we were hit when it was still a Category 2. We lost power and they couldn’t feed us, so we couldn’t stay there anymore,” said Peek.
The team was forced to hit the road again, this time for Birmingham, Ala., where they were already scheduled to play in a tournament on Friday and Saturday.
“We were the first Tulane team to compete again,” said Peek.
She didn’t know it at the time, but Peek wouldn’t play soccer in New Orleans again. The campus, like the rest of the city, was devastated.
“The soccer team went to Texas A&M for a semester. That’s where we played our season because soccer is a fall sport,” said Peek. “I had never been to Texas before and Texas A&M was amazing. They gave us on-campus apartments to live in. My teammates were my only friends. We were there to go to college and play a sport.”
Peek returned to New Orleans not long after the storm to attend her coach’s wedding.
“I had mixed emotions,” she said. “The National Guard was still there and there was still a curfew.
“I was happy to be back, but it was sad to see the city. It was not the one we left. Some of the girls on our team had six feet of water in their home. Part of the roof came off my house. Seeing your stuff all torn about is crazy.”
It wasn’t over yet.
While at Texas A&M, Peek and her teammates had to be evacuated yet again, this time to Dallas to escape Hurricane Rita. Then Tulane was forced to eliminate seven teams from the athletic program, including women’s soccer.
“We made it through Katrina and we thought things were going to get better. Then my roommate breaks her leg and then they cut the soccer team. I thought, ‘What is rock bottom? Have we finally reached it?’.”
The university has been granted a waiver by the NCAA to operate as a Div. I-A program for five years while rebuilding. Peek said she kept her scholarship, but instead of playing soccer, she is helping to raise money to get all of Tulane’s sports programs back in place.
“It has been the longest year of my life. It’s been a roller-coaster,” said Peek. “You learn a lot about yourself and you become a lot closer to the people you went to school with because no one really experienced Katrina the same way from any respect. The only people who went through exactly the same things I did are my teammates. They are the only ones who can really understand what we went through. It made us a lot closer and they became my second family.”
This summer has been a big improvement for Peek. She is back on the Tulane campus this week to begin her senior year. The marketing major who wants a career in sports broadcasting after she graduates spent the summer as an intern in the sports department at TV-12/25. Peek has been going back and forth across the parking lot from the station to Alltel Stadium to cover the Jaguars’ training camp. She also won a contest at the station and got to interview several football players.
“I won the battle of the interns, so I got to do a story on my own,” said Peek. “(Sports Director) Dan Hicken thought it would be a good idea to do something about the kicker and the punter, since both of them were soccer players.
“For my stand-up, I decided that I would kick a field goal. I kicked it from 25 yards because I didn’t want to worry about getting all the talking right and then missing the kick. The day before, I practiced and kicked one from 35 yards, so I knew I could make it from 25 – no problem.
“Everyone just thinks it’s crazy that a girl can kick a field goal, but any soccer player could. We practice long kicks all the time,” said Peek.
It’s obvious that her father, Gene Peek of Peek, Cobb, Edwards & Ashton, is proud of his daughter.
“Lauren is a very resilient individual as are a lot of her teammates. They’ll probably be closer friends for the rest of their lives as a result of their experience,” he said. “She has grown up a lot in a short period of time. My wife, Kathy, and I are very proud of the way she has handled things and made it a learning experience.”