LAYTON — Hurricane Katrina — though nearly three weeks in the past and thousands of miles from Utah — has had a strange impact on the local sports scene. Utah State had its season-opening football game with Nicholls State canceled, and Cottonwood High's trip to the Bayou was also wiped out by the storm.
One of the relatively unknown stories happened on the bookshelves of Harold Arceneaux's childhood home.
Arceneaux, a former star basketball player for Weber State known as "The Show" when he led the Wildcats to the NCAA tournament in the late '90s, had his Big Sky player of the year trophies resting in his mother's New Orleans home. The trophies, one can only assume, are sitting at the bottom of a sludge-filled mess in Louisiana and may never be seen again.
"I don't care about that stuff," Arceneaux said of his trophy case full of awards. "What I care about is my mom."
His mother, Albertine, was one of the thousands of New Orleans residents forced to flee their homes after Katrina's wrath flooded the city. After spending a night with other evacuees in the Superdome, Albertine Arceneaux slept underneath a National Guard truck for a couple of nights before boarding a bus and eventually finding refuge in Texas.
From there, she got in touch with her son. Harold and his wife, Lacey, quickly purchased a plane ticket and brought Albertine to Utah where she plans on staying.
"I talked to her throughout the whole thing so I knew she was OK," Harold said. "But you could just hear it in her voice that she was scared. I tried to not talk about what was going on because I wanted her to feel OK, like everything was going to be fine."
Albertine Arceneaux doesn't know exactly what condition her home is in. She doesn't plan on returning to find out, either. After escaping Louisiana with only her purse and the clothes on her back, Arceneaux is settling into life in Utah where her son, her daughter-in-law and their family are.
Harold Arceneaux said his family is all safe and mostly lived outside of New Orleans.
"We lost things," he said. "We are lucky and didn't lose people and that's a positive. You can always replace things."
The Big Sky Conference, happy to hear Mrs. Arceneaux is safe but saddened to learn of the destruction she encountered, is doing something to help out.
"One of the things that his mom cherished the most was his MVP trophy," said Big Sky media relations director Jon Kasper.
The conference contacted Levy Awards, the trophy maker for the conference, and arranged to have replacement trophies made.
"Considering how much she had lost, we felt it was the right thing to do," Kasper said.
The trophies, after all, are simple reminders of past accomplishments. But in the wake of Katrina, they are also a connection to the past for the Arceneaux family.
"That was the main thing that bothered her," Harold said. "She always wanted me to send her my trophies and awards.
"I think she'll be happy to have those things back."
E-mail: jeborn@desnews.com