Sometimes the past can haunt you, and some times it can bite you in the backside.  Monte Towe may still be looking for a piece of his bottom on the floor of the RBC Center after Sunday night. 

The visiting University of New Orleans Privateers pulled off a major upset last night, defeating the North Carolina State Wolfpack 65-63 in Raleigh, NC.  The event was significant on its own-a lesser UNO team from a lesser conference (the Sun Belt), and on the road at the home of Jimmy Valvano, Norm Sloan, and oh yes, Monte Towe. 

Towe, now an assistant coach under former NBA coach Sidney Lowe, coached the Privateers from 2001-2006.  Towe left UNO after the 2005-06 season, presumably to go back home, where he led the Wolfpack to the 1974 NCAA Title. 

However, given the time frame and the season from hell he endured because of Hurricane Katrina, one can wonder not too deeply to find reasons why an assistants' job in tobacco road was more appealing than a head coaching gig in a rebuilding city--recovering from the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. 

Quite a few of us evacuees went through what Towe must have been thinking: namely asking yourself if the chance in front of you trumps the reality you have in New Orleans going forward. I spent 10 months in Dallas myself after the storm--away from my house, my family and my life as I knew it.  But I had to go back home.  And I did. 

So, this article is not about how a selfish Towe abandoned his team and his adopted city for greener pastures.  He went home- and no one-least of all those of us that know true separation from the place you love, can deny him that choice.  

But he did leave a UNO team that desperately needed a steady hand, a talented coach (which I believe Towe is), and a leader for the University of New Orleans in its time of need.  You see, UNO Men's basketball drives the athletic budget, pitifully small however it is.  The Privateers' home arena was flooded by Katrina and has yet to be repaired over two years later.  UNO still plays its home games in what amounts to a high school gym, and will for the foreseeable future. 

It is not surprising that Towe would leave under such circumstances.  It's like being the executive chef at Commanders Palace then after the storm being relegated to a short order cook at Waffle House in a FEMA trailer.  Such Spartan conditions cost UNO Towe's replacement, Buzz Williams, who left for an assistant coach position at Marquette after just one season with the Silver & Blue.  Williams, too, is a talented coach with nothing but blue skies ahead of him. 

The heavy task of coaching the Privateers was given to California assistant and relative youngster Joe Pasternack (right).  At least Pasternack gives some emotional gravitas to the situation: he's a New Orleans native and his parents, flooded out though they were, chose to stay in the New Orleans area.   The youthful and energetic Pasternack may just be what UNO needs-passion, enthusiasm, and an upset here or there, to build up the recruiting base and get more people in the seats at the Human Performance Center.

Under then-coach Tim Floyd, UNO was the best basketball team in the state for a good half a decade in the late 80's-early 90's.  To get anything near that in the next decade would be a major accomplishment, and just like the city it calls home, the Privateers will be rebuilt under the watchful eyes of one of its own.

Photo credits: http://www.nmnathletics.com.edgesuite.net/pics13/200/LY/LYWZXVUKTIIOFFU.20071119142151.jpg

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