Colleges try to track blue-chip prep talent dispersed by Katrina

JACKSON, Miss. -- High school football star J.C. Brignone lost nearly everything when Hurricane Katrina tore through coastal Bay St. Louis, from his home to his senior season at St. Stanislaus High.

Brignone's family fled 400 miles to join relatives in the suburban Atlanta town of Lilburn, where Georgia powerhouse Parkview High received him with open arms.

"It's just gone by real slow, getting everything back to normal and not being able to see your friends," the defensive lineman said. "It's just taking a lot of getting used to, I guess."

Dozens of blue-chip high school players scattered when the storm ravaged the recruiting hotbeds of Mississippi and Louisiana, and Brignone is among the lucky ones -- he stayed on college recruiters' radar.

But interested coaches are scrambling to keep track of others who have dispersed among schools in the Southeast.

"Some of these guys don't have homes, their cell phones are spotty ... Finding out where kids are, I don't want to sound bad, but it's hard to know if they're still alive or if their families are OK," said Ronnie Sanders, recruiting coordinator at Southern Mississippi.

Even as Brignone trained in Parkview's weight room, he hoped his old school could salvage its season. When that didn't happen, he just decided to play for Parkview.

"I went up there to go work out ... and came back to find there was nothing to go back to," Brignone said this week.

Several other coastal Division I prospects have found new homes. Defensive back Wesley Ladner of D'Iberville, Miss., resurfaced at Acadia High School in Lafayette, La. And Fort Walton Beach in the Florida panhandle welcomed two players from Mississippi: quarterback Tyler Burks and receiver Robert Labat of Bay St. Louis.

"Our kids have taken them in and really accepted them," Fort Walton Beach coach Mike Owens said.

A third player, running back Damion Fletcher, expressed interest in playing but ultimately returned to Mississippi after Biloxi announced plans to play the season.

Brignone is set, too. He's attracting interest from Mississippi State, Rice and Louisiana-Lafayette.

But others -- who might've hoped to parlay a big senior season into a scholarship -- now may wind up overlooked, recruiting analyst Bobby Burton said.

"The kids that were the up-and-coming seniors that were hoping to have a great senior season and play their way into a scholarship -- that's who it hits the hardest," Burton said. "With recruiting accelerating so much, having commitments prior to a senior year, the coaches aren't going to have enough video on kids from the New Orleans area to make that assessment."

Many states are making it easier for displaced players to get onto the field as administrators across the region have relaxed residency requirements and other transfer rules. People around the sport dismiss the notion that a coach might use those weakened regulations to entice Katrina refugees.

"That would be kind of an insensitive thing to do in a situation like that," said Robert Maddox, the coach at Auburn (Ala.) High School.

"I have not seen that one iota," Burton said.

At this point, the coaches say, giving the players an opportunity is more about helping them get their lives back together than winning. A suburban Atlanta church group and the entire community is donating furniture and helping the Brignone family find a house, Parkview coach Cecil Flowe said.

"They had the shoes on their feet and the clothes on their backs," Flowe said. "He's ready to get his life back going. He said, 'I've got to play. I want to play."'

Said Owens: "This is something bigger than football. They need to be a part of something, and they need quickly in their lives to get some semblance of normal."

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AP Sports Writers Jaime Aron in Dallas and John Zenor in Auburn, Ala., contributed to this report.