When Tulane baseball Coach Rick Jones sat next to President Scott Cowen at one of the first basketball games at Fogelman Arena post-Hurricane Katrina, Jones wasn’t certain what the future held for his half-demolished, half storm-wrecked stadium.
But Jones was put to ease early in the conversation.
“We are going to build you a new stadium,” Cowen said.
Suddenly Jones was comfortable, believing that somehow things would get back to normal, or in the baseball team’s case, better than normal.
Nearly two and a half years after beginning an overhaul of Turchin Stadium, the Green Wave opens its season tonight with a three-game series against Illinois-Chicago in its new and refurbished playing digs: Greer Field at Turchin Stadium.
“From when Scott Cowen said that, I felt comfortable with that’s the way we were going,” Jones said. “I didn’t know how. I didn’t have any idea it was going to be this palatial or this impressive. But that’s obviously where (athletic director) Rick Dickson came in, because he and I shared what this should look like.”
TIMES PICAYUNE: Tulane opens new Turchin 
