Forced to evacuate by Hurricane Harvey, Corpus Christi volleyball closes road trip at MSU

EAST LANSING – You’ll have to forgive Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s volleyball team if their heads are somewhere other than East Lansing this weekend.

As the Islanders take part in the Spartan Invitational at Jenison Field House, their thoughts are on their own campus island and the rest of southeast Texas, much of which is beginning to pick up the pieces from Hurricane Harvey or still in the throes of record flooding.

Corpus Christi’s three games include a matchup with host Michigan State at 7:30 Saturday night.

Corpus Christi’s volleyball team hasn’t been home since Aug. 24, when the players boarded a bus for Dallas and a tournament at SMU. The Islanders wound up spending the entire week there, while their town was battered and surrounding communities destroyed.

“It’s not an easy thing to do,” Corpus Christi coach Steve Greene said Friday morning after his team’s practice at Jenison. “It’s been a day-by-day, minute-by-minute thing. We left last Thursday essentially knowing we were evacuating. The school ended up being evacuated as we were leaving.

“We went up to SMU to play volleyball, but, in the back of our minds, we knew the school was in jeopardy, a lot of the houses were in jeopardy, their apartments were in jeopardy. … We did our best to think about volleyball and play the best we could. At times, you could tell we were mentally drained and frazzled and stressed about the world.”

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Greene had his family with him in Dallas and said his home suffered relatively minimal damage. A couple of porch lights, a trampoline and a palm tree were the only victims of Harvey on his property. All the players’ houses and apartments are still in decent shape, and their families, some living in Houston, are safe and accounted for. 

The team is scheduled to fly home Sunday, and the campus is set to reopen Tuesday. The city of Corpus Christi came through the storm better than it might have. Nearby Rockport and Port Aransa were decimated. 

“Port Aransa, that got hit really hard,” Greene said. “Mostly hurricane, a little bit of flooding. Reports are saying about 75 percent demolished. Rockport is just on the north end of Corpus. There are a lot of people who live in Rockport and work in Corpus Christi. I’m hearing close to 100 percent demolished and flooded and everything.”

Two members of the team are from Houston. Several others are from the region. Greene, who used to coach at Houston Baptist University, still owns a home in Houston. His tenants are OK. He has no idea about the house. Senior Brittany Gilpin, a Houston native, said she has friends who were trapped for days.

“A lot of my friends lost their homes. Their homes were flooded,” Gilpin said. “I’ve seen videos on Facebook, and I’ve seen a lot of Snapchats, the water’s been all the way up to their countertops, so they’ve had to evacuate. Boats had to come get some of my friends, and so I saw them on boats.

“It’s mind-blowing. It’s like, how can this be real? I’ve been to these people’s houses. Just to see it halfway under water is crazy to see.”

Despite the hospitality everywhere they’ve been — especially from SMU, which shared facilities and did their laundry and treated them like they were part of their team — the Corpus Christi players just want to go home.

“Everyone misses their own bed,” junior Morgan Williams said. “You kind of have to take all it and put it into volleyball. It’s the only release you have at this point.”

“It kind of puts things into perspective a little bit,” Greene said. “I think, as coaches and athletes, we all think we’re important and what we do matters. And for some of us, yeah, it’s nice to get away and check out for a couple hours a day and compete in sports. But to ask that of 18-to-22-year-olds is really difficult. 

“Frankly I’m not handling it well. I’m putting on a game face and attempting to look like I’m handling it, but I’m not. I’ve been stressed and worried. And I’m worried about what I say in front of the team and how that affects them. I typically make jokes in stressful situations. That’s how I handle life. But if I do it here and somebody’s family is under water, it comes off really poorly.”

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.

Spartan Invitational

Saturday's games

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi vs. Marshall, 11 a.m.

Marshall vs. San Diego State, 4:30 p.m.

MSU vs. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 7:30 p.m.