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By CASEY COLLIER
Former New Orleans Saints offensive tackle Willie Roaf played 13 seasons in the NFL, as well as earning several titles of honor from a distinctive college football career.
He is an NFL Hall of Famer, played in the Pro Bowl 11 times, was selected nine times for the All-American team, was on the 1990’s All Decade team, was on the 2000’s All Decade team and is in the College, Louisiana, and Arkansas Football Halls of Fame; and now, he can also say that he was asked to address students at Franklin High School, and was the keynote speaker at Fit, Fun and Fabulous’ Health and Wellness Luncheon, held Thursday at the Lamp Post reception hall.
After all, he says his dad would have been proud to see it.
Roaf opened the address with a synopsized version of his career history. He was born in Arkansas, but played college ball for Louisiana Tech University. After which, he played nine seasons for the Saints after being chosen as the eighth pick in the first round of the 1993 NFL draft. He was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2002 prior to suffering a season ending injury in 2001. Once in Kansas City, he played for the Chiefs for four seasons.
He touted the fitness utilities of the Fitbit fitness tracker he was wearing, and gave a nod to his wife, who he met while playing for the Chiefs, and who was seated at an adjacent table. He said that meeting Angela was the best thing he did in his life.
He spoke briefly of the recent death of his father, who was his role model, and how he had been affected by that. “My dad was more proud of my manager and me, for getting closer to God, than he was about football,” Roaf recalled. “We really miss him, and he’d have been proud of me being here, because he was a hard-working man, and I was telling those kids that ‘You’d better make sure you take care of that school work, and you make sure you put God first, in your life. And if you don’t have a father at home, you make sure you find somebody you can look up to and who can help guide you in the right direction.’”
Roaf opened the floor to questions, and fielded several. One of which, was “What’s the biggest misconception young men have about getting into the NFL?”
“You really don’t need to be thinking about pro ball if you are in high school,” Roaf said. “If you get to college and start having some success, I don’t care if you are going to Alabama or one of these other big schools, you are still just one play away from getting injured, and it could be all over. The average expectancy of any guy in pro sports is only two or three years, anyway. You’ve got guys who have played 15 or 20 years. But the average of those who make it to see the field, they only stay for two or three years. There are lots of guys who go to those big schools and they play at those big schools but they don’t reach their potential (scholastically). Those are the guys that when they are job hunting, they don’t adjust too well to life after football.”
Roaf was asked who he thought would win the Superbowl this year, and he admitted that while he knew that his current audience wanted it to be the Saints, that he was keeping his eye on the as yet undefeated Chiefs to win the big game.
When asked if he plays fantasy football, he simply chuckled and said, “No.”
He was also asked if he thought college athletes should get paid to play college sports, and said that he thought that they should get paid to play, and that maybe a hypothetical payment system could consist of a fund in which the athlete’s earnings stay unused, and could be made available to the athlete on their graduation. He remarked that under the current restrictions, it appears to him that the athletes are already reaping financial benefits from their college athletic careers anyway, whether through diversionary channels, or in the form of gifts.
To the question, “What, if any, differences in values did you find between your personal values, and those of the NFL?” Roaf answered, “It is a business, you know? You get a lot of guys who get an attitude, especially coming in having never tried to do it, themselves. They may think they are better than you, that they can do a better job. Well, we’ll see when they get down in the fire. The way it is now, these guys, their attitudes and the way they are acting is different. So, you have to handle it a little differently, you know? They think they’re entitled, whereas we came through an old school, working hard. These guys, these kids, now they are a lot more entitled. Just like the generation that grew up using cell phones is entitled. They don’t understand. I didn’t have to go through what my father went through. So, I didn’t understand. They are out there on social media every day, and it’s messing up these kids’ heads. This new generation is watching the Kardashians. It’s in everything they see. And, I know that that family makes a lot of money, there. But, they (the new generation) have got to figure it out.”
Roaf didn’t leave before accepting an honorary certificate of appreciation from Franklin Mayor Raymond Harris Jr., and the thanks of the executive board of the event.
Roaf also stuck around after the conclusion of the luncheon to sign autographs and take pictures with fans.

BILOXI, Miss. (AP) — Hurricane Nate brought a burst of flooding and power outages to the U.S. Gulf Coast before weakening rapidly Sunday, sparing the region the kind of catastrophic damage wreaked by series of hurricanes that hit the southern U.S. and Caribbean in recent weeks.

Nate — the first hurricane to make landfall in Mississippi since Katrina in 2005 — quickly lost power, with its winds diminishing to a tropical depression as it pushed northward into Alabama and toward Georgia with heavy rain. It was a Category 1 hurricane when it came ashore outside Biloxi early Sunday, its second landfall after initially hitting southeastern Louisiana on Saturday evening.

The storm surge from the Mississippi Sound littered Biloxi's main beachfront highway with debris and flooded a casino's lobby and parking structure overnight.

By dawn, however, Nate's receding floodwaters didn't reveal any obvious signs of widespread damage in the city where Hurricane Katrina had leveled thousands of beachfront homes and businesses.

After daybreak, Sean Stewart checked on his father's sailboat at a Biloxi marina. Another boat had sunk, with its sail still fluttering in Nate's diminishing winds, but Stewart was relieved to find his father's craft intact.

"I got lucky on this one," he said.

Before Nate sped past Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula late Friday and entered the Gulf of Mexico, it drenched Central America with rains that left at least 22 people dead. But Nate didn't approach the intensity of Harvey, Irma and Maria — powerful storms that left behind massive destruction during 2017's exceptionally busy hurricane season.

"We are thankful because this looked like it was going to be a freight train barreling through the city," said Vincent Creel, a spokesman for the city of Biloxi.

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the four hurricanes that have struck the U.S. and its territories this year have "strained" resources, with roughly 85 percent of the agency's forces deployed.

"We're still working massive issues in Harvey, Irma, as well as the issues in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and now this one," FEMA Administrator Brock Long told ABC's "This Week."

Nate initially made landfall Saturday evening in Louisiana, but fears that it would overwhelm the fragile pumping system in New Orleans proved to be unfounded. The storm passed to the east of New Orleans, and

Mayor Mitch Landrieu lifted a curfew on the city known for its all-night partying.

More than 100,000 residents in Mississippi and Alabama were without power Sunday morning, but no storm-related deaths or injuries were immediately reported.

In Alabama, Dauphin Island Mayor Jeff Collier said he woke up around 3 a.m. Sunday to discover knee-deep water in his yard. Although some homes and cars on the island had flooded, Collier said he hadn't heard of anyone needing to be rescued.

"We didn't think it would be quite that bad," he said. "It kind of snuck up on us in the wee hours of the morning."

At landfall in Mississippi, the fast-moving storm had maximum sustained winds near 85 mph (140 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said. Nate steadily weakened after its first landfall in a sparsely populated area of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

As of 11 a.m. EDT, the center of Nate was near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (56 kph). The hurricane center said the depression was moving to the north-northeast near 24 mph (39 kph).

Nate was expected to bring 3 to 6 inches of rain to the Deep South, eastern Tennessee Valley and southern Appalachians through Monday. The Ohio Valley and central Appalachians could also get heavy rain. A wind advisory was in effect until 7 p.m. CDT (8 p.m. EDT) for the Tennessee Valley.

Biloxi city employees worked before dawn to clear debris from Highway 90, the four-lane beachfront highway, where sand, logs and even a large trash bin had been washed up. Despite the debris, there was little to no visible damage to structures. A handful of businesses had reopened before dawn, and the storm surge that washed across the highway had receded by 6 a.m.

Mississippi Department of Transportation crews had to remove over 1,000 pumpkins blown onto Highway 90 in Pass Christian.

Willie Cook, 75, spent his morning chopping down a pecan tree that fell in his backyard. He said Nate was nothing like Katrina, which pushed 8 feet of water into his east Biloxi house.

"The wind was blowing, but it wasn't too rough," Cook said of Nate.

Storm surge flooded the parking structure of the Golden Nugget casino in Biloxi. Creel, the city spokesman, said there were no immediate reports of flooding on the floors of any casinos.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said about 1,100 people spent the night in shelters.

"Thankfully, right now we have no major damage reports," he said.

Hancock County Emergency Management Agency Director Brian Adam said Nate's storm surge flooded low-lying roads, but he hadn't heard any reports of flooded homes.

"We turned out fairly good," he said as he prepared to survey neighborhoods. "Until we get out and actually get into some of the areas, we really won't know."

In Alabama, the storm flooded homes and cars on the coast and inundated at least one major road in downtown Mobile.

At sunrise in Pensacola Beach, Florida, a small front-end loader scraped sand off a parking lot and returned it to the nearby beach. Sand also was blown onto the decks of beachside bars and restaurants.

On Saturday night, about 6 inches of salt water began flowing through Anthony Perez's garage and a ground-level room of his Pensacola Beach condo along Santa Rosa Sound. The entire building was still surrounded by water on Sunday morning.

"I went downstairs and said, 'Uh! There it is! It's already flowing through,'" Perez said.

Officials rescued five people from two sailboats in choppy waters before the storm. One 41-foot sailboat lost its engine in Lake Pontchartrain and two sailors were saved. Another boat hit rocks in the Mississippi
Sound and three people had to be plucked from the water.

Organizers of the Tour du Teche have decided to end the kayak and canoe race in New Iberia on Saturday. An awards ceremony will take place at 3 p.m. Saturday at the New Iberia City Park, according to Race Director Ray Pellerin.

The race, which began Friday in Port Barre, was scheduled to finish Sunday in Berwick, but organizers chose to shorten the race and end in New Iberia as Tropical Storm Nate approaches the gulf coast.

Due to the potential of the Tri-City area feeling some effects of potential Hurricane Nate, KQKI 95.3 FM and Country Music Showdown officials have decided to postpone the event until Oct. 28, according to a news release.

The event, scheduled to be held at the Berwick Lighthouse Festival, has been moved to the Patterson Main Street Festival and Historic Walking Tour.

“The decision was based on the fact that some of the contestants will be traveling from areas such as Tennessee, Mississippi and north Louisiana to perform and also watch the showdown,” Station Manager Bryan Protich said in the release. “We feel that it is better to lean on the side of caution rather than to put our contestants and their families into a possible situation where their safety could be impacted.” KQKI 95.3 FM thanked the town of Berwick and the Berwick Lighthouse Festival for all of their time, effort and understanding.