Coming out of Plano West, where she was an all-state defender on a two-time state championship soccer team and member of the formidable Dallas Sting, Megan Weinlein had several scholarship offers.
But she fell in love with only one school, one town: Tulane, in New Orleans.
"I picked a school where I'd be happy no matter what happened," she said.
Of course, she couldn't have imagined then what that would mean now.
After her freshman season, when she was the team's newcomer of the year, she was on campus when word came of an approaching hurricane.
Buses evacuated Tulane's students and staff until the only people left were members of the football and soccer teams and the school president, who hung out with the athletes until it was time to go.
"You pack up your stuff," she naively thought at the time, "and you come back a couple of days later."
But Katrina was different from anything New Orleans had ever seen.
First the soccer team went to Jackson, Miss., then to Birmingham, Ala. Even played in a tournament there.
"Looking back now," Weinlein said, "it was like the Twilight Zone. It was really, really bizarre."
Megan's mother, Chris, found out firsthand when she braved her way into New Orleans in October. She drove out in Megan's car, stuffed with molding vestiges of her daughter's swamped apartment.
Because of the disaster conditions, school officials found universities to host their teams, which is how Weinlein and her teammates ended up at Texas A&M.
And then on Dec. 6, word came: Until the university could get back on its feet, Tulane would suspend eight sports, including women's soccer.
Some of Weinlein's teammates were hurt and angry. Three left school. Weinlein had offers, too.
"I didn't even think twice," she said. "I was definitely going to stay. My best friends were at that school. We had gone through something so . . . significant, no one could understand it. Even my family members couldn't understand.
"We were bonded."
Eventually, even the soccer players who left Tulane came back. In fulfilling her scholarship obligations, Weinlein worked a year as an intern in media relations, then as an assistant to the senior women's administrator.
"I got to be an athlete for two years," Weinlein said, "and then I got to be a regular student."
Maybe a little better than "regular." She served on Conference USA's student advisory council. Made the C-USA honor roll and Tulane 3.0 Club.
Homecoming court finalist, too.
This month, C-USA honored Weinlein again with a $4,000 postgraduate scholarship, which she'll apply to the scholarship she already received from the law school at Washington and Lee.
But as educations go, it can't beat what she experienced in New Orleans.
"I've gained so much insight into the world and people," she said. "I'd do it all again.
"In a heartbeat."
■ ESPN employees weren't overly impressed with the Mavs' second-round pick, Shan Foster, SEC Player of the Year out of Vanderbilt. Jay Bilas says Foster's shooting range may not extend to the NBA 3-point line. Good news: The Mavs have had good luck with previous conference POYs, i.e., Devin Harris and Josh Howard.
■ Draft warning: Ignore any expert who says a player could be the next (blank) and fills that blank with the name of a superstar. Players should earn those accolades first, no?
■ Shock jock Don Imus upset many with seemingly racist comments about Adam –formerly Pacman – Jones. Then his apology should have angered law enforcement. Moral: Talk long and loud enough, and you'll offend everyone.
■ When Terence Newman said the toughest receiver he's had to defend was Terry Glenn, it may not have been team loyalty speaking. Glenn runs routes as hard as any receiver in memory.
■ Question: By voting Michael Young the second-most underrated player in a Sports Illustrated poll, are the shortstop's MLB peers still trying to send a message to John Hart?
■ Former Astro pitcher Shawn Chacon defended his chokehold and takedown of Ed Wade by claiming the GM cursed and shouted at him, points Wade denied. Chacon says Wade should have known whom he was dealing with. Wade certainly knows now, as do the rest of his peers.
■ Scouts explained Darrell Arthur's slide and subsequent three-stop connection to Memphis by saying he had "a tendency to coast." But you could say the same about teammate Brandon Rush , who went 13th to Portland. On a great Kansas team, the player who pulled the load in crunch time was the one who went in the second round, Mario Chalmers.
■ Bulgaria won't send its weightlifting team to Beijing after 11 members tested positive for steroids, nearly a 400 percent increase over their positive tests before Athens. Hey, Don Hooton: Speak any Bulgarian?
■ Waco Tribune-Herald's story on 60-year reunion of Waco High's '48 state champs revealed this nugget: Denied water, as was the frequent custom of the era, players would sneak off and drink from a ditch.
■ Golf lessons: If Brett Hull is good enough to make a hole in one, as reported the other day, it's a good thing his co-GM, Les Jackson, is doing half the work.
