Many of you know my affinity with the University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM) as much as we mention ULM a good bit with the Sickos Committee account. I attended ULM from 2000 through 2004, but I was unable to graduate due to a myriad of different reasons (panic attacks about the crippling realization it was nothing but work for the rest of my life after graduation from college), but mainly my parents were going through a really messy divorce. I won’t get into the details of that, but I moved back home to my mom’s house in the New Orleans suburbs (shout out to the West Bank) in the fall of 2004 to help out and attempt to get back on my feet.

Not knowing what I would do with the rest of my life as I changed majors eight times after being unable to do high level college calculus and failed to graduate from ULM. I tried to enter the workforce and only found a job offer saying I would have to walk around with someone for an 8-hour full day of work, unpaid, trying to sell cable subscriptions, door to door. I said to myself, “Fuck that,” and I turned down that job offer. I immediately said I needed to finish college and get my degree.

In New Orleans, I had a few options to continue my education. Was I smart enough to get into Tulane? Oh, hell no. Could I get into Loyola New Orleans? Nope. Not a chance. Did I want to finish at a Community College? No, I needed my 4-year bachelor's degree, and I had a ton of credits from ULM (even though the last semester was as bad as it could be because I really didn’t even go to class at all).

Hello U.N.O.  

I applied to the University of New Orleans after I wrangled my ugly ULM transcripts away from the registrar's office in Monroe. I met with an academic advisor who asked what I was doing the last year at ULM, and he made a reference to me smoking large amounts of weed, which was incredibly fair. I was accepted but placed on academic probation. Whatever, I am in school again.

I lost so many credits from ULM in this transfer but was still considered a Junior, so I started my UNO life in the spring of 2005. I mentally fought through the Spring and got out of Academic probation. Furthermore, I took two summer classes to try to make up for lost credits. Finally, I felt like I was getting back on my feet as I started classes on August 22nd, 2005. I was taking classes in this new building on campus and made it through my first week quite well.

Then August 29, 2005, happened. Hurricane Katrina struck and flooded the surrounding neighborhoods of UNO. The brand-new building was ransacked and used as a staging area for rescues, as was much of the campus. My entire life was up in limbo as I was evacuated from New Orleans for over a month. When my mom and I returned from our evacuation at my grandparent's house in Florida, I lost my GMC Jimmy’s engine to bad fuel in LaPlace but was able to continue with my UNO schooling in a satellite campus along with using 2005’s version of Blackboard (god it sucked but whatever) in October 2005. In the spring, some classes resumed on campus at UNO.

I vividly remember driving down Elysian Fields, in the pitch black night, where the streetlights were completely out—no stop lights, only stop signs, and using my high beams to avoid potholes on the way to my night classes. You’d pass by the homes and see the waterline marks along with the spray-painted marks showing grim things about the homes if you knew the language of the mark. (I’ll spare you from this, but here is an example of what it looked like.)

As the city attempted to slowly rebuild, along with UNO and me. I was able to graduate in the summer of 2006. I chose not to walk across a stage in December due to mental exhaustion of just everything in general.

Let’s talk about UNO, the school & athletic program.

UNO was crushed by the hurricane, not just property damage-wise. The majority of the students at the school were from New Orleans. Enrollment was crushed, as was the city. The Division I sports programs were in trouble, and the school was struggling to maintain its accreditation.

UNO and New Orleans struggled to come back to life. The city bounced back quicker than UNO, and the leadership of the school was struggling with a choice and made a decision to drop out of the Sun Belt conference, go independent, drop to Division II, and go to the Gulf States Conference in athletics by submitting a proposal to the LSU Board of Supervisors in 2011. However, in 2012, UNO President Peter J. Fos said the Privateers were staying in Division I, and they’d join the Southland Conference in 2012, effective the 2013–2014 season. UNO seemingly had its footing back in the landscape of things. Enrollment started to climb back towards pre-Katrina levels.

UNO’s basketball program found a little stride in the Southland, they won the conference in 2017 and made the NCAA First Four, losing by a point to Mount St. Mary’s. They followed up by making the CBI the next year and then the CIT the year after that.

2020 Happens

UNO is the non-traditional school where you can do in-person learning. They have the weird hours, the night classes, and you get the chance to go to school to finish your degree while you work full-time or whatever the circumstances. UNO also has the chance to live on campus, in traditional dorms and everything you’d see at a normal university. However, a failure to truly have in-person classes for traditional students in the years hurt enrollment.

Then August 29, 2021, happened. Hurricane Ida struck New Orleans and shook the city and UNO again. (Seriously, fuck August 29th. I am sorry if you have a birthday on that date, but I hate that damn day with a passion, as does really anyone from around the New Orleans area does too.)

UNO's enrollment hit record lows, close to its post-Katrina numbers. The administration started to try to come up with ideas to spark enrollment again. They tried to bring an FCS football team, women’s soccer, women’s golf, and a marching band to campus in 2022.

In November 2022, there was a vote for a student fee increase to add all of these things to the school. The vote wasn’t close. The University of New Orleans' bid to add all these things was shot down overwhelmingly by a margin of 1,468 (69%) against and 633 (31%) in favor of the referendum. I completely get the vote too by the students. Why pay more for something when you’d likely not be willing to commute back to campus for it?

Present Day UNO

The Privateers basketball team struggled through the season and finished 4-27 while being mired in a potential betting scandal. You can read more on that here below. Hopefully, UNO doesn’t have any long lasting issues with this scandal for their basketball program.

In the very same press conference addressing the gambling scandal, UNO announced Master P would be named president of Basketball Operations. UNO is Tryin 2 Do Something (yeah, I linked a Master P song and don’t worry there is more to come), and maybe this works, or maybe it doesn’t. UNO is trying something different in a really strange environment of college athletics as the old approach wasn’t working too well.

Schools seem to be taking on some sort of trend of adding a celebrity or star to their program. FIU added Pitbull to their stadium and became a partner in athletics. Does that help FIU? Is Master P UNO’s answer to Pitbull? 

Master P does have some sort of business acumen, and he does have some sort of varying successes. Percy Miller aka Master P at one time presided over a business empire that included his conglomerate No Limit Enterprises, No Limit Records, Bout It Inc., No Limit Clothing, No Limit Communications, No Limit Films, No Limit Sports Management, P. M. Properties, and Advantage Travel.

He also represented former NFL running back Ricky Williams when he was drafted by the New Orleans Saints; however, the deal was rated the worst contract for a player in NFL History by ESPN. I honestly remember this deal when it happened after Mike Ditka basically traded away an entire draft to draft Ricky Williams. I will not be posting the For Better or Worse ESPN Magazine graphic with Ditka and Ricky here.

Also, Miller manages the music, film, and television career of his son, Romeo Miller, (who played college basketball at USC under former Chicago Bulls and UNO Coach Tim Floyd. Oooo, we got a connection back to UNO here.

So, does Master P have any basketball background for this job?

Master P had a couple of stints with some NBA teams with the Charlotte Hornets and Toronto Raptors. Really just a few preseason and exhibition games. Can he really hoop? I don’t know, but we have to ask Vince Carter, as he said in the linked song “Step to Dis”. He played in the IBL for the San Diego Stingrays. Then in 2004, Miller played for the ABA's Las Vegas Rattlers and Long Beach Jam. He earned tryouts for the Denver Nuggets at training camp for the summer league in 2004 and the same opportunity for the Sacramento Kings in 2005. He took part in the 2008 McDonald's NBA All-Star Celebrity Game and scored 17 points.

Also, going towards the youth side of basketball, he did coach an AAU team called the P. Miller Ballers with players such as Brandon Jennings, Lance Stephenson, and DeMar DeRozan who went on to achieve success in the NBA.

Now, remember, UNO is not asking Master P to coach and do a weekly radio show at the same time; he’s just running Basketball operations.

Also, his son Mercy Miller plays for Kelvin Sampson at Houston. There is this thing as the transfer portal in College Basketball too. However, I doubt someone would transfer to UNO from Houston, to come play for the Privateers. Also, does Master P have an NIL plan for UNO basketball, could he fund that somehow or maybe raise funds another way using his existing connections?

For me personally, It’s a strange thing for me, growing up in New Orleans, buying Master P’s Ghetto D on the day it was released from Circuit City with these weird plastic CD covers. (Yeah, that sentence just aged me so much, and yes, I am as old as hell.) But let me tell you about these plastic CD cases. They advertised every single one of No Limit’s artists and put dates in the albums, which was quite a successful guerilla marketing campaign. Could he take some of that knowledge and apply it to UNO basketball? Maybe.

UNO is in a strange place as a University, and they need to improvise, adapt, and overcome many things to keep their Division I status and really stay viable as a school as a whole.

UNO will try to bounce back academically, enrollment-wise and maybe basketball-wise too. And can this program get much worse than 4-27? (I am sure you can say the school could drop to Division II, which is totally fair.) I personally like that UNO is taking some sort of big swing here because really there were not many other options. Also, can we really reliably predict the outcome of anything anymore?

This is truly a school that has navigated through incredibly rough seas (because they’re Privateeers wink wink) and is somehow still standing in Division I for now, or as Master P once sang, "Till We Dead and Gone," and maybe it’s time to Make ‘Em Say UNO.

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