COLETTE MURRAY

COLETTE BUILDS A HOUSE TO HELP
THE HOMELESS IN NEW ORLEANS
Colette Murray, Scots-born head women’s golf coach at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, has been building a house this summer in the United States … for charity.
Colette is a member of the National Golf Coaches Association, who put together a Team Build project to help meet the overwhelming demand for new houses in the Gulf Coast region of New Orleans, devastated by Hurricane Katrina last year.
Miss Murray was one of 30 college golf coaches who volunteered to give up part of their summer vacation to build a house for Habitat for Humanity.
“I was down at New Orleans for over a week with the National Golf Coaches Association. We had raised the money - $65,000 – within our universities, it cost to make the house from start to finish,” said Colette.
“It was a rewarding experience and it was extremely hard work. But it was so much fun that I hope to do something like that every year.
“After one hard day’s work on the ‘Upper Ninth’ site, we took a trip down to the ‘Lower Ninth.’ Most of the destruction was here. It was the most devastating thing I have ever seen. It was simply soul-destroying to see what had happened to these people’s homes and their lives. It just broke my heart.”
Colette also donated $1,000 to Team Build on behalf of the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga women’s golf programme which will restart team participation on the American women’s college circuit in the autumn of 2007.
Miss Murray, a successful player who stayed on in Alabama to become an even more successful assistant women’s golf coach with Jacksonville State University, was appointed by UTC in January to build a women’s golf team from scratch.
She needs to have a certain amount of players signed up by November even though it will be another nine months before they go to the States.
If you are a girl with a low handicap and a good golfing CV, you can make contact with Colette direct if you are interested. Her E-mail address is:
Colette-Murray@utc.edu