updated 8:43 p.m. ET Sept. 9, 2005

Washington State University is teaming up with former Cougar football star Steve Gleason to help schoolchildren whose education was disrupted by Hurricane Katrina.

Gleason, a safety with the New Orleans Saints, and the WSU College of Education have launched a program to collect backpacks filled with school supplies for children.

The filled backpacks can be donated at Qwest Field in Seattle on Sept. 17, when the Cougars host Grambling State of Louisiana in a non-conference football game.

Washington State representatives will be collecting money for the “Good Samaritan Fund” at Grambling State, and officials of that university will use the donations to help several thousand evacuees in northern Louisiana.

Gleason graduated from WSU in 1999. He and his mother, Gail, a doctoral student and graduate assistant in WSU’s College of Education, proposed the “Backpacks for Hope” program to WSU officials.

The backpacks will be delivered to San Antonio, where the Saints have relocated, and will be delivered to children by Saints’ players and staff.

In other Katrina developments:

—Tennessee linebacker Jason Mitchell and his teammates started a donation drive Friday that will last through the weekend. The players are collecting diapers, soap, pillows, clothes and cash donations to help evacuees living in his hometown of Abbeville, La. His family’s charitable organization, the Mitchell Family Foundation, and the Vermillion Faith Community of Care, are assisting in the efforts.

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Fans at Saturday’s game against UAB donated $77,198, and the UT athletic department pledged $50,000 from concession sales to the Red Cross. Football and basketball players and coaches signed autographs at a Knoxville mall on Labor Day to help raise $6,340.

—The Jockey Club Foundation donated $100,000 to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts spearheaded by two industry organizations. A check for $75,000 went to the National Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association’s Hurricane Katrina Relief fund to help Thoroughbred industry personnel affected by the hurricane, and $25,000 went to the Churchill Downs Foundation to assist employees in New Orleans.

—Keeneland, with a $1 million commitment from Central Kentucky horseman Bill Casner and in partnership with the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and Thoroughbred Charities of America, will accept donations during the September Yearling Sale to help the hurricane victims.

TOBA chairman and WinStar Farm co-owner Casner and his wife Susan will match up to $1 million raised during the September Sale, which begins Monday.

—The LSU-North Texas football game, originally scheduled as the season opener for Sept. 3, has been rescheduled for Oct. 29 in Tiger Stadium because of Hurricane Katrina. The shift came about after two games involving North Texas, Louisiana-Lafayette and Louisiana-Monroe were moved to different dates. An Oct. 29 game between North Texas and Louisiana-Monroe will be played on Nov. 19. The Louisiana-Monroe and Louisiana-Lafayette game scheduled for Nov. 19 will be played on Nov. 26.

—Assessment of the TPC of Louisiana course will be made by agronomists for the PGA Tour, with an eye toward rebuilding the golf course in time for the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in April. About 40 percent of the course is still under water after Hurricane Katrina, which uprooted an estimated 1,000 trees on the par-72, 7,400-yard layout designed by Pete Dye.

The tournament could be held near New Orleans, at English Turn Golf & Country Club, which played host to the PGA Tour event from 1989 through 2004, or the David Toms-designed Carter Plantation in Springfield.

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