The New Orleans Saints

By Pamela Shensky

The catch phrases were everywhere, dangling from ceilings, clinging to windows, stamped on T-shirts, hogging headlines, curious things like - Who Dat, Geaux Saints, Labreesiana, words that Merriam Webster never could have imagined, but this anomalous assemblage of words was our communication and it has now become our anthem - the anthem of the Who Dat Nation. While the vernacular is certainly "interesting", it is what lies beneath that is important; the resuscitated heart of a people.

It is a sense of pride that makes a grown man cry. This pride, this adulation, has spilled over cultural, ethnic, generational, religious, and educational boundaries, these are our Saints and they played their hearts out, for us. This is a somewhat feeble affirmation made by all teams, "We did it for the fans", maybe, but this team really means it. This sincerity, this commitment to us, was never more evident than when Queen Latifa opened Super Bowl XLIV with her rendition of America and Drew Brees fought back tears, and again, at the end, when he gave up that emotional battle, kissing his sweet baby boy and releasing, while Louisiana (and the nation) watched. We knew it then; it was our team, our New Orleans Saints on a national stage, helping to wipe away some of the graphic memories of a broken and brittle New Orleans and replace it with triumph and optimism.

The symbolism, the emotion, and the victory is so far-reaching that it is difficult to display it on this two dimensional page. Tell me, how do you describe the feelings of a 70 year old man who has never, in 43 years, missed a Saint's game, finally watching them play in the Super Bowl, or a little boy on Tulane's cancer wing that goes through treatment clutching a football from Drew Brees, or every family in Louisiana saying "I wish my _______ would have been here to see this" (for me the blank would hold the letters "Dad"), or Sgt. Patrick Williamson's mother who knew his memory was part of the machine that won that game. How do words describe that? It is somewhat metaphysical; it is a feeling that will forever be woven into the fabric of our culture. It will be there at the dinner table right next to the Tabasco and Tony's. It will be on our Christmas cards and our bumper stickers, it will fly from our flagpoles and hang from our earlobes, it will be our renewed love affair with this city; the New Orleans Saints have just given the state of Louisiana a huge and healing swig of Senator Dudley J. Leblanc's Hadacol!

The Saints inspire us, they give us hope. We watched their humble and dubious beginnings at the aged Tulane Stadium starting with their 27 - 13 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on September 17, 1967, we watched them falter, struggle, lose, we made fun of them during the "Bag Head" days, we renamed them the Aint's, and some of us wanted to run them out of town on a rail, and then, we watched them rise and it is this ascent that defies all probability that makes us understand that with faith,hard work, and perseverance, good things do happen. This is why we love our Saints, they have given us much more than a national title, they have given us a place to begin, and they have affirmed that you can pick yourself up and move forward.

I will end this piece with two images, one verbal and the other visual. For me, these two images encapsulate who the New Orleans Saints are. It is a given that they are a highly skilled football team with some of the greatest talent Louisiana has ever seen and that the coaching is impeccable (and sometimes outrageously dicey), but great football games will come and go, what will remain is the character, the emotion that results from those ephemeral games. This team has left behind a trail of character big enough to wrap its arms around the Crescent City and strong enough to withstand any hurricane brewing in the Gulf. For me, this journey we took with this team can be characterized by the following two things; the fearless (and caring) words Sean Payton spoke to Garrett Hartley before he kicked the winning field goal that propelled the Saints into the Super Bowl, "You deserve to be here." And secondly, the real tears Drew Brees cried while he held up his one year old son in victory.

"Be where you're supposed to be and I'll find you." Drew Brees