Muhammad Abu-Rmaileh
I bleed black and gold for my New Orleans Saints. I lived and died for my Who Dats. My fantasy team would aim for as many Saints players I could get my hands on(not always the best strategy, but I stand by it). I stayed up late on school nights watching the games, post-interviews, highlights, etc. On many occasions, I have considered naming my first born son Drew in honor of the Great One. When they won the Superbowl in 2010, I was obviously elated, but I didn't realize how much it uplifted the city. The Superbowl Parade drew over 800,000 people. To put that in perspective about 300,000 people live in the city of New Orleans, and if you count the greater New Orleans area, the population comes out to just about 1.1 million. Somewhere between 800,000-1,00,000 come to Mardi Gras every year. People came from all over to celebrate their Saints. I guess that's why I decided to open with sports in this week's blog. For everyone, sports is a distraction, a temporary relief from reality. You put down everything and forget, and you watch.
What makes this story more compelling was that people didn't know if the Saints would ever play again in New Orleans. The fan base was dwindling after numerous losing seasons. The coaches and quarterbacks weren't exciting, and the Superdome was in ruins after the damage from Katrina. Steve Benson, the owner, wanted to relocate to San Antonio due to vested business interest and a large fan base. Fans were disgusted and many saw it as the wealthy owners taking advantage of New Orleans' misfortunes to make a quick buck. Eventually the Saints stayed, and they came back to the Superdome on September 26, 2006 and opened with this play:
The Saints came back, and so did New Orleans. The interesting thing was that it wasn't the people that lived there that gave up, it was everyone else in America. Polls across the nation and news networks said that people should leave New Orleans instead of rebuilding. How bad do those comments look now?
Telling the people to leave New Orleans was like telling a falcon to swim, it can't. Louisiana has the highest percentage of people remaining in the same state they were born in (79%). Their money, family, friends, and identity were tied to their homes. Yet the rest of the country chose to ignore these ties and instead saw the amount of work that they didn't want to do. They saw New Orleans' poverty and sickness and were horrified. To many people at home, they saw the pictures on TV and couldn't believe what they saw, it wasn't America. But it was. It was America's failures staring it back in the face. Institutionalized racism and poverty have been apart of America, the only difference was that cameras were there to capture it. So what do people do when they something looks bad? They throw it out. Many were encouraged to leave and not return, but no one listened. And that's what the Saints came to embody. In light of more opportune places, the Saints came home, and then proceeded to win and win big. In 2006, the Saints won the NFC South and went to the NFC Championship game. They gradually progressed until they won the championship in 2010. Feel good is befitting of this moment. However, it was more than that. It was New Orleans telling America it didn't care what it thought, but that it was here to stay. After all, everyone needed their team to root for, and the Saints were that underdog. They were the team that made you forget all of your troubles, but still remember how you can come back from adversity.
Telling the people to leave New Orleans was like telling a falcon to swim, it can't. Louisiana has the highest percentage of people remaining in the same state they were born in (79%). Their money, family, friends, and identity were tied to their homes. Yet the rest of the country chose to ignore these ties and instead saw the amount of work that they didn't want to do. They saw New Orleans' poverty and sickness and were horrified. To many people at home, they saw the pictures on TV and couldn't believe what they saw, it wasn't America. But it was. It was America's failures staring it back in the face. Institutionalized racism and poverty have been apart of America, the only difference was that cameras were there to capture it. So what do people do when they something looks bad? They throw it out. Many were encouraged to leave and not return, but no one listened. And that's what the Saints came to embody. In light of more opportune places, the Saints came home, and then proceeded to win and win big. In 2006, the Saints won the NFC South and went to the NFC Championship game. They gradually progressed until they won the championship in 2010. Feel good is befitting of this moment. However, it was more than that. It was New Orleans telling America it didn't care what it thought, but that it was here to stay. After all, everyone needed their team to root for, and the Saints were that underdog. They were the team that made you forget all of your troubles, but still remember how you can come back from adversity.
The parade through downtown New Orleans was catharsis in it's truest form. Funny enough, the Saints used old Mardi Gras floats in their victory parades. In a way, it was a marriage of the old traditions of New Orleans coupled with the growing revivalism of the city, one of the many things that has arose from post-Katrina New Orleans. As the bright and ornate floats drove down Canal Street, the crowd dance and hollered for their championship team. This was something the city longed for. After all, they had lived through the American nightmare, it was time they enjoyed the American Dream.