Flash flood warnings and tornado watches ruled the air on Wednesday, March 21 via television and iPhone weather applications. The sky hung dark and low, ominously mourning with the city of New Orleans. NOLA and all her inhabitants had just been informed of a great tragedy to the thing we hold most dear – our beloved Saints.
Once paraded through the city as a hero, coach Sean Payton holds his head down in the shadow cast by the sky that fateful day, having just been suspended from coaching for a year as punishment for the bounty program back in 2009.
News of the findings of the NFL’s investigation into the Saints’ 2009 season leaked a few weeks earlier. Wednesday’s announcement brought both shock and grief to the hearts of the Who Dat Nation, who have also put up with some other upsetting sports outcomes in the past few months.
I consider myself a New Orleanian, despite my Kenner heritage. I went to high school in New Orleans. Being from this great city transcends meaningless zip code numbers and petty parish names – it’s a feeling, a state of mind and a sense of togetherness that comes with supporting the Aints of ’06 to the Fighting Tigers of LSU.
Unless your loyalties, for some reason, lie elsewhere, chances are all Saints fans are also LSU fans. That BCS game was an upset for all of Louisiana, just as Sean Payton’s suspension will turn out to be.
Louisiana is a place where football is all. You schedule your church around Saints games, and your parents probably met at a prep game in high school. Tailgating for an LSU game is the most anticipated part of any fall work or school week. It’s in our blood, and when taken from us, we don’t know what else to turn to.
What about the Hornets? Although they’ve been playing a little stronger, we frequently lose by 10 or less points. The last quarter is unbearable.
We rally behind football. It’s the glue that held the city together after Hurricane Katrina and the mess that followed.
What I’m trying to say here, though, is that it is not the time to spend your days wishing sweet and swift revenge on the NFL and Jeremy Shockey for supposedly ratting us out. I said the Saints were the glue that kept us together during rough times previously. Let’s let them be that glue again.
We, as a city, as a culture and as a people need to come together and support whatever happens. The sun will shine again, and the Saints will come marching back in.
The Super Bowl is in the Superdome this year. I know I said revenge isn’t what we’re looking for, but oh my, wouldn’t that be a sweet “I told ya so?”
Eric Knoepfler can be reached at
