Growing up in the Virgin Islands I was deprived of any sports team to call my own.
The closest pro teams were a mere 1,100 miles away in Miami.
With no teams to call my own I found solace in teams that included V.I. athletes. Thus, Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs became “my team” despite never setting foot in Texas. My interest in the 76ers, Mavs and Jazz ebbed and flowed as St. Croix native Raja Bell journeyed from team to team before receiving a long-term deal with Phoenix. Again, they became my teams without stepping foot in either city.
In baseball, my team won it all thanks to another Crucian. It was Midre Cummings who scored the tying run for the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game Six of the 2001 World Series.
But after the fateful season Cummings was cut from the team and so was my interest in the Diamondbacks.
That all changed when I became a Saints fan. What was different was there wasn’t one V.I. player whom I connected with. In fact, before I came to the U.S. I had little knowledge of the sport of football, living on St. Croix where basketball is king and more people associate football with another sport entirely – soccer.
What was also different was New Orleans had become my second home. I lived in this town both before and after Hurricane Katrina. And for the first time I learned about the power and symbols a sports team can represent, what it can mean to a city.
The Saints became an icon to this city. For just one day a week for 17 weeks in the year, residents were not burdened by living in a city devoid of the many things Americans have grown to take for granted or the grief that was left behind after one of the greatest natural disasters.
It didn’t matter that in the first eight days of the new year, New Orleans had accumulated as many homicides as dead soldiers fighting in the war in Iraq. It didn’t matter that half the city still hadn’t returned after the storm and that many of those that did return were living in conditions never before seen and unimaginable in America.
Nothing mattered. Only the Saints. Only the hope that they gave us, that through it all and everything that was wrong there lie something right.
After their NFC championship loss I felt amiss. Something was missing in my life. I realized the anticipation of the following game outweighed everything around me. Beginning the first day of the week, I would count down the days to the next game, thinking, “I just can’t wait till Sunday.”
There are no more Sundays to look forward to, not for at least several months. So anticipation turns to reflection. No longer do I look forward to any more games this season, but instead reflect on the season they gave us. And that’s not that bad. Not too bad at all.
