“Who Dat in the Super Bowl,” Ellis Henican Column, amNew York, February 5, 2010
You think it’s tough being a Mets fan?
Try rooting for a team where you have to wear a paper bag over your head. Things once got so desperate for us Saints fans, anonymous suffocation seemed like an reasonable alternative.
I grew up in New Orleans. I have learned triumphs delayed
are the sweetest triumphs, even if the delay part isn’t much fun.
In the very first game of the very first season of the expansion
New Orleans Saints, Sept. 19, 1967, wide receiver John Gilliam returned the opening kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown.
Guys my dad’s age thought, “Wow, this is easy!” And 43 years
later, they have something else to cheer about.
All Saints fans secretly fear we must be dreaming. The Saints
in the Super Bowl? Come on!
Beloved New Orleans sportscaster Buddy Diliberto vowed he’d wear a dress and dance in the street if the Saints made the Super Bowl. Buddy’s gone now to the great Superdome in the Sky, but the other day a throng of New Orleans men, led by former Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert, dolled up in dresses and heels and marched to the French Quarter from the Dome.
What’s so amazing isn’t just that the NFL’s perennial losers
are conference champions now.
Not even that they have a decent underdog’s shot in the Super Bow. Turnarounds happen in sports all the time.
Here’s what’s really amazing: The miracle recovery of the Saints truly has inspired — and been inspired by — a post-Katrina miracle recovery of New Orleans. The two are rising together.
“This stadium used to have holes in it and used to be wet,”
coach Sean Payton said after the Saints’ NFC victory over the Vikings.
“It’s not wet anymore. This is for the city of New Orleans.”
So who else are you gonna be for on Sunday? The powerhouse
Indianapolis Colts?
Be for the team that needs you, America’s team of miracle
recovery. The Aints ain’t the Aints any more.