By: Ben Walker
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ABOVE PHOTO: New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush is mobbed by fans after the Saints’ 31-17 win over the Indianapolis Colts in the NFL Super Bowl XLIV football game in Miami, Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010.
AP Photo/Matt Slocum
MIAMI — Marshall Faulk ran as far as he could from the dead-end Desire Projects. He bolted the New Orleans streets to play college ball in San Diego, then blossomed into an NFL star with the Indianapolis Colts.
Forced to take sides in this Super Bowl, it was easy. Faulk rooted for his roots.
From President Barack Obama to a Queen, from Mr. Big to Miss America, the retired All-Pro had lots of company. For one game, the Saints were America’s Team — champions, too, after a 31-17 win over the Colts on last Sunday night.
“We played for so much more than ourselves,” quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees said.
That’s for sure, Faulk said.
“This is very important to the city,” he said a few days ago. “For the last five, maybe 10 years, whether it’s Katrina, or the crime rate, the city’s always in a bad light. Now … you’re getting to see some of the great things that we have to offer.”
French Quarter hotels and restaurants filled up as Sunday’s game between the Colts and Saints approached, with fans streaming into Louisiana hoping to begin celebrating a week ahead of Mardi Gras.
Almost 4½ years after flooding from Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and nearly chased the Saints out of town for good, the club’s first Super Bowl win may well represent the city’s rebirth.
“You can’t put it into words,” receiver Marques Colston said after the win. “This city and region have been through so much.”
Even the Colts grasped the soulful connection between the
Saints and their town.
“There’s a reason America is pulling for New Orleans, and why wouldn’t they? They’ve been through a lot,”
Indianapolis safety Antoine Bethea said recently. “Sports tends to pull people together, so it’s commendable for New Orleans to be, as I guess you’d say, America’s Team right now.”
Who Dat! That’s the shortened version of the team’s rally cry: “Who dat, who dat, who dat say gonna beat dem Saints” Egged on by New Orleans players, Saints fans started that loud, familiar chant inside Sun Life Stadium an hour before kickoff. Adorned in black-and-gold beads, toting parasols in team colors and stirred by a brass band, they paraded outside. Clearly, they needed no prompting to start the party.
Long after the final whistle, Saints fans lingered inside, chanting and cheering. It was a win many of them thought they may never see. The franchise began playing in 1967, one year after the first Super Bowl, and had never reached the big game.
Perhaps the Saints’ biggest fan — literally — is the NBA’s Shaquille O’Neal, the 7-foot-plus Cleveland Cavaliers center who got his start at LSU.
“It’s good for the city, the economy and the organization. When I went to school, they had, like, a 99-year curse and hopefully that curse is over,” O’Neal said. “They haven’t won it at all. They haven’t always had bad seasons but they’ve always had, like, one play — a missed field goal or a fumble or somebody getting hurt — and now this is their chance.”
The Saints have managed only nine winning seasons in their 43-year history, with blooper tapes often replacing highlight reels. Try as they might, their fleur-de-lis logo often stood for losing.
But the emblem took on a different meaning this week in South Florida. It came to symbolize the Saints’ spiritual connection to New Orleans — and hope for a city that once had little.
The Superdome, which hosts the 2013 Super Bowl, was an even more tangible example of the town’s renaissance.
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