As Super Bowl Sunday approaches, we're seeing more and more of the human angle stories about players, fans, and the cities the two contenders come from. Stories about several Haitians playing in the game, about Katrina and the Saints, about Peyton Manning's connections with New Orleans, about Drew Brees's connections with Indiana (he played at Purdue). And many, many stories about the fans.
The best one was published in the New Orleans Times Picayune on February 5. Entitled "Who Dats in Heaven," it is a compilation of remembrances of fans whose loved ones once cheered for the Saints and have not lived to see this glorious day. Since the Saints have been losers for most of their 43 years, there are many, many diehard fans who never got to see the promised land.
Sadly, the story as posted on the internet cuts off the first 5 paragraphs of text. I don't know if this is a ploy to get people to buy the paper or plain incompetence, but it makes the story very difficult to understand online. (NOLA.com, the Picayune's internet presence, has always been poorly managed. Its search engine is horrible. It makes numerous editorial errors like this one, usually does not publish associated photos, and leaves some stories out altogether. Which is why I detest the site, but that's another tale altogether.)
It was hard for me to read the whole article without being deeply moved. I too know Saints fans that never knew what it felt like to watch their team win. In New Orleans, saying the Saints were going to the Super Bowl was always an inside joke -- something like saying "when hell freezes over." As in, "I'll step through the door of your house again the day the Saints go to the Super Bowl."
Now that the Saints are really going, the city is going through a lot of soul searching. Mostly about the meaning of hope, faith, and what happens when you achieve something that was previously thought to be impossible. As Mark Lorando said in an article on the front page of Tuesday's Times Picayune: "Hurricane Katrina? We got that under control. The Saints in the Super Bowl? SOMEBODY CALL A PARAMEDIC!!!"
Below are a few gems from the Who Dat article.
"If you want to know what this win means to New Orleans," wrote someone going by the name Nolascratch on Twitter, "I just visited a cemetery, and more than one grave had today's newspaper on it."
How quirky a town is New Orleans? Quirkly enough that a fan would consider a visit to the cemetery as the first stop after his team wins a trip to the Super Bowl.
"I promised him if they ever went to the big game I would drink a beer with him," wrote jude7654 of her late godfather. "Well, after 40 plus years I will celebrate at St. Louis No. 3 Cemetery. The only problem is he drank Schlitz beer ... anyone know where I could find one?"
Since the online editors mangled the story so badly, I will bend copyright laws and supply the first two paragraphs myself. With them, the online story makes sense.
Who Dats In Heaven
Readers Reflect on Saints Fans Who've Gone to that Big Dome in the Sky
by Doug MacCash
It's a hint of sadness in an otherwise giddy New Orleans Saints season. Lots of longtime fans didn't live long enough to see the boys in black and gold make it to their first Super Bowl.
Last week, we asked our online readers to tell us who among their loved ones they most wished were still here to share the Saints' biggest win ever. The long list of comments was like an electronic second-line parade -- you just can't help but smile through the tears.
The tears part I perfectly understand. Read it yourself, and see if you can't understand it too.