Audibly Offensive

I wish I could tell you what it means to me to be able to say that the New Orleans Saints are in the Super Bowl. Honestly I think I have thrown out four or five different drafts of this column just trying to explain the magnitude of what that statement entails for me personally and the state that I call home. It is contrary to everything that I have known and accepted, directly flying the face of all rational thought and logic for as long as I can remember. It’s like Sandra Bullock being nominated for an Oscar…for acting.

Football growing up in Louisiana meant that you born with purple and gold in your blood on Saturday and a grocery bag on your head for Sunday. We loved our Saints, went to all the games, supported them through the worst because they may have misfits and losers but hell, what to do you think New Orleans is made of? To the rest of the nation, more than the Lions and the Browns, the Saints have always been more known for their failures than anything else. It was impossible to talk about the Saints without the images of a stadium full of ‘Aints or a half of fame coach sporting dreadlocks at a press conference to announce that he’s traded away his team’s future.

This is the part of the column that I hate by the way because I have to talk about hurricane Katrina like everyone else when writing about the Saints and I can’t stand to be cliché but it’s almost mandatory. In August of 2005 a city that I loved as much as my own home an hour away was brought to the ground as water flooded the streets and people sought refuge in the Super Dome, a place that was more of a sanctuary on Sundays than the many churches in the city. The entire landscape of New Orleans was forever changed because of that one event, something that will be forever remembered by the city and it’s native sons. Some of the changes that happened during that entire ordeal were not all terrible, for all it’s splendor and decadence New Orleans was a city horribly marred by crime, poverty, and worst of all, indifference towards it’s ills. After Katrina the people of New Orleans realized that they could survive anything, forces of nature and ineffectual government alike, nothing could tear them down. A sense of pride that usually only came from its greatest day of excess, Mardi Gras, was now they new norm. We had to look out for each other, we had to reach out and help, to stop our city from becoming what it was before because God knows, no one else was going to help us. In a sense, New Orleans became self aware and we could not have been prouder.

When Monday Night Football returned to the Super Dome on September 24, 2006, New Orleans was ready. This was a brand new chapter not just for a team marred in mediocrity, but for a city with it’s heart on it’s sleeve.  I never thought I would be prouder of my home town team than I was on that night, but when I saw Garrett Hartley’s kick fly through the uprights in the NFC championship game, I was grinning from ear to ear and even got a little bit of dust stuck in my eye.

On August 29^th 2005, I had to furiously call my family members to make sure that everyone was still standing while watching the absolute destruction of New Orleans on television.  I don’t think I have ever dialed and called people so quickly and in such a panic. It was one of the single most horrible experiences of my entire life. On January 24th 2010, I had to furiously call my family members to make sure that everyone was still standing after watching the New Orleans Saints earn their spot in the Super Bowl.  I don’t think I have ever dialed and called people so quickly and in such excitement. It was one of the single most amazing experiences of my entire life.

GEAUX SAINTS.

-Chris Lemke