gofer articles

It is interesting to come across a New Orleans Saints license plate. You know that it is a real football fan in there in the car or truck, and you also realize he or she has a social conscience.

Or maybe it is just fashionable to care for the city that dare forgot, NOLA – nawlins, the crescent city, the big easy. Regardless of what you call it, you realize that, that’s what the New Orleans Saints license plate is referring to – that, and Hurricane Katrina.

The city was ruined by the failure of the federal levee system in the summer of 2005. Though most residents had cleared out by the time Katrina really hit, homes and businesses were flooded towards the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Over a thousand and a half people died, and many are still unaccounted for. And that is just for starters.

So it was nothing short of national catharsis when the Saints played their first game in the city again, even while reconstruction had been going on all around, with the Superdome itself having been just repaired. Numerous non-Louisianans took to sporting a New Orleans Saints license plate as a sign of solidarity with the home team as well as the people they represent.

For there’s absolutely nothing most People in America like better than to root for the underdog, and following the beating Katrina gave the city rooting for the Saints became some thing of a civic duty. And for one magical moment, comparable to when New York teams took to the field after 9/11, sports became about a lot more than just bragging rights. It became a holy ritual whereby a national community can cleanse itself, redeem itself, reconnect with itself.

No more was sports mere entertainment. No longer were spectators living vicariously through the overpaid and often bad-behaved players. This time, everyone was a New Orleanian.