Home Team (16 page)

We were building a fan base, retail.

Slowly, this direct player-fan contact became a Saints ritual. Players would toss their wrist pads into the crowd. I got into the habit of tossing my visor. People just love to collect this stuff, although I’d suggest giving that visor a thorough scrubbing before it goes on anyone else’s head. It sounds almost trivial, but truly it was the least we could do after the many ways local people were supporting us.

Naturally, there was more of this with the people in the low-row seats. They were closer. They were easier to reach. But I noticed myself scanning the second-row balcony, which seemed like a mile away. A smile, an acknowledgment, even a nod—I knew how much the personal contact meant.

People got a kick out of Mr. Benson’s second-line dance with a jazz-band parasol whenever there was something to celebrate. And now that we were back in the business of winning, we were all seeing more of that. After the home games, when our players and coaches were showered and dressed, they would go to a tented area to unwind for an hour with family and friends. Then they would head off to their cars, where they would inevitably be met in the garage by happy fans. That would never happen in security-conscious New York or Washington. In most NFL cities after 9/11, you’d be lucky to catch a glimpse of a player’s Mercedes zooming out of the team garage. But it was just taken for granted and enjoyed here.

I’m not saying the fans didn’t like the winning. Of course they did. I’m saying there was something as important as success on the field: We cared and we were there.

And then there was the matter of crowd noise.

When you play or coach in the NFL, whether you’re at home or on the road, there’s a white noise from the stands that you just become used to. Walking out of the tunnel and hearing the sound of the crowd—you get used to that. Not right away, but eventually. And that white noise, the cheering or the booing—it’s like it’s all being filtered through big sheets of cotton. It’s there, but it gets dulled out. You become accustomed to it, and it’s not as moving as it was your first year in the league. You’re a professional. It’s just the noise.

But it was different in New Orleans. It wasn’t a white noise. It was . . . clear. And it started with the region itself, and it wasn’t just the sound inside the Dome. The clarity was all-pervasive, on and off the field. It was the lack of artifice in this place, the actual human touch, going all the way down to where the players and coaches lived. In this city, there was far less insulation between the city and the team. The logistics simply didn’t allow any insulation. Insulation is not what New Orleans is about.

There are only so many neighborhoods. Uptown, Mid-City, Marigny, the Garden District, Metairie, the West Bank, the Northshore. All of them are areas where people in the organization live, the coaches and the players. New Orleans is not a place where everyone is on a freeway to the suburbs at rush hour. And so the fan base is more hands-on here. You see each other in the Quarter on weekends, or coming and going from restaurants or the mall. There’s just more daily interaction, in-season and off-, with the fans of the New Orleans Saints. Not a day goes by as I drive across the causeway that some other driver doesn’t give me a thumbs-up, a horn toot or a nod. This is not a city where a player or a coach can easily hide.

And on a personal level, the people here have been extremely welcoming to us. Despite the early misgivings, I am pleased to say, the Payton family has built a very happy life here. We have terrific neighbors. We’ve made real friends. We’ve certainly been enjoying restaurants, the ones with the white linen table-cloths and the little neighborhood joints. Like many people here, we talk a lot about food.

Beth stays busy like any mom with two kids and a charming but challenging husband. Meghan and Connor have thrived in the neighborhood parochial school. Meghan, who is heading off to high school, just made the cheerleading squad, even after she broke her arm performing a standing backspring. Connor may be getting tired of hearing, “You look like your dad.” But he loves playing soccer at Pelican Park, and he still enjoys our pickup football matches on the Superdome turf after home games. That postgame ritual now includes the children of other Saints players and coaches. Sorry if we’re delaying the confetti cleanup by the Dome maintenance crew.

In our time here, we’ve come to learn and to love many of the local traditions and quirks. We’ve picked up more than a few of them. You should see me peel a crawfish now. No one sneers, “Midwesterner!” anymore. Meghan and Connor love beignets. The first time they tried crawfish at one of our backyard barbecues, Beth peeled all the little mudbugs and neatly arranged them on a tray like shrimp cocktail. I believe that was a first for the Northshore. I’m now a major oyster fan. Every Friday during the season—home or away games—the Saints order a huge delivery of char-grilled oysters from Drago’s for the team. This works out fine since football and oysters are both at their peak in the R-months. It’s always fun seeing players and coaches from all over the country coming here and opening their eyes—and their mouths—to what’s so special about this part of the world. I’ve yet to meet the player who doesn’t like French bread dunked in Drago’s afterbutter. And I’m comfortable enough now that I don’t have to pretend I love the things I don’t. Those sticky hot sauce handshakes at the crawfish boil—
ew!
And king cake, which still reminds me of a cinnamon roll with a plastic baby inside!

As newcomers to New Orleans, we marvel at all the exotic accents and rules-be-damned language use. It won’t surprise me when Connor starts the R’s at the end of all his words. But I hope I never hear Meghan say, “I just made fourteen.” Maybe we’ll celebrate at Ruth’s Chris with a FEE-lay!

You gotta love it!

The only real sour note in our time here has been the Chinese drywall. We didn’t know it at the time, but our new house was constructed with that contaminated building material. We aren’t alone in this. Thousands of others have been affected. After Katrina, there was a shortage of American-made drywall. Much of the imported stuff went into homes that were being built or renovated in the Gulf Coast region.

We’ve learned since then that over time—and especially in a humid climate—this drywall emits certain gases that can have disturbing effects. In our case, it’s meant our air conditioners kept failing, our microwave kept going nuts, our house alarm didn’t function right, our computer hard drives kept crashing—and Beth’s silver jewelry turned black. Thank God, she didn’t keep that pricey necklace I tried to give her on Valentine’s Day!

Many inspections later, we had to move out of the house. After a top-to-bottom renovation, we’ve just recently moved back in, and we’ve joined a class-action suit with other families who’ve been forced from their homes.

It’s a post-Katrina irony, I guess. We arrived here after the storm—and we were still displaced. The experience has definitely made me more sympathetic.

Yes, good and bad, we’re all in it together. New Orleans is the most intimate city I know. That smaller scale affects everything. People know the players, these fifty-three ambassadors, and the coaches and team staff. I’ve been hearing this for four years now: “Gosh, Coach, I met Scott Shanle last week, and he was so nice to my dad and mom.” And “We had a chance to visit with Pierre Thomas.” Every one of these guys. Jahri Evans and Jon Stinchcomb, Will Smith and Hollis Thomas and Mark Simoneau and Roman Harper.

I guess you could say the Saints are a monopoly here. For much of the team’s history, the Saints have been the big-time game in town.

Baseball? There is no major-league baseball, although the AAA New Orleans Zephyrs do play on Airline Drive literally in the shadow of the Saints facility. For most of the time, there hasn’t been a strong, consistent basketball presence. The Jazz came and went. So did the old New Orleans Buccaneers in the ABA. The Hornets are here now. But that’s relatively new. There’s no ice hockey. LSU athletics are significant, but that’s in Baton Rouge. They have a good alumni network, but that’s not something everyone is into. Really, there’s one team that is the home team, and that’s the New Orleans Saints.

And there was Katrina, which created such horrific challenges for the team and for the city—but also created one surprising opportunity.

Support for the New Orleans Saints never evaporated with the local population. Something quite remarkable happened instead: It broadened. It spread. The circle grew wider. You could see the proof in the team’s marketing reports. People were buying tickets from farther-flung zip codes. People were making longer and longer drives to see the games. And the TV ratings reflected this too.

Part of this, I’m convinced, was a natural outgrowth of Katrina. All those Saints fans had been dispersed from New Orleans. The evacuees had to travel light. But they didn’t leave their football loyalty behind. They took it with them and helped it spread—through Texas, North Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle. And some of this was obviously infectious to the people there. It’s hard to watch a Saints game with a bunch of Saints fans and not feel part of something real.

The loyal refugees and their converts needed something to cheer about.

So the fan base today is different from the fan base before the levees broke. It stretches across the Gulf South region. We did what we could to build on that. Those first two preseason games—in Shreveport and Jackson—were part of that effort. North Louisiana and Central Mississippi were Saints Country now. This was happening, and it continued to grow.

All of a sudden, the Who Dat Nation was everywhere.

THIS WAS NOT A
team of takers. This was a team that understood. We were getting phenomenal support from the people of a troubled community. We’d damn well better be giving support back.

When I got to New Orleans and saw firsthand how Katrina had ravaged the city and its residents, I knew I had to do something to help these brave people rebuild their homes and their lives. Energizing a football team, winning games—that was important. But I also imagined efforts that were more direct. These people had supported the Saints for decades. They were supporting us still. Wasn’t it our turn now? We had to get directly into this fight. I vowed to myself from the beginning that this would be more than a media stunt to sell extra tickets or a quest for flattering PR. The proof would be in our actions. Judge us the same way our players are judged on the field: Not by stated intentions. Not by background or pedigree. Only by what our actions demonstrate. I feel genuine pride at the way the whole Saints organization has helped our community through hundreds of projects large and small.

Deuce McAllister hosted a Cocktails for Katrina fund-raiser even before we were back in the Dome. Reggie Bush installed new turf at Tad Gormley Stadium in City Park, where generations of New Orleans high school teams had played and where the Beatles had once performed. Drew Brees just about adopted the Lusher Charter School. The Brees Dream Foundation teamed up with my charitable group to cover athletic-department operating expenses at George Washington Carver High School in the Upper Ninth Ward.

I’m especially proud of Payton’s Play It Forward Foundation. From the start, our focus was on improving the lives of children and families across the Gulf Coast region. Much of the credit goes to Beth and to our executive director, Karen Hegner—and to all the thousands of generous people who keep buying tickets to our fund-raisers and clicking on the DONATE button at
www.paytonsplayitforward.com
. We’ve partnered with a couple dozen inspiring groups, including Brad Pitt’s Make It Right NOLA Foundation and Dr. Phil McGraw’s Dr. Phil Foundation and Blaine Kern’s Greater New Orleans First Responders Fund.

Those efforts have made a real difference in real people’s lives. But it’s the person-to-person things that have meant the most to us.

Like our Saturday tradition before every home game.

Working with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and similar groups, we began inviting young patients with serious illnesses to our final pregame walk-throughs on Airline Drive. This has become enormously popular and brings great joy to these kids. The requests pour in. Nick Karl, the Saints’ community-affairs director, has the impossible task of combing through the hundreds of heart-wrenching letters and choosing a special case or two each week.

This isn’t a formal program. It doesn’t have a budget or any official name. It’s just something we started doing—and never stopped. We don’t invite the media. It’s just a quiet thing we do on Saturdays. The kids and their families seem to appreciate it. It’s brought a huge emotional boost to us.

After a behind-the-scenes tour of the training facility, the children and their parents are invited out onto the practice field. When I get a break, I go over and say hello.

“I have a son your age,” I might say. Or “My daughter looks a lot like you.” I just try to make a personal connection.

As practice is winding down, the players gather in a giant huddle around the child, applauding and welcoming the child to their practice. That scene is amazing to see, all these giant athletes surrounding a tiny child. By this point the parents are usually crying. Then we ask the kid to break the huddle for the team.

If that doesn’t move you, nothing will. It’s a special experience for all of us.

Then we’ll invite that week’s child to join us in the Superdome for the game, watch from the sideline, stand with us in victory or defeat and high-five the players in the tunnel as they run off the field.

“Come with me,” I told one boy whose story had especially touched us. I brought him into the locker room and gave him that day’s game ball. Half the players were teary by the time they got to the showers.

Some of these efforts were coordinated by the Saints organization. But many, the players and coaches did on their own. It wasn’t that any single effort can solve the problems of a region. It was that we’ve been trying to do our part. It created an infectious mind-set that said: “We are lucky. We are grateful. We want to give back.”