Saints' victory resurrects New Orleans

By Ryan Gupta     2/11/10 6:00pm

New Orleans is a special place. It's hard for a city to maintain a unique culture when technology makes it effortless for Americans across the country to conform to a single identity. But New Orleans always had its own spirit, and those of us who call it home have always had pride in this fact. As you may remember, a small storm by the name of Katrina threatened to wash all that away four years ago - and as you may know, we did not take kindly to it.

But I'm not really in the business of talking about how low we fell as a city - the administrative breakdowns, the infrastructural failures of our levees and the logistical failures of the post-Katrina response have been documented by hundreds of qualified experts.

As a resident of New Orleans, however, I certainly do not need a great deal of wisdom to see the magic that revived our flooded and left-for-dead remnants. New Orleans was slowly, surely becoming its old self again. A strong tourist market flooded money into our economy, tax cuts were attracting more corporations and an influx of enthusiastic youth had rid the city of many of its post-Katrina woes. New Orleans was slowly on its way to rebirth, but still, a little more magic was needed.

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While economic success is nothing to scoff at, it is still not a point around which people can gather and rally. It was this sort of communal entity that New Orleans needed to truly resurrect its former spirit and soul. And last Sunday, the rally point came as if from divinity, in the form of the New Orleans Saints.

Think what you wish about sports and about football, but in New Orleans, there is no doubt that the Saints helped carry us back from our ride to oblivion. There is no doubt that New Orleans' rebirth came to a fruitful conclusion when the Saints overcame the odds and defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-17.

That Super Bowl championship meant so much more to New Orleans residents than just another football victory. It is a great feeling when your team wins a championship, as many spoiled Northeastern sports fans can attest to. However, the Saints' Super Bowl win was as much for the team as it was for the city. When we look at the Saints, we see New Orleans; through the trial of Katrina and the tattering of the Superdome, our football team and our city have become synonymous.

Just as the Saints franchise struggled through 43 years of adversity and defeat before coming out the other end, the city had battled four years of turmoil and destitution before emerging, soul intact. Just as quarterback Drew Brees had been discarded by his former team after a possibly career-ending injury, New Orleans had been left for dead as a city with little chance of recovery. Just as Saints' owner Tom Benson decided not to move the team after Katrina, despite lucrative offers from other cities, New Orleans and its residents became rooted in determination to rebuild rather than to flee.

All of these analogies and parallels boil down to one simple fact: The Saints have become more than a football team for us. They are more than a distraction or a form of entertainment. The Saints are the essence of our city in many ways: In them, we see ourselves.

This is why Saints fans cried instead of laughed after Sunday's Super Bowl; this is why speechlessness replaced shouting in celebration; this is why the Saints mean the world to me. The Saints' fleur-de-lis logo and the "Who Dat" chant no longer symbolize just a team - they represent our home.

Ryan Gupta is a Baker College freshman.

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