The following is a personal account.

Intro

December 22, 2005: It’d been a few months since Katrina hit New Orleans. As I drove into the city, I could already feel an all-permeating grimness. The damage greeted me as I made my entrance, and it was everywhere. The first responders had long since made their rounds and most of the muck was cleared out, but it was gloomy nonetheless. It looked like a war zone in places. I stopped by the Lower 9th Ward, right where the water breached the Industrial Canal - entire city blocks washed away, cars on top of houses, centuries of history, gone.

Later that night, I’d go to the French Quarter - which went through Katrina largely unscathed. Still, it was so quiet, the eeriness crept through. I got lost, stumbling throughout the Quarter. I didn’t have to worry about getting mugged - the place was deserted - but I could feel the ghosts of the city, both old and new, haunting my every step. What was to become of New Orleans, my natal hometown? Was this it? Would people ever come back and rebuild? Would things ever be the same again?

February 7, 2010: I’m at the Clevelander on Ocean Drive, just one face in a sea of black and gold. There’s just over three minutes left in the 4th Quarter. The atmosphere is tense, yet brimming with hope and optimism. Then, it happened - Tracy Porter intercepted a Manning pass and returned it for a touchdown, sealing the deal. The New Orleans Saints... now Super Bowl Champions. The sea of black and gold erupted in a surge of unadulterated joy and euphoria. Elated, I reached for and squeezed my female friend, swaying back and forth while joining a booming chorus of “Who Dat!”‘s.

Two gentlemen from Boston congratulated me, saying if anybody deserved this night, it was, without a doubt, New Orleans. It then dawned on me... I hadn’t seen my fellow New Orleaneans so elated since long before the storm hit. I thought back to that night in the Quarter four years ago, and I couldn’t help but feel it... as I’m sure everyone in or from New Orleans must have felt as well... I felt hope.

A Love-Hate Relationship

I’m not exactly what you would call a sports fanatic. I don’t play any - I was never an athletic person. I don’t spend copious amounts of time memorizing stats. Yes, I know what teams I like, their key players, their winning records for the season, and I'll casually follow them through the season.

Don’t get me wrong, I do see a point to, and derive some pleasure from sports - hell, some of my fondest college memories took place at the Orange Bowl. But I never understood people who were downright fanatical about it - sure, it was an enjoyable passtime, but it always perplexed me how seriously people took it. Especially when it lead to violence... it’s only a game, right?

However, following the Saints this season has shown me another side of sports... one that is most powerful. It’s shown me how a game can have the capacity to forge bonds and heal communities, to bring people from all walks of life together to share in a common experience, be it joy or pain. It can be a truly transformational force.

As anyone from New Orleans will tell you, growing up with the Saints is an exercise in frustration and disappointment. So that’s already a shared experience - besides the food and music, one thing all of New Orleans, a city with deep racial divisions, had in common was disdain for a franchise that was all but synonymous with failure. At one point, fans would go see the “Aint’s” with paper bags over their heads.

I remember being in New Orleans when the Saints won their first playoff game against St. Louis back in 2000 - the city was ecstatic they’d even made it that far. In a way, the team was a reflection of the city - while the rest of the country saw New Orleans as a nice place to party and eat some good food, I doubt they took the Big Easy very seriously (but then again, neither did we). Looking back, it only seems natural this would extend to the football team.

A City and its Team, inextricably linked by Fate

Then, in August 2005, it happened - Hurricane Katrina came knocking. By then, I was living in Miami, and Katrina had plowed through as a Category 1 - blowing over trees, flooding streets, and knocking out power for a good week. I remember getting power back and turning on CNN, to see Katrina become a massive, Category 4 monstrosity making a direct pass at New Orleans. I freaked, and was nervously following coverage of the storm all night.

Then, what I feared the most happened - the levees failed. My heart sank, and I wept for the city... I knew what had just happened. New Orleans was underwater. Worst of all, I felt helpless being so far away.

And then, the images came pouring in... people stranded on rooftops, masses of starving crowds waiting desperately for aid that was too slow to come, houses in the garden district set on fire, bodies floating around the filthy water... all heartbreaking enough to people WITHOUT such an emotional attachment to this place.

Most iconic of all, in my mind, was an interior shot of the Superdome, torn up inside and out, light pouring in through a big crack in the roof. It was like a visual elegy to what was once such a unique bastion of history, culture and good times in this country.

I was fortunate in that I didn’t lose any friends or family to the storm. But right then and there, I knew New Orleans had changed. Just as devastating as the physical damage was the blow to the city’s morale. The city’s overall zeitgeist can usually be summed up by its unofficial slogan, “laissez les bons temps rouler” (“let the good times roll”).

But after Katrina, this easygoing, laissez-faire attitude was displaced by a deep despair, cynicism and uncertainty. It didn’t help that the government all but abandoned the city, leaving New Orleans to re-build itself... never mind the fact that most of its citizens were now displaced.

Among those displaced were the New Orleans Saints themselves. They’d spend the 2005 season split between San Antonio and Baton Rouge. There were serious doubts as to whether they, like most of NOLA’s displaced residents, would even return to the city. Again, a perfect reflection of the city’s condition.

But then, things started to change a bit. In 2006, the Saints were back in New Orleans - but also just as importantly, that year saw the Saints’ acquisition of Sean Payton and Drew Brees - two names that need no explanation. At the same time, a very real, concerted effort to rebuild the city was underway, aided in large part by an influx of new residents.

The Saints made it to the NFC Championship that season, and sports pundits were endlessly invoking the pain of Katrina as a backdrop for what had been their best season thus far. Little did they know what was to happen later...

Who Dat Nation: A Phoenix rises from the Ashes

I went back to New Orleans for the holidays this year, the first time I’d returned in years. I sensed a different energy running through the place. Joining in a Second Line parade, I marched through the city echoing the crowd... “Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?!” The Saints were 13-0 at the time of the parade - enjoying a so-far perfect season, and the city was clearly riding on its coattails.

I paid a visit to the French Quarter right after Christmas and again for New Year’s... and I’d never seen it so bustling, so busy, so full of life and energy, even before Katrina. And of course, the Saints were on everyone’s mouths and minds. They were bringing the city closer and closer by the day.

As the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, I was watching fireworks go off over the Mississippi. I looked back at the crowd gathered at Jackson Square, and felt an overwhelmingly positive vibe sweep through me. I couldn’t help but smile. It was going to be a good year, I knew it.

Fast forward to February 7, the day of the Super Bowl. As I took my place at the Clevelander, waiting for kickoff, I pondered the position New Orleans was in. While still having a long way to go, it has made incredible progress in cleaning up and rebuilding after the storm. The Superdome, the site of such horror and inhumanity but a few years ago, had just played host to a full house of fans for the NFC Championship.

And now, the Saints were on the cusp of a Super Bowl victory, a thought that even a year ago would have been scoffed at outside of Louisiana. Who Dat Nation had completely taken over South Beach, turning it into a mini-Bourbon Street, away from home. The entire country was pulling for us - the Cinderella story, the underdogs, the little guys, the ones carrying the hopes and dreams of a entire city and people who’d just gone through unbearable suffering.

And sure enough, it was the perfect end to a perfect season. I looked around me, throughout the sea of black and gold. I’d never met these people before, but tonight, we were brothers. Many a times that night, I’d start a greet with a handshake, a pat on the back, and just two words “Who Dat” - by this point, no longer a question, but a declaration - and nothing more needed to be said.

The Big Easy, after going through so much, had finally gotten its spot in the sun. No longer the laughing stock or battered son of the country... we were on top. This was just the morale boost we need to forge ahead with our recovery. If our Saints could win the Super Bowl, then dammit, we can bounce back just as well!

Epilogue

I arrived home from the South Beach revelry to turn on the news, where I was once again greeted with powerful images - this time, much more positive ones. Commentators gushing over the highlights. Video footage of all the jubilation on Bourbon Street. A people who, if just for a night, could shake off the ghosts of the past and let loose in ecstasy.

I finally understood why people get so fanatical about the game - to share in such joy with the people you share a geographical bond with, especially after they’ve been through so much agony, is incredibly moving and transcendental. I shed tears again... but this time, in the joy of knowing that yes, not only would New Orleans bounce back from Katrina, but the best is yet to come.

Because, to paraphrase the late, great Louis Armstrong, I know what it means to miss New Orleans. And now, I can rest in the comfort and joy of knowing... what it’s like to have my city back.

WHO DAT!