ERIC THIELE ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR
When disasters strike, many people turn toward something in their region or city to hold on to as a way to deal with the disaster. This could be things such as a religion, a support group, family and many other things.
Some examples that come to mind are Virginia Tech clinging to their football team after the shooting in 2007.
Another example is the community of Aplington-Parkersburg looking toward Ed Thomas and their high school football team after the tornado in 2008.
After being in New Orleans for a service trip during Winter Break, I could see that the New Orleans Saints are one of the most important aspects of the recovery process from Hurricane Katrina.
It seemed like everywhere our service trip group went, we would see signs of the influence of the Saints. This could be in the form of jerseys, hats, songs or the phrase that many of us know so well: “Who Dat!”
This was especially evident in the Boys & Girls Club-NFL Youth Education Town (YET) that is located less than two miles from the Superdome, home of the Saints.
At the Boys & Girls Club, the Saints and the NFL have played a big part in the way the building has been able to be restored.
In one room, designated the Saints room, there are pillows, beanbag chairs and stickers with the Saints logo on them. There are also Fatheads, life-sized stickers, of Saints helmets and Drew Brees on the walls. This goes along with some HDTVs and Nintendo Wii.
While talking to the program director, we found out that Saints players come to the Boys & Girls club from time to time to hang out and play with the kids, take them out to eat at nice restaurants and provide gift certificates or shopping sprees to stores throughout New Orleans.
Since there has been so much support for the Boys & Girls Club by the Saints and the NFL, kids in the neighborhood are provided a place and an outlet to escape some of the post-Katrina problems such as a lack of adequate affordable housing and gang problems.
The program director said that if it wasn’t for the Boys & Girls Club being such a presence in that neighborhood, the kids who go there would be in serious trouble.
While there are great things about the recovery, there are also some not so great things about what the government is doing.
For example, there is a gymnasium that was used by the Boys & Girls Club prior to Katrina, but since then the building has not been touched, nearly five years later.
There are still holes in the roof of the building and debris on the floor.
We were told that Drew Brees attempted to buy this building, along with several other people, to try to either restore the building or to build a new one and the government said no.
To go along with this building, there are houses, businesses, and neighborhoods in the city that still need to be restored.
Our group was told that just because you see parades for the Super Bowl victory or for Mardi Gras, this doesn’t mean the city is back. In fact, the city is far from being back.
Even though the city is still not completely restored, there is hope.
New Orleans is unlike any other NFL city because the Saints are their identity. What this means is that as the Saints have come back and been successful, and so has the city, slowly but surely.
When the NFL is in full swing, Saints’ fans don’t just tune in as fans of their favorite team, they tune in because the Saints are a symbol of the recovery of New Orleans. The Saints provide an opportunity for people of New Orleans to help return their lives to “normal.”