I’m as old as the Saints. Literally. The team took the field in 1967, the same year as my birth. Growing up in southwest Louisiana (a two-hour drive from New Orleans), the Saints were MY team. They were team that I rooted for. The team my family rooted for. The team that everyone I knew rooted for. Every Sunday afternoon in the fall, my family and I watched the Saints games. They were hard, sometimes very hard, to watch. But Sunday after Sunday, we gathered around the television at my parents, grandparents or some other relative’s home to watch the Saints play ... and mostly lose.

Despite the losses, they were our team and I couldn’t have been prouder to call myself a Saints fan. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood occurred after watching the Saints game with my

family. My cousins and I would head out to the front yard to play football and imagine ourselves as real Saints like Archie Manning.

When I moved to New Orleans in 1994, I learned even more about the impact that the Saints team had on this city. When the Saints won, everyone was smiles at work on Monday. When they lost, Monday was a drag for everybody. You could see it in their faces and hear it in their voices. By Tuesday, everyone was looking forward to the next week and the next game, confident that the Saints would prevail.

Then came Katrina.

The story of our struggle has been told many times. I could write a book just with my story alone. Much has been written about the Saints' return to the Superdome on Sept. 25, 2006. Personally, that game was a turning point in my life. Words can’t do justice to my emotions – I still tear up anytime I see footage of the game or it's mentioned in the media.

Almost 13 months after Katrina, that game was the first time that I KNEW -- not just believed -- that New Orleans was going to make it. After personally losing so much and witnessing the breadth and

depth of the catastrophe, that game was a rebirth for me. I felt that everything that I had done to rebuild my life and my business after Katrina had been worth it. I KNEW, without a doubt, that my city was going to make it and more importantly, that I was going to make it.

Two weeks ago at the NFC Championship game, I was revisited by many of the emotions from childhood and my adult life. All of the joy and sorrow. All of exuberance and disappointment. All that I could do at the end of the game, surrounded by 70,000 jubilant fans, was weep tears of joy.

I’ll be at the Super Bowl in Miami on Sunday. No matter the outcome, I’m sure that at the end of the game, I’ll be weeping again. Who DAT!

-- JUDE OLINGER
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