Saints' title offers hope for everyone
If I close my eyes it’s not too hard for my mind to drift back to a more innocent time when I was a boy and the New Orleans Saints were just getting started in the National Football League.
It was the fall of 1967, less than a year after my family made the move from Memphis, Tenn., to Gulf Breeze, and the Saints were in the inaugural season in the NFL.
In the Dickson household, at least for my dad and I, watching New Orleans play on WKRG out of Mobile would soon become a tradition.
The first two or three years we watched the games on an old portable GE black and white set. But in my mind those games seem as clear as today’s high-def broadcast.
Until recently I had forgotten that the first Saints quarterback was Gary Cuozzo, who started 10 games for the Saints that first season. I remembered Billy Kilmer, who started four games in 67 and was the starter from 1968-70 before being traded to Washington, but somehow with the passing of time Cuozzo slipped my mind.
It wasn’t as if the Saints didn’t have great players from time-to-time. Hall of Famers Jim Taylor and Doug Atkins finished their storied careers with the Saints.
There was even an Okaloosa County product on that first team. Choctawhatchee grad Jackie Burkett started all 14 games at linebacker for the Saints that year. And, after two years with the Cowboys, Burkett ended his career with New Orleans in 1970.
So may memories of days gone by came flooding back Sunday night as I watched the Saints finally win pro football’s most coveted prize, the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
Former Daily News editor Ralph Routon, who spent most of his career as a sports editor, would jokingly scold a writer for saying a team was “hapless.” Routon’s contention is that hapless means without hope, and every player or team has hope.
I have to hand it to Ralph, the Saints winning the Super Bowl proves there is no such thing as a team without hope.
Even through the painful years of Archie Manning running for his life and the Swiss cheese concoction that some dared to call a defense, and the days of the “Aints” when fans attended games with paper bags covering their heads the Saints were not without hope, even when things did seem hopeless.
Sunday’s Super Bowl victory by the Saints was more than a win for the city of New Orleans and for the Gulf Coast region; it was a testimony that there is hope for all of us.
Inside every dream is the seed of a championship waiting to burst forth in due time.
I know waiting can be difficult when seasons come and go and others are basking in the glow of success.
But as long as we have a breath there is always hope for next year and the possibility of the dream come true that has eluded us for so long.
If you don’t believe me, just ask the people of New Orleans.
