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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

John Blanchette : The guy who ‘popped the cork’ in New Orleans


Steve Gleason of the New Orleans Saints poses with some of his young fans in San Antonio in September 2005, during his
John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review

There are images and echoes that will never leave Steve Gleason. The devastation and the determination. The sorrow, the strength. The cries of despair, relief, joy.

Of deliverance.

He might not have believed that last one himself if he hadn’t made the delivery personally.

Football came back to New Orleans and the Superdome on Sept. 25 – one small, symbolic and, yes, expensive step in the restoration of the city and spirit that was laid to waste by Hurricane Katrina 13 months earlier.

Sure, it was only football, and for so many years what had the Saints really been to New Orleans other than a source of pity and punch lines? But football was better than nothing, and in fact this was something else. Steve Gleason, born and raised in Spokane but seven years a Saint, felt the difference the moment he walked into the Superdome, once again the Saints’ home but never again just a football stadium.

“It’s impossible to describe the anticipation for that game,” said Gleason. “There’s 80,000 seats or 72,000 or however many, and they’re full. There’s only 200,000 people in the city now where there used to be 400,000 or 500,000. The energy and volume were something from another world.

“People for a year had been beaten down and frustrated and tired and running into bureaucracy with insurance or contractors or the government, or people hiking up prices. They were just ready to cut loose and get rid of every frustration they had by screaming as loud as they can.”

And then Steve Gleason blocked a punt and the Saints’ Curtis Deloatch recovered for a touchdown, and even with a roof above them, the heavens shook from noise.

“I was just the guy who popped the cork,” Gleason said.

The Saints won that night, 23-3 over the Atlanta Falcons, and the noise really hasn’t stopped. They’ve continued winning, to the point that they cruised into the NFL playoffs and will host Philadelphia in a second-round game Saturday night. Maybe that will be a memory, too, but nothing like the one that sticks with Gleason from that night in the Superdome.

“Every time I’m asked about it I say the same thing – ‘infinite joy,’ ” said Gleason. “I wanted to run around up in the sixth level, run around and just hug people.

“I’ve had times in my career when I’ve made a great play and I’ve thought, ‘Yeah, man – look at me.’ I’d think it would be good for my career. It was self-interest. But this was truly creating joy for other people, which in turn created joy for myself. It seemed limitless, infinite.”

It’s not limitless, of course, and maybe not even lasting. Football is not a rescue boat, a shelter, a hot meal. It brings back no lost brothers or sisters. It doesn’t rebuild a home from rubble.

It doesn’t reshape a city.

In fact, like almost everything else about New Orleans, it’s the football team that’s been reshaped, even redefined. And the winning is possibly the least of it.

Gleason’s attachment goes back to 2000, when the Saints rescued him off the NFL discard pile. A heart-and-soul linebacker at Washington State, he turned into one of those heart-and-soul special teamers every team needs – though, surely, he has lasted longer than most. He has been waived and reclaimed, deactivated and reactivated, been on the roster bubble seemingly every year and just plain survived, and New Orleans has come to love him for it all.

He loves it back. He just never knew how much until the hurricane.

“New Orleans is a place with community feeling you can’t get anywhere else in the United States,” he said. “I know a lot of places say that, but this is different. It’s rare that you can walk into dozens of restaurants and meet the owner. The owner is the chef and you went to high school with him and he has three or four kids and they have three or four, and every Sunday they’re at grandpa’s house – and not just Christmas.

“That’s something I’ve gained from this city. It’s something I want to create for my family. I felt some of that at Gonzaga Prep – you had generations of families going through, and they’ve been having the same barbecue for 50 years.”

Katrina ripped into that fabric – it ripped into everything, killing more than 1,500 people in Louisiana alone, scattering thousands of others, uprooting families as well as foundations. The monetary toll is estimated at more than $84 billion; the emotional toll is incalculable.

Yet despite the destruction, the storm may have reinforced the very thing Gleason believes makes New Orleans unique.

Certainly it did on his football team. Like almost everyone else, the Saints were homeless, too. They played home games in Baton Rouge, practiced and played others in San Antonio. Gleason remembers sneaking into a secured relocation shelter there with a teammate to talk with evacuees and throw a football with kids and discovered he received as much hope and support as he gave.

“It’s not just about charity and benevolence,” he said. “We were all in the same situation. Guys on the team were in similar circumstances – nothing life-threatening, thankfully, but guys had missing family members for a while, lost houses and cars. I think that’s a reason the city has latched on to this team in this way, and winning hasn’t hurt, either.”

But as he usually does, Gleason sees deeper into the connection.

“You see what’s happening in professional sports,” he said. “Players are playing for themselves. Coaches are coaching for themselves. Teams play for themselves. I can look back in college at Washington State and remember that it felt different. I went through everything with my teammates, but you’d look up into the stands and a good portion of the people I knew as students. The same in high school – everyone in the stands is a parent or friend or brother. There’s an intimacy.

“Everywhere you play in the NFL, you see that intimacy erode. That’s changed here. This year has been remarkable. I may not know everyone, but you do know them – you’ve been through something together.”

But it’s not all Kumbaya. As socially aware as he is and as strongly as he’s come to feel about New Orleans, Gleason is “anxious” about its future.

“I don’t necessarily see there’s a big-picture solution,” he said. “I’m not saying that needs to come from the government – I don’t really care where it comes. I just don’t see a momentum to rebuild New Orleans in a better way. I think everybody wants it to happen, but we’re seeing more of a duct-tape project – we’ll fix this, we don’t have the money to fix that. I don’t see a broad-based plan of how to ensure that if a hurricane comes again there won’t be the same devastation.

“But the people are remarkable. Their perseverance in the face of total loss is truly inspiring.”

Amazingly, after decades of mostly indifferent football, the Saints have been inspiring, too, and that might have been true whether they made the playoffs or not.

“It’s been pretty magical,” Gleason said. “It feels so much more like I’m a kid again. The year we went through last year was awful on every level. You couldn’t enjoy football – you couldn’t enjoy life. I came away from it thinking that I didn’t care if I ever played football again.

“This year,” he said, “has been a gift.”