Saint Fan LeCompte Started Something in 1980, but There Has Been a Change of Face in New Orleans

Yeah, sure. Everybody’s a wise guy now.

Bobby LeCompte hears it from all of them, in the middle of the Treasure Chest Casino where he works as a pit boss, along the shrimp- and daiquiri-lined streets of a city where he has lived for all of his 47 years.

People look at him, and they remember, and they smirk, and what’s he supposed to say?

It was a joke, all right? Well, it was mostly a joke.

He loved his New Orleans Saints but, by gosh, he couldn’t take it anymore. The swamp-filled stretches of embarrassment. The plantation-sized humiliation.

Returning the first kickoff in franchise history for a touchdown, then embarking on 12 consecutive losing seasons.

J.D. Roberts. Hank Stram. Billy Kilmer. Chuck Muncie.

The year was 1980, and Bobby LeCompte couldn’t take it anymore.

“I was embarrassed and ashamed,” he said. “Bottom line was, I wanted to keep going to the games, but I didn’t want anybody to know I was going to the games.”

So one night he drove home from the bar and created this . . . thing. A simple thing. A brilliant thing.

He swears he had not been drinking.

“No, no, I got drunk afterward,” he said.

He swears he had no idea that this thing would become so popular, thousands would wear them on their heads and fire marshals would try to stuff them in the trash.

He had no idea that his kitchen creation would land on national television, on the cover of a national magazine, in stadiums everywhere.

He certainly had no idea that, even 20 years later, this thing would remain a national symbol for fan disaffection, as enduring as the boo.

And who would have thought that, with the Saints finally having a season that dances like their city, none of his friends would let him forget.

“Hey, Bobby” they ask him these days, again and again. “Where’s your paper bag now?”

*

Where are the paper bags now?

The Saints are preparing to stick a division title in one.

Their fans are carrying crawfish hoagies in them while waiting in out-the-door lines for playoff tickets.

The neighbors of cornerback Alex Molden are cutting them out and using them for billboards.

“Before, you ask somebody if they are a Saints fan, and they look the other way,” said Molden, in his fifth season. “Now, I come home from a game, and people have ‘Go Saints’ written on their garages.”

Excuse our Cajun, but the worst team in football Aints no more.

Led by a tough young coach named Jim Haslett, fortified with a deep young roster of strangers, the Saints will have a chance to make the playoffs today for only the fifth time in the organization’s 34-year history.

A victory over the Atlanta Falcons should do it. That, combined with a loss by the St. Louis Rams on Monday night in Tampa, Fla., could also give them only their second NFC West title.

All this without their star quarterback, running back and tight end.

More amazing still, all of this without even a scent of their history.

“I had no idea of all the details of their past when I took this job,” said Randy Mueller, the general manager who has built legitimacy after arriving here from Seattle last winter.

Mueller chuckled.

“Looking back, it’s a good thing I didn’t know,” he said. “Because if I did, I probably wouldn’t have come.”

*

Where are the paper bags now?

Officially, there is one remaining. It’s white, with eye holes and a gold-painted tear drop and the word “Aints” written across the front.

It is the exact replica of the one that Saint fans wore on their heads throughout the last half of a 1980 season as their team went 1-15.

And where is it?

Under glass in the Saints Hall of Fame, of course.

Yeah, yeah, we know what you’re thinking.

Understanding that nobody in their right mind can believe such a place exists, one of the first exhibits here is a written answer to the daily question that goes something like, “Why would one of the crummiest franchises in sports history have a Hall of Fame?”

Especially because the only other team in the league with such a facility is the Green Bay Packers.

“It’s amazing how much feeling people still have for a Saints team that has not done a thing,” said Ken Trahan, general manager of the nearly 3,400-square-foot facility. “We celebrate that feeling, with all its ups and down.”

Hence, the little rooms in a restored downtown building have become a wonderful tribute to a team and town unafraid to poke fun of itself.

For every picture of Archie Manning, there is a laminated headline that reads, “The Saints in Turmoil.”

There are photos of Ricky Williams not only running, but wearing a wedding dress. There are action shots of Jim Everett on the field, and attacking Jim Rome.

There is a photo of several people engaged in an ostrich chariot race, which is supposed to remind you: In the early years, the Saints staged elaborate halftime shows until a reenactment of the War of 1812 resulted in a cannon blast that blew off someone’s hand.

“We do have a flair for the spectacular,” Trahan acknowledged.

One exhibit contains the black helmet that former owner John Mecom once ordered his team to wear in a game. Problem was, he never told the league, and the helmet was immediately banned.

Another contains the first kicking shoe of Morten Andersen, which would be neat except, well, he hated the shoe and used it for only one game.

Then there is the tribute to the time, in 1974, Saint fans engaged in what was termed, “The World’s Longest Boo.” It was so loud and long, the Saint offense couldn’t hear the signals and became perhaps the first home team in history to suffer a delay-of-game penalty because their fans wouldn’t leave them alone.

Then there is the photo tribute to “Fetch Monster,” the collie that was imported from Houston to chase down the kicking tee.

“After three years, he got fired,” Trahan explained. “The owners didn’t want to pay for the flight.”

Finally, of course, there is the bag, donated by LeCompte, forever a symbol of frustration.

“Looking around the house the other day I realized, you know, I gave them my last one,” LeCompte said.

*

There is no record of the number of game balls awarded members of the Saints before this season.

But in 33 years, the number of players who have deserved them have been, what, two? Tom Dempsey? Archie Manning?

Last week, after the Saints scored two touchdowns in the final four minutes to win in San Francisco, a game ball was given to the entire team and front office, nearly 200 people total.

It’s like that here now.

Never before have the Saints had such depth on the field and in the front office. Never before have they been able to avoid, with such conviction, the temptation to say, “Here we go again.”

“Like night and day,” veteran tackle Willie Roaf said.

A hustling new general manager and coach, both rookies who came together at the right place and time, can make that happen.

Mueller reworked the roster so that only 20 of the current 53 players were here last season.

Haslett, a former linebacker and Chuck Knox disciple, reworked the team morale so the players felt supported again.

When wacky Ricky Williams ripped New Orleans and some of his teammates? Haslett quietly ripped Williams and brought peace.

His guys have problems with an official? Haslett spends entire games in the faces of officials.

No chance against St. Louis with a backup quarterback and running back? Haslett opened the game with a successful onside kick and, in what became the greatest upset of this NFL season, the Rams never had a chance.

“Players are like children, they want to know who is in charge, and they want organization,” said Haslett, previously best known as that Buffalo nut who stepped on Terry Bradshaw’s exposed head in Pittsburgh and was thrown out of the game. “I’m kind of a tough guy. But they know I’ve been there.”

And they know he’s not former coach Mike Ditka, whose three-year mess here can best be illustrated in a 1997 mix-up against the New York Giants.

Ditka’s defense included a play called “Fore” and another called “Far.”

While trying to protect a lead, linebacker Winfred Tubbs called “Four.”

But hindered by both his Southern accent and mouthpiece, it sounded to some players like “Far.”

Half the defense went one way, half the defense went the other way, and the Giants scored on a pass play to win the game.

“It was all crazy,” Molden said.

Today it is all good.

When, in a recent two-week span, running back Williams and quarterback Jeff Blake each sustained broken bones in the area of their feet? No problem.

The Saints continued to win with a running back who had not played football in nearly a year (Terry Allen) and a quarterback (Aaron Brooks) who had never started an NFL game.

They began the season thinking eight wins would be great. Now they have a chance to win 11, they are hoping for something even more bizarre.

The first playoff victory in club history.

Yeah, it has been that bad.

“I still don’t think anybody respects us,” receiver Joe Horn said. “And until we get into the playoffs, and win a game, they’re not going to respect us. But things are changing around here. You just watch.”

*

Of course, the good times in this town can end as quickly as a string of colorful beads slipping through your fingers.

Just ask Bobby LeCompte.

He was watching “The Unknown Comic” on TV after one of the Saints’ games when he became inspired to make the paper bag.

He gave the first one to local sportscaster Buddy Diliberto to wear during his broadcast.

At that time, in 1980, the Saints were 0-5. The fans loved the idea and began wearing the bags to home games as the Saints fell to 0-14.

There were soon bags with blinking Christmas lights attached, fancy bags from fancy department stores, even bags that hung in the angry players’ lockers for inspiration.

The Saints tried to literally save face by confiscating the bags by order of the fire marshal, who claimed they were not flame retardant.

“So people just sneaked them into the games in their pockets,” LeCompte said. “Once inside, there were too many people wearing bags for anybody to stop them.”

But not every fan thought it was funny. Before a game against the Rams, the fun ended when LeCompte received an anonymous phone call.

“The guy said if I wore the bag at the game, he would blow my brains out,” said LeCompte, telling the story for the first time.

So what did he do? What would any loyal Saint fan do?

He showed up wearing a bulletproof vest.

And, of course, the bag.

The Saints finally won, in their 15th game that season, finishing 1-15. LeCompte has not made, nor worn, a bag since.

During the photo shoot for this story, LeCompte futilely searched the entire casino for a plain paper bag. One could not be found.

He sighed, but smiled, then perhaps spoke for his entire giddy town.

“Sorry,” he said. “Everything around here has gone from paper to plastic.”

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.