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Hope Is Where Heart Is

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Times Staff Writer

More than a landmark moment for a downtrodden NFL franchise, the New Orleans Saints’ 23-20 victory at Carolina on Sunday was a morsel of hope for a football team without a home.

“We all need something to hang onto right now,” the owner said.

“We wanted to give those people in the shelters something to cheer about,” the tackle said.

“We’re resilient,” the kicker said.

It was that kicker, John Carney, whose 47-yard field goal with three seconds to play decided the game, a matchup a lot of people thought the Panthers would win with relative ease.

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After all, the Saints have been a vagabond franchise since before Hurricane Katrina hit, and there’s no telling when they’ll return to New Orleans and the Superdome, if at all. The team first trained in San Jose, then moved to San Antonio, where its practice field belongs to a high school. They are supposed to move into the Alamodome this week, although where the Saints will wind up playing home games is yet unknown.

For these players, living in limbo means riding buses to and from practice, and working out with the general public at a local Gold’s Gym. It’s not a hardship -- players are quick to point that out -- but it’s definitely an inconvenience.

“We’ve been emotionally wiped out,” said tackle Wayne Gandy, slumping in a chair in front of his locker. “We’re not in the same situation as the people that are in those shelters. But as far as trying to win a football game ... “

The Saints didn’t just win a game Sunday, they beat a formidable NFC South rival, a team that won six of its final eight games last season and is featured on the cover of last week’s Sports Illustrated as the magazine’s pick to win the Super Bowl. But any bitterness between the franchises Sunday was tempered by the Gulf Coast tragedy.

“I heard the stories from the people that came crying on my shoulder saying, ‘Joe, I lost everything. I don’t know where my son is. I don’t know where my daughter is,’ ” Saint receiver Joe Horn said. “Right now they’re in disarray. They’re still trying to find their families. So I can’t speak enough about how much my heart goes out to them. This game was for the fans.”

Coach Jim Haslett presented two game balls afterward, both of which were tucked away for safekeeping. One was for the people of the Gulf Coast. The other was for Ray Nagin, the New Orleans mayor who wrote a heartfelt letter to the team that Haslett attempted to read to his players Saturday night. He started reading it, but had to hand it to a team employee to finish.

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“I couldn’t do it,” Haslett said, his voice trembling at the memory.

Saint owner Tom Benson said the victory, “was an emotional uplift for the city, for the whole state.”

Very few if any of the Saints witnessed the hurricane devastation firsthand. A group of the players reached the practice facility in Metairie, La., which fared relatively well. About half of the team visited evacuees sheltered in San Antonio, Houston and Mississippi.

“It was worse than what you actually think,” Gandy said. “If you go and talk to these people personally, they’ll tell you something that sounds like Steven Spielberg made a movie about. That’s what touched me. I think about the two or three stories I sat there and heard. It’ll change your whole view of how people actually can be.

“When you sit there and talk to someone and they tell you about three or four women giving birth, about them dying and the child dying in a cesspool of vomit, urine and all those kind of things. It makes you feel like what we’re going through as a team is very, very minimal.”

The Saints were introduced before the game -- a rarity for a visiting team -- and received a standing ovation as they ran out on the field together. The American Red Cross handed out bead necklaces and collected more than $175,000 in donations. And the Panthers provided game tickets for more than 300 storm evacuees temporarily housed in the Charlotte Coliseum and a Salvation Army shelter.

A spokesman for Mecklenburg County, which helped arrange the trip to the stadium, said the game “was the first bit of festivity these people have had.”

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The mood in the New Orleans locker room was subdued, especially in the wake of such a meaningful victory. There’s still so much uncertainty swirling around the franchise. The latest plan has the team playing some of its home games at the Alamodome, and some at Louisiana State’s Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. The team’s “home” opener will be played next Monday at Giants Stadium, the home field of their opponent. Not all the Saints are pleased about that.

“Why did they have to choose that place over all the other places?” punter Mitch Berger said. “Why couldn’t it be Dallas or Houston or the Alamodome for our first home opener, to give us some sort of advantage over the Giants? They didn’t. It’s a done deal. So I guess it doesn’t matter.”

Berger called “ridiculous” the league’s suggestion that the Saints might play all of their home games at the stadiums of their opponents. Not only would it be especially unfair to the Saints, he said, but it also would give some teams one extra home game. That option is not off the table, although the league has said it has been ruled out for New Orleans’ games within the division. The league also has said it prefers to have as many Saint home games as possible played in Louisiana.

The only thing the Saints know for sure is that their future is uncertain. They also acknowledge and appreciate the fact that many people look at them as America’s team, at least for the moment. “But it’s not about the New Orleans Saints now,” Horn said. “It’s about all those people on those cots trying to find their kids.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

What’s ahead for the Saints

The Saints’ scheduled home opener Sunday has been changed to 4:30 p.m. PDT next Monday at Giants Stadium. The rest of the home-game sites are undetermined. Their schedule through October:

Sept. 19

at N.Y. Giants

Sept. 25

at Minnesota

Oct. 2

vs. Buffalo

Oct. 9

at Green Bay

Oct. 16

vs. Atlanta

Oct. 23

at St. Louis

Oct. 30

vs. Miami

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