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The best way to experience a city is go for a run in it. Jogging through masses of humans or lack thereof, neighborhoods and trails, the gentrified and the hip, introduces you to a city in a way a guidebook is unable, as I was reminded Saturday in New Orleans (1).
My daily jog took me through a human quilt of 'Bama crimson, LSU purple and Saints black. They were tailgating and singing and dancing and, yes, drinking right there on street corners. The New Orleans party, unlike, say, Los Angeles, is not held behind ropes but is right there in the open for anybody to join. It is more democratic, and definitely always fun.
And as I was finishing, a guy in his Saints jersey held out a beer like volunteers do water in marathons and exhorted me to "slow down, life is too short." It was not a block later that an LSU fan slurred to me that "Les says 'Go for it.' "
Just to be clear: This is why New Orleans is awesome. I missed this city.
This reminder of the genius of New Orleans puts me in the very weird spot of being beholden to the BCS. Their scam is why I am in New Orleans at all. The scam that is the college football bowl system is not worthy of any more debate. Everybody except the contrarians, the idiots and the beneficiaries understands we are being denied a playoff for the sole purpose of protecting the boondoggle that is the bowl game system.
The only saving grace of this? The streets of New Orleans.
Sports have been the one true friend New Orleans has had post-Katrina. (2) The professional teams stayed and the fans came to see them. Games like the national championship came back and the fans come to see them in mind-numbing numbers. This city is literally a chorus of Roll Tide and Geaux Tigers, their faithful cramming the restaurants and hotels and bars. For a city that lives on its visitors, the ones funneled in by the BCS and the NFL are crucial.
What is unspoken is the feeling here that most everybody else has abandoned them, most certainly in the immediate aftermath of Katrina and more subtly in the long and painful process of rebuilding. One of the more popular local artists has this whole line of "Rebuild or Leave" signs.
A good chunk has chosen to leave. Sports are the exception.
The Saints could have left. They did not. I am not ascribing any altruistic motivations to them since I am pretty sure they do not deserve them. Ownership had LA dreams. They initially stayed because it would have been public-relations suicide to leave so soon after. They had to show they had tried before bolting. And then the Saints won a Super Bowl and it was impossible to leave.
Whatever the reason, though, the organization stayed in New Orleans and gave this city a rallying cry, a distraction and a reminder that not everybody has given up on the city. And the league is sending the Super Bowl here in a couple of years.
The Sugar Bowl could have been deemphasized by the BCS, or relocated. It stayed, as well.
Sports are not alone in coming back. Of all groups, librarians were first to bring a big-time convention here after Katrina. Others have followed suit. Random, just-for-fun tourism appears to be picking up, as well.
The most consistent visitors, though, have been those whom sports have invited back. They are waiting for us.
I have New Orleans tales like almost everybody. There is the lost tape from college where my friends and I are karaoke-ing, except I am the only one singing (3). Everybody else is tending to my friend who was getting sick out the window. There was the post-college trip that included sneaking into LSU's stadium on a stop on the trip down. The picture of us standing there is one of my favorites, a reminder of what you do when you are young and not yet good at talking yourself out of fun.
And so it was slightly awkward coming back to New Orleans. I felt like that old friend who stopped calling after something bad had happened. We had had so many good times and I just bailed. I had not been back to New Orleans since Katrina defeated the levies and demolished the city in 2005.
I was here when les bon temps rouler, not so much afterward. This is what sports did well. They were here for both. And if I am being fair, this is what the BCS did well (4). They bring people back.
It is probably time the rest of us follow.
(1) A quick note on running in New Orleans. It sucks. I had a bad feeling when the best suggestion for a running trail was the path the streetcars take. It sets up a very slow game of Frogger. And the path is killer on your ankles. A few athletically minded celebs need to band together to build a better green space for running. I recognize this is probably low on New Orleans' priorities, but Sandy Bullock can make this happen. I mention her because she seems like the most real of the celebs. I base this on nothing. She might actually be a real PITA. If so, please do not tell me this info. And so, Sandy, make a better running path in New Orleans happen.
(2) The only competition for sports to be New Orleans' BFF is Brad Pitt. You cannot go five minutes in this town without somebody mentioning him, and rightfully so. His Make It Right Foundation has built 90 houses since Katrina, or so I heard a tour guide tell his audience Saturday. I like this because he is a Mizzou guy and it makes me feel like we are at the national championship. This is why I run, by the way. I feel like I need to live as many years as possible to give Mizzou a better chance of me seeing them win a championship.
(3) If you have ever heard me sing, you would know why this was funny. Imagine Cameron Diaz in "My Best Friend's Wedding," only worse and not nearly as charming.
(4) I already regret this sentence. This in no way should be taken as an endorsement for bowls and against a playoff. In fact, I take back my BCS praise.
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