Yeah, I know that you don’t want to hear any more about it. But in times like these, how can I not join other newspaper columnists around the country and especially in Louisiana in writing about the Saints? I’m certain that most of you know at least some of the Saints quite well. Like Saint Jude Thaddeus, Patron of Lost Causes, whom you invoked several times during exams last semester. Or Saint Vitus, the patron saint against oversleeping, whom you’ve been beseeching on a regular basis since your parents no longer wake you for school. Or Saint Expeditus, patron saint against procrastination, whom you regularly don’t invoke until too late. Or Saint Dominic, patron saint against dogs, especially those that eat your homework.

I’m certain that most of you, however, more readily recognize Saints Bush, McAllister and Brees and have been invoking their intercession each Sunday since the beginning of last Fall semester.

Of course, some of you study on Sunday afternoons and don’t know what the fuss is all about. But as a Nicholls student, you should appreciate the long history the Saints have with Nicholls. Some of you may have been enrolled or at least remember hearing that the Saints held training camp here at Nicholls from 2000 to 2002. They left behind a lot of dry erase boards in Gouaux Hall and some extra-long box springs and mattresses in Calecas. The beddings were a nice gift for our own athletes, but why did they balk on our blackboards? Apparently, the NFL doesn’t want any of its players inhaling white dust. Solvent for dry erase markers is okay, but chalk dust is definitely out.

The Saints have a much longer history with Nicholls than that, however. The Saints were first here for training camp in 1975. It was the years of Coach John North and Quarterback Archie Manning. How do I know? I was there that summer-not working on my degree but rather on my performance skills at parish band camp. We kids were usually tucked away in Talbot and Long Halls, and the Saints got to frolic around campus. I remember that over their heads Saints rookies had to wear gold-colored plastic buckets with eyeholes cut out, and the buckets could only be removed for practices or to sleep. We tried the same thing at band camp with the trash cans in Long Hall, but removal for practice and sleep proved difficult because of the gum.

Each day, the two groups-the bottom-of-the-NFL Saints and the cream-of-the-crop band kids-crossed paths in the cafeteria. That’s when I met Archie Manning. I never saw his face, but I knew it was him because he was the only player who talked like he’d lived at Ole Miss for four years. Besides, his overgrown red hair and the high density of freckles on the backs of his calves were big giveaways. I never saw a human being with so much red pigment. Decades later, Archie would learn how to market house siding for the skilled installers at LAS Enterprises, installers who don’t work much during the winter. Decades later, I would learn that freckles and red hair are caused by mutations in the mcr-IV gene. Funny how our lives took different paths since that fateful day.

Mosquitoes and rain hampered the practices of that early Saints team. So, they eventually left Thibodaux to spend the rest of preseason in New Orleans, leaving the mosquitoes to feed on us kids. Mosquitoes were pretty bad in 1975, but nothing could compare to the 2000 onslaught the region suffered when the Saints returned to Nicholls. Apparently, after biting Saints running back Ricky Williams, mosquitoes went on biting rampages, having developed bad cases of the munchies.

I remember as a kid asking my dad what “Saints” meant. I understood how teams could be called Rams or Giants or Cowboys or Redskins, but I didn’t understand why the local NFL team was specifically named after dead people. And why did we have a flower on our helmets? All the other grown men didn’t have flowers on their helmets. And that raucous theme song about “marching in!” If it was okay to sing about dying, then I guess it was okay to be losing a lot of games, too. It seemed all so defeatist.

Eventually, I came to realize the meaning of it all, but never more clearly than this season. What winning and achieving and proving has done for the spirit of a drowned city, and what the same has done for a state at the bottom of far too many lists and for individuals at the bottom of their lives, makes the 40 years of hope all worth it.

So, now, because the NFC championship game is over, you all can study on Sunday afternoons. This should keep you from losing your cause, should make you wake up in time, should prevent you from putting things off, and should protect your homework from the hungry dog. And, ultimately, this should give the Saints a break.