AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2006 > September > 24
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Passion at play tonight
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
New Orleans — Having played on Friday nights in Parkview High’s Big Orange Jungle and having labored long — and ultimately successfully — to bring Georgia its long-sought SEC championship, Jon Stinchcomb knows something about being part of a team that’s more than a team. That said, he concedes tonight’s Falcons-Saints game has an enormity unto itself.
“I’ve never been part of a team where the fans are so attached,” says Stinchcomb, the Saints’ right tackle. “That’s not lost on us. We have a vivid picture of thousands of people being jammed into our stadium [as Hurricane Katrina evacuees], and that wasn’t a happy thought.”
Stinchcomb’s team, as you know, will play the Falcons in the game that marks the Saints’ return to their city and the reopening of the Louisiana Superdome. Much has been levied on this hugely anticipated night, and what’s apparent above all is the place the always-beloved Saints have come to occupy in the psyche of this battered city.
“We’re in a time where the people of this city have needs,” Stinchcomb says. “And they need us.”
This isn’t a case of an employee parroting the party line. Stinchcomb is a perceptive analyst, able to grasp both the reality (it’s just one game) and the emotion (it’s the biggest game in franchise history). On Thursday the Saints practiced in the Superdome for the first time since Katrina, and afterward coach Sean Payton gathered his men in the locker room and dimmed the lights and had, Payton said, “a little session” on the meaning of Monday night.
Says Stinchcomb: “It was pretty emotional. I wasn’t in tears, but it did bring back the pictures of what New Orleans has been though. And it reminded us that this is not just a football game and the Saints are not just a football team.”
Nothing could prepare you for what Katrina did to this city, but having served as a Bulldog at a time when it seemed Georgia might never again win the SEC gave Stinchcomb some notion of what it means to have a Higher Goal. It was Stinchcomb who hollered at his teammates when trailing by 11 points at the half that cold day at Auburn. (“I spoke with emotion,” he says now, smiling.) Then he went out and threw himself on the ball when David Greene, his roommate, fumbled into the end zone on a quarterback draw. (“I didn’t block anybody on the play, but I got wide open.”) And that touchdown, the only one the lineman has ever scored, ignited the epic comeback that yielded the 2002 SEC East title.
Drafted by the Saints in 2003, he has only now become a starter. He missed last season with a torn patellar tendon, giving him a scar on his right knee to match the one on his left, the earlier injury having occurred in 1997 when he was a senior at Parkview High School. Becoming a Saint meant Stinchcomb joined the one NFL team that can be said to mirror a big-time college program in terms of serving as a magnet for utter passion. “It’s the same collegiate atmosphere,” he says.
The Saints expect themselves to play professionally tonight, and that won’t be easy. “We have to stay focused on the fact it’s a football game. We can’t start listening to the media. This is a division opponent, and it’s an important game with the Saints-Falcons rivalry. We have to stay focused however many pregame concerts there are.”
But can any team be so intense as to ignore U2 and Green Day and the coin-tossing presence of George Bush (the elder, not the younger)? Stinchcomb isn’t sure. “I’ll give [the importance of the night] some thought when I first get to the stadium, and then I’ll try to fine-tune my focus.”
Good luck with that. Good luck with trying to block Patrick Kerney when Bono’s in the house and the whole world is watching.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Categories: Mark Bradley
