"WhoDat?WhoDat?WhoDatSayDeyGonnaBeatDemSaints?"

With a 15-3 record and the best record in the National Football Conference, the New Orleans Saints will make their first Super Bowl appearance in in franchise history on February 7 in Miami as they take on the Indianapolis Colts.

They came into existence on All Saints’ Day, 1966, in a city where “When the Saints Go Marching In” is one of its theme songs. They came into being in a city where many of its churches are named after saints and in a state where more parishes (counties everywhere else in the country) are named after saints than in any other state. When all of these factors are considered, there could have been no more logical and natural reasons for naming a professional football team the New Orleans Saints.

Over the past four decades, the Saints can’t exactly boast of having the best record of any pro football team but no one will deny they have the most loyal and dedicated fans. And the most colorful. A Saints game is more than just a bone-crunching contest between two teams moving a ball back and forth between white parallel lines. A Saints game is an entertainment event that defies description. Fans dressed up in colorful costumes that only the most creative imaginations on the planet could devise. Handkerchief-waving second-line dancing through the stands; Mardi Gras Indian “big chiefs” decked out in their splashy beaded and feathered outfits; voodoo priests and priestesses casting victory spells for the team. This is only a small sampling of the fun and entertainment that plays out in the Louisiana Superdome for a Saints home game.