Go Back   New Orleans Saints Forums - blackandgold.com > Main > Saints

The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors

this is a discussion within the Saints Community Forum; Recently Tide and NFL Films got together and made many short team snip it’s of team color origins. The New Orleans Saints colors of black and gold are such an honorary one that I felt entitled to share. Originally New ...

Like Tree7Likes
  • 5 Post By WhoDat!656
  • 2 Post By Stealthman

Closed Thread
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 10-13-2012, 12:38 PM   #1
10000 POST CLUB
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Shreveport,Louisiana
Posts: 15,996
The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors

Recently Tide and NFL Films got together and made many short team snip it’s of team color origins. The New Orleans Saints colors of black and gold are such an honorary one that I felt entitled to share.

Originally New Orleans wanted the colors of their professional football team to be something influenced by Mardi Gras, so this was the birth of the Saints popular gold coloration.

Previous Saints owner John Mecom actually wanted to add blue to the team’s uniform. Because it resembled the Chargers colors, the choice of blue was put aside. Funny enough decades later, the present day Saints received a former charger of their own, leading to their first Super Bowl victory.

Due to Mecom’s oil ties in New Orleans, the color black was chosen to represent oil. Hence the term “Black Gold” or better yet “Black and Gold.” The colors formed their own yin and yang. The choice of oil representing the team was not just that of the team, but as the city in a whole. So as it was, gold was the color of royalty and black represented a city, the symbol of “rebirth.” What we have left is the symbol, the Fleur de Lis.

A French symbol that was hung in all parts of New Orleans, the Fleur de Lis was a great “influence.” It evoked New Orleans in so many degrees. The most influential part was as stated in the short film, that fans in the 60′s could witness the same symbol worn with pride in to the 21st century and beyond.

So as New Orleans once rose “from the ashes”, those colors keep battling beyond all the skeptsism, eudring battles week by week.

The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors
TXGSP, TheOak, Jamessr and 2 others like this.

"A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
WhoDat!656 is offline  
Old 10-13-2012, 04:10 PM   #2
1000 Posts +
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Gonzales, LA
Posts: 1,586
Re: The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors

Nice.
stickman is offline  
Old 10-13-2012, 07:47 PM   #3
B&G StaffWriter
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Wake Forest, NC
Posts: 382
Re: The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors

Black&Gold.com reported this in an article (Jan 2010) outlining interesting FACTS about the Saints... just prior to their appearance in SB XLIV

* The first (majority) owner of the Saints was John Mecom Jr. He held the position from the teams inaugural season (1967) through 1985. John Mecom was an oil tycoon, and his oil industry background led him to pick Saints’ team colors of Black and Gold (because oil is commonly referred to as: Black Gold).
Link: http://blackandgold.com/saints/24231...-straight.html
Halo and SloMotion like this.
Stealthman is offline  
Old 10-13-2012, 09:12 PM   #4
Site Donor
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: in line with my ridiculous CLEAR PLASTIC BAG
Posts: 3,650
Blog Entries: 3
Re: The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors

I always hear this "black gold" story and yet it strikes me as odd, that Zulu was using black and gold in New Orleans as early as the 1940s. NOW the Zulu colors are more like black and yellow, today, but back then it was black and gold, or black and golden tan (like the grass skirts they wear). The coconuts are still black and gold, or black, silver and gold.
SaintsBro is offline  
Old 10-15-2012, 03:12 PM   #5
10000 POST CLUB
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Cypress Tx.
Posts: 18,977
Re: The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors

Black and old gold.
TheOak is offline  
Old 10-15-2012, 03:15 PM   #6
10000 POST CLUB
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Cypress Tx.
Posts: 18,977
Re: The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors

Different version of the "blue" reasoning. I sort of buy this one a little more

"Black, along with old gold and white, has always been one of the team colors, but it wasn't the first choice of original majority owner John W. Mecom, Jr. His preference was for Mecom Blue, a medium shade which was used by all of his other investments. After the league office informed him that his proposed combination too closely resembled that worn by the San Diego Chargers, he settled on black as the primary color as a nod to his financial involvement in the petroleum industry. "Black gold" is a term synonymous with oil."
New Orleans Saints - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charger or Power blue:



Mecom Blue

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Last edited by TheOak; 10-15-2012 at 03:18 PM..
TheOak is offline  
Old 10-15-2012, 07:07 PM   #7
Hu Dat!
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 6,585
Blog Entries: 13
Re: The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors

And the Oilers went with white and baby blue. How strange.
neugey is offline  
Old 10-16-2012, 09:40 AM   #8
Pink Nightmare
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Mississippi
Posts: 3,028
Blog Entries: 7
Re: The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors

I posted about this a long time ago.

It is very interesting and I was a bit ashamed that I didn't know our history as a team.

Good post!
SapperSaint is offline  
Old 10-16-2012, 06:06 PM   #9
Bounty Money $$$
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: 5800 Airline Dr. Metairie, LA.
Posts: 23,689
Re: The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors

Black Gold. Gotta' love it!
And the Saints make it look good!
Rugby Saint II is offline  
Closed Thread

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules

LinkBacks (?)
LinkBack to this Thread: https://blackandgold.com/saints/51899-essence-black-gold-how-new-orleans-saints-got-their-colors.html
Posted By For Type Date Hits
The Essence of Black and Gold or How the New Orleans Saints Got Their Colors This thread Refback 10-13-2012 12:50 PM 6


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 09:49 PM.


Copyright 1997 - 2020 - BlackandGold.com
no new posts