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Patron saint of America From The Sunday Times
February 7, 2010 Mark Rogers

Somewhere en route to winning their first 13 games of the National Football League (NFL) season, New Orleans Saints fans renamed Drew Brees, their talismanic quarterback, “Breesus”. T-shirts were printed, bearing legends such as: “What would Breesus do?”, “Breesus is my home boy” and “Sweet Breesus”.

Many were emblazoned with tweaked images showing him walking on the water of the Mississippi river, with the city’s St Louis Cathedral in the background. If a minority of devout Christians were offended by the iconography, most understood the quasi-religious fervour surrounding the player who tonight will try to lead the Saints to victory over Indianapolis Colts at Super Bowl XLIV in Miami.

The Saints have not been to the gridiron classic before. For decades they were so bad that their nickname around the league was “The Aints” and their own supporters would often place brown bags over their heads to symbolise the chagrin of being a fan of this most beleaguered franchise. That shameful practice was the team’s only major contribution to sporting folklore until Brees came along in 2006 and began a run of form so rich that his gaudy personal statistics for the past four seasons surpass even those of the man he faces tonight, the Colts legend and New Orleans native Peyton Manning.

The cult of Brees was born even before he threw the first of his 122 touchdown passes for the black and gold. In March 2006, Saints coach Sean Payton invited him as a free agent to New Orleans to try to persuade him to sign. Ordinarily, these recruitment trips involve wining and dining and offering a glimpse of the fabulous lifestyle available at the particular destination. Payton took a different approach, offering Brees an eye-opening tour of the devastation wreaked on the city by Hurricane Katrina seven months earlier. Instead of fancy restaurants and opulent country clubs, he was shown boats marooned in trees and houses reduced to soggy rubble.

Not your usual hard sell. “I didn’t see this city as a city that I wanted to shy away from because of the circumstances after Katrina,” said Brees. “I embraced that as an opportunity to not only be a big part of this team and this franchise but to be a guy in the community who would give back and do my part.”

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