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A 'Who Dat' history: The story behind the New Orleans Saints rallying cry

The Times-Picayune is marking the tricentennial of New Orleans with its ongoing 300 for 300 project, running through 2018 and highlighting the moments and people that connect and inspire us. Today, the series continues with the adoption by the New Orleans Saints fan base of the "Who Dat" chant.

THEN: It was fall 1983, and as part of a prep sports preview package for WVUE-TV, sports anchor Ken Berthelot and photographer Avis Landry captured video of the St. Augustine High School Purple Knights football team engaging in a daily pre-practice chant. Meant to psych the team up, it went, "Who dat?! Who dat?! Who dat talk about beatin' St. Aug?" When WVUE sports director Ron Swoboda saw it, he knew they had something special. "I thought, 'I love this cheer. We've got to play this a few times during the week,'" Swoboda said in a 2010 interview with The Times-Picayune. The package first aired on Sept. 1, 1983. It was immediately clear that Swoboda wasn't the only one taken with it. Three days later, it could be heard echoing through the Superdome for the New Orleans Saints' home opener against the St. Louis Cardinals. It has yet to cease.



By Mike Scott, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune



NOW: Since that 1983 season, cries of "Who Dat?!" have become a key part of Saints fan culture, with opposing teams being showered by it routinely. In 2010, Saints quarterback Drew Brees codified its game-day usage with the introduction of what has become a pre-game ritual: After the coin toss, a pre-determined player or guest will raise his or her hand over their head on the field. When they drop their hand, that's the cue for everyone in the Superdome to launch into three thundering rounds of the "Who Dat" chant.

TRI-via

• The use of "Who Dat" as a cheer at athletic events predates the 1983 WVUE story by as much as a decade. Although its origin is murky, Nicholls State University English professor Shana Walton, who led a research team hired by the NFL, said in 2010 that the chant was being used in the early 1970s by majority-black schools in South Louisiana.
• The phrase "Who Dat" in a non-athletic context can be traced back further, to the 1890s and a song called "Who Dat Say Chicken in Dis Crowd," a song from Edward E. Rice's vaudeville show "Summer Nights." In the 20th century it was part of a vaudeville and minstrel show comedy bit in which one character would ask, "Who dat?," with another responding, "Who dat say, 'Who dat?'"
• Near the end of the 1977 comedy "Smokey and the Bandit," after Burt Reynolds' character raises Jackie Gleason's lawman character on the radio, Gleason responds -- clear as day -- with the words, "Who dat?"

A 'Who Dat' history: The story behind the New Orleans Saints rallying cry | NOLA.com


Fun read for those of us who were live and kicking at the start

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"We may have lost the game, but you'll be hurting tomorrow." Doug Atkins