New Orleans Saints Forums - blackandgold.com - NOLA.com From Fargo to New Orleans, Division III to the NFL, Dan Arnold always believed

This could not be real, the eyes must be deceiving here.
The guy who leapt to snare a touchdown pass on national television, on Thanksgiving, from a future Hall of Fame quarterback is that Dan Arnold?
The Dan Arnold who could not crack a varsity football starting lineup until he moved to Fargo, North Dakota, for his senior year of high school? The one who chose to go to a Division III school in tiny Platteville, Wisconsin, and did not contribute in a meaningful way until the final game of his sophomore season?
That guy?
Dan’s father, Luke Arnold, was watching slack-jawed just like everyone else. He was in a hotel room in Minneapolis, watching the New Orleans Saints play the Falcons that night with Dan’s mother, Trish, and grandmother, Barb. They were in Minnesota visiting Dan’s older brother Nicholas, and retreated to the hotel to watch the game while Nicholas worked a shift at Best Buy.
It was a surreal moment — That family gathered in a hotel room a thousand miles away, watching their Dan Arnold make that athletic play they have seen him make so many times, just on a stage that did not always seem to be a realistic possibility. So when he tumbled to the turf with his first NFL touchdown … they lost it.

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“I think we shook the whole doggone hotel,” Luke Arnold said.
The cell phones started lighting up, Luke and Trish hearing from people they have not heard from in a long time, all wanting to reach out and touch those people who know that Dan Arnold.
“People coming out of the woodwork,” Luke Arnold said. “’Jeez! Wow! Congrats!’”
“(Dan’s) phone had to have just melted.”
In a way, it did. Dan returned to the locker room after his career day — four catches, 45 yards and a score, all career highs — picked up his phone and was overwhelmed.
Perspective suddenly gripped the Saints’ young tight end as he scrolled through the hundreds of messages. It was Thanksgiving, and Arnold was feeling thankful.
“Everybody in my past that has helped me get to this point texted me and congratulated me,” Arnold said. “The biggest thing is, I was so thankful to have that support in my life.”
There was a time, long before it became real, when Arnold told his father he was going to be a professional football player. The response from the father was grounded in sobering reality, and it was perhaps foundational to why that Dan Arnold was there catching that touchdown that shook a doggone hotel.
If you want to be an NFL football player, Luke Arnold told his son, you are going to have to beat some long odds.
Even Dad might not have understood how long those odds would eventually become. But he knows how he beat them.
“You don’t dare tell him what he can’t do,” Luke Arnold said. “That is the surefire way for him to prove you wrong.”

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EVERYTHING HE’S EVER WANTED
“Did he tell you the story on how he ended up with the Saints?” Luke Arnold asked. “Aw, jeez.”
There has to be some level of serendipity involved in all this. Stories like Arnold’s simply do not happen often in the NFL. The situation and timing has to be right, and the player has to seize the opportunity.
Arnold was in contact with several teams before the draft, but Baltimore was where he figured he would land. His father said the Ravens called about their plans to extend a contract offer at the conclusion of the draft.
But when that call came, a contract offer was not on the table. He did not even get an invitation to the rookie minicamp. Baltimore offered Arnold a one-day tryout.
He went through minicamps with the Chiefs and the Saints, and left both without a contract. He figured he would be available to help his family move into a new home in Bismarck, North Dakota, when his phone rang. It was the Ravens, they were prepared to make good on the contract offer, and they made it clear he was probably headed for the practice squad to develop.
Arnold was in a Baltimore hotel when he got a call from his agent. The Saints were also ready to make an offer. Something felt right about the New Orleans during the minicamp, and Arnold hitched a flight to join the Saints.
The Saints stuck with him after a shoulder injury that cost him the 2017 season — Luke Arnold said New Orleans decision not to release him made Dan say, ‘I am absolutely going to turn myself inside out for these guys,’ — and voila, the pride of Fargo Shanley High School UW-Platteville, that Dan Arnold, is catching touchdowns from Drew Brees.
His story is one of perseverance and proof that all things are possible — especially if you tell him it is not.
“If you tell him he can’t do something, he’ll smile at you, nod his head, walk away and show you that he can do it,” Munz said. “He’s reaping the benefits of everything he’s ever wanted.”