SmashMouth

Every once in a while, we run across a photo in The Times-Picayune archives that begs a simple question: "What in the name of Momus Alexander Morgus is going on in this New Orleans photograph?" When we do, we've decided, we're going to share it -- and to attempt to answer that question.

Date: July 30, 1981.

Photo credit: Eliot Kamentiz, via The Times-Picayune archive.

What it's not: The Saints' new anti-concussion helmet.



What it is: When George Rogers was drafted first overall by the New Orleans Saints in 1981, he was a big shot. Coming out of the University of South Carolina, he was the nation's leading rusher. He was an All-American. He was the reigning Heisman Trophy winner.

None of that, however, changed the fact that when he showed up for the Saints' training camp in Vero Beach, Florida, in summer 1981, he was still just a rookie. And all rookies have to earn their dues.

For Rogers, that meant taking a turn in "The Bucket," which was one of the ways Saints veterans "welcomed" newbies during the era of head coach Bum Phillips.

From time to time over the years, the NFL has had to deal with fallout from rookie hazing that went too far. That wasn't the case with The Bucket. A garden-variety plastic bucket painted to resemble a Saints helmet, complete with chinstrap and facemask, it was part of a mostly good-natured method of reminding newcomers to the team -- no matter how decorated their college career might've been -- of their place in the team's pecking order.

"Ah, the life of a New Orleans Saints rookie," read a caption that accompanied a photo of Rogers wearing the bucket helmet in a 1981 edition of The Times-Picayune. "At the mercy of veterans whose greatest training-camp pleasure is making life miserable for guys like George Rogers. Sunday, it turns out, was George's day to be called 'bucket head.' And what does a bucket head do? Well, he wears the appropriate headgear, of course, for the whole day at the club's Vero Beach, Fla., training camp."

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