Cowboys are the attraction
GIL LEBRETON
In My Opinion
Pro football is back in Shreveport tonight, and you know what that means:
Video poker. Loose slots. And 2-1 odds that the guy sitting next to you is not cheering for the New Orleans Saints.
With all due respect to the down-state NFL team's latest marketing push, Shreveport is Cowboys' country. Always has been, really. Don't let those new Louisiana patches on the Saints' jerseys fool you.
Tonight's nationally televised game between the Cowboys and Saints is sure to inspire odes to the damage and heartbreak caused by Hurricane Katrina. The storm is the main reason the game is being played at Independence Stadium in the first place. It's considered a preseason home game this year for the Saints, who also have a game scheduled next week in Jackson, Miss.
At least Mississippians have heard of the Saints. I'm only half-convinced that all Shreveporters have. Or want to.
For the Cowboys, who have been practicing amidst intermittent ocean breezes, Shreveport could offer a warmer welcome than anyone bargained for. The forecast calls for possible triple-digit temperatures at kickoff.
The Cowboys still have questions to be answered. For one, the offensive line is still taking applications. The third receiver spot is up for grabs. And lastly, did coach Bill Parcells growl or chortle when he announced that injured receiver Terrell Owens had not practiced enough to play in front of the Monday Night cameras?
Drew Bledsoe will start at quarterback for Parcells, which may say more about the Saints' defense than it does about Bledsoe's camp progress. In their hurricane-induced wanderings last season, the Saints were 28th in the NFL in points allowed and 27th in stopping the run.
Last week in Seattle against the NFC champion Seahawks, Parcells elected to play backup Tony Romo at quarterback. Romo, after all, is expendable.
Owens did not make the trip to Shreveport. Local organizers are still expecting a sellout.
The North Louisiana city has a colorful, if not rich, pro football past.
In 1974, the then-Houston Texans of the World Football League suddenly announced that they were moving to Shreveport in the 12th week of the season. The Texans' head coach, Jim Garrett -- father of former Cowboys quarterback Jason Garrett and a former Cowboys assistant himself -- urged his players not to go, calling Shreveport a "rinky-dink" town.
Garrett was suspended and later fired. Quarterback Mike Taliaferro never gave the league that chance, announcing his retirement rather than moving to Louisiana.
The Shreveport Steamer played one more season in the reorganized WFL, which had filed for bankruptcy after 1974. If you'll indulge me, I have a personal recollection of what pro football in Shreveport, circa 1975, was like.
As publicity man for the Birmingham franchise, the Vulcans (no Spock jokes, please), I had to fly to Shreveport in advance to help stir up media interest in our preseason game. But when I gave the lady at the rental car counter my company credit card, the initials "W-F-L" must have set sirens ringing from Hawaii to Jacksonville. Apparently, the former owners of the Birmingham franchise had left a few unpaid bills in their wake on the way to World Bowl I.
When I relayed the problem by telephone to our new general manager, Jack Gotta, he asked, "We're OK with the stadium and everything, right?"
So I know firsthand how welcome the Saints are going to feel tonight.
Shreveport had another pro football fling in the mid-1990s, when the Canadian Football League defied all logic and road atlases and expanded into the Lower 48. The Shreveport Pirates lasted two troubled seasons, the first of which saw the team housed at training camp in the Louisiana State Fair livestock barn, a short punt from the site of tonight's game.
After the 1995 season, Pirates owner Bernard Glieberman tried to move the franchise to Norfolk, Va. City lawyers, trying to get the team to pay its debts at Independence Stadium, attempted to seize Glieberman's vintage 1948 Tucker.
Glieberman's lawyer, however, got wind of the plan and tried to escape with the Tucker along Interstate 20. But the lawyer ran out of gas along the way, and police spotted the Tucker and impounded it until the case could be settled.
The Cowboys can expect a much warmer reception tonight.
In My Opinion
Pro football is back in Shreveport tonight, and you know what that means:
Video poker. Loose slots. And 2-1 odds that the guy sitting next to you is not cheering for the New Orleans Saints.
With all due respect to the down-state NFL team's latest marketing push, Shreveport is Cowboys' country. Always has been, really. Don't let those new Louisiana patches on the Saints' jerseys fool you.
Tonight's nationally televised game between the Cowboys and Saints is sure to inspire odes to the damage and heartbreak caused by Hurricane Katrina. The storm is the main reason the game is being played at Independence Stadium in the first place. It's considered a preseason home game this year for the Saints, who also have a game scheduled next week in Jackson, Miss.
At least Mississippians have heard of the Saints. I'm only half-convinced that all Shreveporters have. Or want to.
For the Cowboys, who have been practicing amidst intermittent ocean breezes, Shreveport could offer a warmer welcome than anyone bargained for. The forecast calls for possible triple-digit temperatures at kickoff.
The Cowboys still have questions to be answered. For one, the offensive line is still taking applications. The third receiver spot is up for grabs. And lastly, did coach Bill Parcells growl or chortle when he announced that injured receiver Terrell Owens had not practiced enough to play in front of the Monday Night cameras?
Drew Bledsoe will start at quarterback for Parcells, which may say more about the Saints' defense than it does about Bledsoe's camp progress. In their hurricane-induced wanderings last season, the Saints were 28th in the NFL in points allowed and 27th in stopping the run.
Last week in Seattle against the NFC champion Seahawks, Parcells elected to play backup Tony Romo at quarterback. Romo, after all, is expendable.
Owens did not make the trip to Shreveport. Local organizers are still expecting a sellout.
The North Louisiana city has a colorful, if not rich, pro football past.
In 1974, the then-Houston Texans of the World Football League suddenly announced that they were moving to Shreveport in the 12th week of the season. The Texans' head coach, Jim Garrett -- father of former Cowboys quarterback Jason Garrett and a former Cowboys assistant himself -- urged his players not to go, calling Shreveport a "rinky-dink" town.
Garrett was suspended and later fired. Quarterback Mike Taliaferro never gave the league that chance, announcing his retirement rather than moving to Louisiana.
The Shreveport Steamer played one more season in the reorganized WFL, which had filed for bankruptcy after 1974. If you'll indulge me, I have a personal recollection of what pro football in Shreveport, circa 1975, was like.
As publicity man for the Birmingham franchise, the Vulcans (no Spock jokes, please), I had to fly to Shreveport in advance to help stir up media interest in our preseason game. But when I gave the lady at the rental car counter my company credit card, the initials "W-F-L" must have set sirens ringing from Hawaii to Jacksonville. Apparently, the former owners of the Birmingham franchise had left a few unpaid bills in their wake on the way to World Bowl I.
When I relayed the problem by telephone to our new general manager, Jack Gotta, he asked, "We're OK with the stadium and everything, right?"
So I know firsthand how welcome the Saints are going to feel tonight.
Shreveport had another pro football fling in the mid-1990s, when the Canadian Football League defied all logic and road atlases and expanded into the Lower 48. The Shreveport Pirates lasted two troubled seasons, the first of which saw the team housed at training camp in the Louisiana State Fair livestock barn, a short punt from the site of tonight's game.
After the 1995 season, Pirates owner Bernard Glieberman tried to move the franchise to Norfolk, Va. City lawyers, trying to get the team to pay its debts at Independence Stadium, attempted to seize Glieberman's vintage 1948 Tucker.
Glieberman's lawyer, however, got wind of the plan and tried to escape with the Tucker along Interstate 20. But the lawyer ran out of gas along the way, and police spotted the Tucker and impounded it until the case could be settled.
The Cowboys can expect a much warmer reception tonight.
posted by The Gryphon at 7:10 PM
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