*By Tracy Porter
This story was first published in the Official Super Bowl LIX Game Program. The complete 288-page program can be purchased at superbowlprogram.us.
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As I look back on my playing days, I had a ton of great moments, but "The Pick" in Super Bowl XLIV against the Colts surpasses them all. It had an impact on so many: the Saints, my teammates, my home state of Louisiana, and the City of New Orleans. It also was a story of comebacks.
I always thought of my athletic career as one of overcoming adversity. Basketball was my first love, but in my junior year at Port Allen High School (outside of Baton Rouge), I joined the football team. I did it all —
running back, receiver, kick returner, cornerback — whatever the coaches asked.
In 2004, Indiana University gave me the opportunity to play college football. But as I was preparing for my sophomore season at IU, my home state was facing incredible hardship. Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005 and was devastating with its flooding, especially in New Orleans. Watching it on television, I felt powerless. Little did I know that a few years later, I would be part of the city's renaissance and doing a small part to uplift an entire region.
Despite some question marks about my size and physicality, I was a second-round pick of the Saints in 2008. I won a starting job at cornerback in the preseason, but then missed the last 11 games with a broken wrist.
2009 began as another year of challenges and adjustments, among them learning a new defense. Through it all, I just put in the work, kept my faith and family close, and stayed positive, hoping good things would happen. Good things did come to fruition, where we started 13-0 and were backed by the NFL's loudest fans. Everybody knew about our high-flying offense controlled by Drew Brees, but we were playing complementary ball. I overcame a knee injury that, thank God, only sidelined me a month.
We had a bump in the road when we lost our last three regular-season games, but we retained home-field advantage for the playoffs. In the NFC Championship Game, we were in a 12-round prize fight with the Vikings. Late in the fourth quarter with Brett Favre driving Minnesota for a potential game-winning score, our defensive leader Jon Vilma changed coverages, putting me in position for an interception. The Vikings never got the ball back, and we prevailed in overtime to reach the Super Bowl.
That was big, but something bigger was coming.
We arrived in Miami with the hopes of a rebuilding city and its fans on our shoulders. For our defensive secondary, the task was finding a way to stop — more realistically, slow down — one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time in Peyton Manning. We were a close group and put in the extra hours in the film room at night.
Gameday couldn't come soon enough. Ready to be a champion, I had my barber style my hair to show a Lombardi Trophy cutout. We fell behind early, but handled the ebbs and flows, and when Drew drove us for a fourth-quarter TD and two-point conversion, we held a 24-17 lead.
Still, we needed to make a stop. Finally, on third-and-5 at our 31-yard line, there it was! Reggie Wayne ran a slant across my face, I read it and made the break. Seventy-four yards later, I was in the end zone with the ball … and we were about to be crowned Super Bowl champions.
Aside from the birth of my kids, there was no better feeling, the years of hard work all worth it in an instant. The next two days would be a celebration in slow motion. Interview after interview, congratulations after congratulations, a mass of fans at the airport, a victory parade through downtown in Mardi Gras floats.
New Orleans and Louisiana were back on the map.
Now we welcome Super Bowl LIX to our city. It will be a great celebration of how far we've come, but I also can't wait to see the game. Every time I watch a Super Bowl, I'm reminded of "my moment." Whose moment will it be this year? We'll soon find out!
Tracy Porter played nine seasons in the NFL (2008-16), the first four of those with the Saints.
