New Orleans

[JD074]

Wow, this team is getting whiter and whiter. They already had
Dan Dickau, Chris Andersen, and Matt Frieje. Now they've
traded Jim Jackson (who refused to play for them) for Casey
Jacobsen, Maciej Lampe, and Jackson Vroman. On the one
hand, they're making this team really easy for us to root for.
But on the other hand, they're a terrible team, and it gives the
impression that the front office/ ownership has given up on this
season and are just bringing in a bunch of inexpensive white
players, who could easily be cut in the off-season (you know,
once they make an attempt to put together a "real" team.)

On the flip side, this is at least four white players that Phoenix
has traded away this year.

 

[Don Wassall]

That's good news. What's next, the New Orleans Saints with white players on their roster?

 

[jaxvid]

Odd thing about New Orleans. I am familiar with the area as I have family down there. Some of the locals can be extremely racial, both black and white. David Duke was a popular politician from a local suburb. The content of their football team defies reason.

 

[speedster]

Don't forget Gil Fenerty got some decent playing time with the Saints back 15 years ago.Should have received plenty more,but that's how it goes.So you can have some strange things happening in New Orleans.

 

[Don Wassall]

The Saints had a brief influx of white players when Mike Ditka coached them. The traditional all-black defense sprouted three white starters. On offense, wideout Keith Poole led the NFL in average yards per catch in 1999. The line was mostly white, while Ditka brought in a parade of not-very-good white quarterbacks, at one time even having two Billy Joes on the roster at the position (Hobart and Tolliver). Ditka's fatal mistake was giving away the store in order to be able to draft Ricky Williams. I was hoping he would instead draft Rob Konrad in the second round and give him a shot at tailback, but that of course was big-time dreaming.

When Ditka was fired and Jim Haslet took over, the Saints quickly reverted to their more traditional look. The defense instantly became all black again, and Poole became the fifth string receiver before disappearing from the league altogether following a brief stint as one of Mike Shanahan's curious stable of unused white receivers.

Interesting footnote: Ditka and David Duke once reportedly gambled side by side on a Mississippi River steamboat. That doesn't mean Ditka endorsed Duke's views (he briefly considered running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois as a conservative Republican last year), but New Orleans and environs is indeed a unique place as far as racial dynamics.

 

[bigunreal]

Don, I'm usually in full agreement with everything you say, but I have
to humbly disagree about Ditka. Ditka never impressed me as someone
ready to buck the Caste system. As an old-time player, he might
be better than the likes of Haslett, but I wouldn't credit him with
something he doesn't deserve. When he coached the Bears, he had a great
young back in Brad Muster, but he never really got the chance to be
anything else but the traditional blocking FB. Also, a WR by the name
of Bruce Koslowski was a terrific talent out of BYU, but the only real
chance he had to play was during the strike of '87 as a replacement
player. The Bears opted for mediocre blacks like Dennis McKinnon
instead of this potential star. He also had a stud TE named James
Thornton that he barely used. Ditka was also the primary reason why
Doug Flutie had to go to Canada to prove how good he was. Ditka strung
him out by starting him in a playoff game against the Redskins, after
he'd barely played up to that point. Jim McMahon and the rest of the
Bears veterans led a virtual mutiny against Flutie, and this was under
Ditka's watch. That wasn't a racial thing, of course, but I resented it
as a big fan of Flutie.



I agree with you about Poole, but if I remember correctly, most of his
chances to play came about because of injuries to several black WRs.
After Heath Shuler got the shaft in Washington, I hated to see him go
to New Orleans. Ditka was a real QB killer, and I knew he would not
help Shuler's shaky self-esteem. He was the last coach to let a Shuler
make mistakes as he grew, and turn his terrific athletic talent loose.
Finally, Ditka embarrassed himself totally when he posed with Ricky
Williams in those mock wedding photos. That was as bad as when Nancy
Reagan sat on Mr. T's lap in the White House.

 

[Don Wassall]

I didn't mean to imply he was a "Caste buster," merely an improvement over most NFL coaches when it came to playing whites. He was very, very tough on white quarterbacks. Remember how he loved to scream at Mike Tomczak? Even when Poole was clearly so talented, you're right he wasn't a starter and only saw a fair amount of action that one season of 1999.

He at least always had guys like Muster, Matt Suhey, Tom Waddle, Poole, and others, though he, like all other coaches, didn't develop them properly. The incident with David Duke was more a reflection of his "I don't care what anyone thinks" attitude, but he wasn't any advocate of our way of thinking, in fact I doubt he's a deep thinker at all, just an interesting, take-no-crap-from-anyone character who played more whites than most coaches of his day. The great '85 Bears were about equal in number of white and black starters.

 

[JD074]

The Hornets also have Bostjan Nachbar. But they waived Matt
Freije, the all-time scoring leader for Vanderbilt. That's sad. I
enjoyed watching him in college. I rooted for Vandy over
Tubby Smith's UK team (even though I grew up watching UK).
I hope this isn't the end of his NBA career.

On a brighter note, last night the Hornets did something that
probably hasn't happened in a very, very, very long time.
Since the game was a blow-out since the first quarter on, New
Orleans had five white players on the court for extended
minutes. For several minutes in the first and second quarters,
and pretty much the entire fourth quarter, there were five white
Hornets on the court. A bit of a strange sight. Even in televised
college games and the Euroleague games that I've seen, there
are at least one or two black guys on the floor for each team at
any given time.

The last time I saw this was with Utah a few years ago. Very
briefly- and I mean literally 10-30 seconds or so- they had five
white players on the court. But the Hornets did it for maybe
17-20 minutes. When was the last time that happened?
Maybe decades ago?

Utah and New Orleans are probably the only two teams that
could realistically have a white player for every position (also
Memphis if you played Cardinal at SF). Utah could actually
have a pretty good all-white starting five:

Either,
PG Lopez
SG Giricek
SF Kirilenko
PF Okur
C Borchardt

Or,

PG Lopez
SG Giricek
SF Harpring
PF Kirilenko
C Okur

 

[JD074]

Actually, if Kutluay can play at all, Seattle could have five white
players on the floor, too:

PG Ridnour
SG Kutluay
SF Radmanovic
PF Collison
C Potapenko

And if Cardinal could play a little SF:

PG Williams
SG Miller
SF Cardinal
PF Gasol
C Tsakilidis