The Silent Superdome Still Speaks to Me

In some ways, these differing conditions of the Superdome have come to represent the states of the city over the course of my life. First, the jubilation from days when fandom was uninterrupted by pandemics and natural disasters, when my childhood in the Crescent City was animated by screaming fans each Sunday—even in the seasons when losses came much more frequently than wins. Then the despair during Hurricane Katrina, when this building, which was in many ways the city’s heartbeat, filled with people who had suffered losses they would take years to recover from, if indeed they ever could.

The current emptiness of the Superdome, the distance placed between the fans and the team that they love, has come to embody the sense of distance I now feel from my hometown. Normally, I visit New Orleans several times a year, and my parents frequently visit my family here in Maryland as well. But there is a void now. There is an emptiness between us, as is the case for millions of families across the country. My father, a two-time kidney-transplant recipient, is immunocompromised; my grandfather, who lives around the corner from my parents, is almost 90 years old; my aunt, who lives with my grandfather, is in remission from breast cancer. I have two small children, ages 1 and 3. I don’t know the next time my parents will be able to hug them. I don’t know the next time my father, a season-ticket holder of more than 25 years, will be able to safely attend another Saints game.

I understand why the seats are empty right now. We are in the middle of a once-in-a-century global pandemic that has killed about 220,000 Americans. But even as I agree with the precaution of keeping an indoor facility closed to tens of thousands of screaming fans, I mourn for what the city has lost. The pandemic has cut people off from our traditions, our rituals, our community. It has taken away so much of what makes us human—those moments standing in a stadium with strangers who over the years have become friends, and hugging one another after a game-winning touchdown that means everyone is going to start their week in a good mood. Those moments are gone.

On September 25, 2006, after more than a year spent splitting “home games” between Baton Rouge and San Antonio (after an initial one in New Jersey) because of Hurricane Katrina, the Saints returned to a packed, raucous Superdome to play the Atlanta Falcons. Within the game’s first 90 seconds, the Saints special-teams player Steve Gleason blocked a punt that resulted in a touchdown that catapulted the stadium into euphoria. The Saints went on to win the game 23–3, and a statue of Gleason blocking that kick now stands outside the dome. Even watching the game from my freshman dorm room in North Carolina, I could feel what that moment meant to my city. It was a message to the world, and a reminder to ourselves, that we were back.

My hope is that, after the coronavirus is gone, and the Superdome is filled to the brim with black and gold, there will be a similar moment, something to mark our return from a disaster that has seeped into every part of our lives. The state of the Superdome reflects the state of my home. Things might be quieter now, but it won’t be that way forever. And when things go back to normal, or whatever the new normal is, the noise from the Superdome will be among the first signs to let us know.

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent and the forthcoming nonfiction book How the Word Is Passed.