ROUSES_SeptOct2019_Magazine

Who Dat Nation with determination and resiliency. We want to play for you, fight for you, and win for you. You deserve that. The longer I play I realize that we truly are one heartbeat with our fans. Our success is your success. Our disappointment is your disappointment. We are inspired by one another to accomplish things far greater than what we could ever do on our own. Everything that has ever happened to this community, we have bonded together, passion and emotion into your families and communities. Inspire others with your focus & determination and positive outlook. This will make us stronger, this will bond us tighter, this will be a source for our success in the future. There is no place like New Orleans. There is no community like ours. No fans like the Who Dat Nation. I refuse to let this hold us down. I refuse to let this create any negativity or resentment. I embrace the challenge. So keep your chin up, hold your head high, puff your chest out because WE are the Who Dat Nation and WE will always persevere. “ I’ve spent this last week navigating the heartache and disappointment from the game. Some things within our control and some outside our control that caused us to fall short. So much of our motivation is to represent the galvanized and leaped forward every time. The frustration we feel now can be channeled in the same way. Pour that

As FootballZebras.com’s Mark Schultz notes in a 2015 article, officials are instructed to throw the flag near the spot of the foul, and generally at a player’s feet. But sometimes they get carried away. In 2014, NFL back judge Todd Prukop threw his flag 31 yards, causing a sensation on social media and video sites. And in one of the more unfortunate instances in football history, Cleveland Browns offensive lineman Orlando

Brown was temporarily blinded in one

eye when official Jeff Triplette’s flag flew into his facemask and struck him during a 1999 game. The penalty flag has

become so ubiquitous that players who believe they have been fouled often try to help officials do their job by performing the

“throw the flag” gesture, placing their hand at waist level and pulling it up quickly to “throw” an imaginary flag. (Note to players: don’t do that; referees, TV broadcasters and opposing fans hate that.) NFL coaches got their own version of the penalty flag in 1999, with the introduction of the challenge flag. If a coach believes a play has been incorrectly ruled upon to the detriment of his team, he can challenge it by throwing a red flag onto the field (in effect calling a “penalty” on the officials and/or the opposing team). Of course, the most infamous penalty flags are often the ones that never appear at all, such as the missed pass interference penalty that cost the New Orleans Saints a trip to the Super Bowl last year. Officials who don’t call obvious penalties are often said to have “swallowed their whistles,” but wouldn’t it be more accurate to say they “withheld their flags?” So there’s the story of the penalty flag. We can thank Dike Beede’s moment of inspiration, along with his wife’s sewing skills.

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"Persevere" by Alexis Dillon, Student at Loyola University New Orleans, Department of Design

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