After riding out Katrina inside the high school where he coached, Cyril Crutchfield rebuilt his football team and helped restore the spirit of devastated Plaquemines Parish by winning back-to-back state championships. Ten years on, however, the uplifting story of recovery has taken a twist for its hero and his town. Reported by Amy K. Nelson.
I never would have believed the Saints would be what they are today—an institution almost on the level of the French Quarter in New Orleans—after Katrina hit 10 years ago this week. Nor would the people who went through it.
“I remember driving from the airport to the team facility as a free-agent the spring after Katrina,” said Scott Fujita, a free-agent signed by the Saints in 2006, “and there’s only one way to describe what I saw: post-apocalyptic.