It was two hours until game time on Sunday and the subtribes of Who Dat Nation had established small villages from the western reaches of the Poydras Street neutral ground to the parking lots of the CBD. Charcoal smoke, thunderous music and the fragrance of hops rose into the clear blue sky above the popup pavilions, canvas chairs and generator-powered big-screen TVs.
Yes, tailgating was underway for the first time in the 2025-26 season, and despite widespread trepidation about the Saints’ chances for success, black and gold joie de vivre ruled the day. Though among one band of tailgaters, pleasure was mixed with poignance as they memorialized three members who’d died tragically just a few months before. More about that later.
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For 22 year Frank Gambino has headed up a tailgate gang from Purvis Mississippi (Photo by Doug MacCash,NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Mississippi Who Dats
Shade made all the difference on Sunday. Frank Gambino’s tailgate gang from Purvis, Mississippi, was clustered beneath a sycamore tree, sampling bacon-wrapped stuffed shrimp, cheeseburgers and such.
Gambino, a wholesale crawfish dealer, said he’s been leading his tailgating contingent for 22 years. So long, he said, that he’s the only original member left. He’s even had three different wives since the group began making its pilgrimage to the Dome, he said. Gambino’s current wife was sitting just a few yards away, but he suggested she not be interviewed, because you never know what she might say.
It’s clear that Gambino is a character. He said he’s 54 years old and had been a Saints fan since he was a kid. His dad, he said, had 17 season tickets. He used to slip somebody at the Hyatt 100 bucks to park his car. Back then, Gambino said, buying a Lucky Dog on the way to the Dome was a big treat. Some years, he recalled, the team was so bad, fans hid their identities with paper bags over their heads.
There was a merciful breeze on Poydras Street on game day. Gambino said the Saints are going to need another kind of Brees during this rebuilding period, and preferably in the front office making personnel decisions.
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Roy Bradley displays his "crack pasta," a tailgate delicacy (Photo by Doug MacCash,NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
'We love our city'
Roy Bradley’s tailgating territory is not picturesque, not even close. It’s a patch of black gravel, bracketed by concrete barricades, under a roaring overpass. And yet it was a beautiful scene Sunday, with a bunch of friends and family clustered together, sharing their enthusiasm for the upcoming game.
At roughly 11 a.m., Bradley announced it was time to eat, and peeled the aluminum foil off of a delicacy he called “crack pasta.”
“I call it crack pasta because it’s crackin,’” he said. Bradley said he’s the chef of a popular restaurant, and his pasta left little doubt that he was a pro. Studded with cubed tomatoes and a blizzard of parsley, it was delicious before you even tasted it.
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Tailgate leader Roy Bradley surrounded by friends and family (Photo by Doug MacCash,NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
You can tell you’re at a New Orleans tailgate party when a fan shows up toting a saxophone. Removing his baseball cap, horn man Tyronne Fountain pointed out that he and late jazz legend Pete Fountain have three things in common, their last name, a love of music and no hair to speak of.
Bradley said that the beauty of tailgating is that “everybody comes together for the same reason.”
The team, he said, “could lose ten in a row and we’re still going to be out for the Saints, because it’s our city and we love our city.”
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A tailgate second-line parade memorialized 21-year-old Hubert Gauthreaux III, who was one of the 14 victims of a January 1st terrorist attack on Bourbon Street and his grandparents Hubert Gauthreaux, 75, and Victoria Gauthreaux, 72, who were killed in February by an impaired driver. (Photo by Doug MacCash,NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Gauthreaux Strong
At a South Rampart Street parking lot, the tone was both raucous and reverent. As tailgater Tempi Nepveaux tearfully explained, the West Bank-based Who Dat tailgate group has been partying before Saints games for a decade. But Sunday would be the first time the fans had gotten together since a pair of tragedies took the lives of three in the group.
Twenty-one-year-old Hubert Gauthreaux III was one of the 14 victims of the Jan. 1 terrorist attack on Bourbon Street that stunned the city. He and his father customarily attended Saints games together, Nepveaux said. Unimaginably, the young man’s grandparents, Hubert Gauthreaux, 75, and Victoria Gauthreaux, 72, were killed the next month by an impaired driver.
Nepveaux pointed out that the Who Dat group had arranged three empty chairs under their shade shelters, with the trio’s favorite beverages in the cup holders. She said that the group had also arranged for the Pocket Aces brass band to accompany them in a second-line parade to the Dome.
More than 100 fans, many wearing black T-shirts with gold lettering that read, "Gauthreaux Strong," waved gold handkerchiefs as they marched toward the stadium, led by a flag emblazoned with portraits of their three late members.
Chris Peet, the man known for jogging through the French Quarter carrying a flag marked with the word love, in memory of the New Year’s terror attack victims, also accompanied the parade.
It was an odd blend of sport devotion, mourning and celebration. It was perfectly New Orleans.
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A tailgate second-line parade memorialized 21-year-old Hubert Gauthreaux III, who was one of the 14 victims of a January 1st terrorist attack on Bourbon Street and his grandparents Hubert Gauthreaux, 75, and Victoria Gauthreaux, 72, who were killed in February by an impaired driver. (Photo by Doug MacCash,NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)