Deuce McAllister: The Saints' Heart and Soul

The Voice That Launched a Thousand Saints Sundays

Every Saints fan knows the voice. Before every home game at the Superdome, before the team takes the field, before the crowd reaches its peak frenzy, there's a man on the field doing the introductions and working the crowd into a state of near-religious ecstasy. That man, for years, was Aaron Neville's voice singing the national anthem, and before him, it was the Superdome itself — that giant spaceship on Poydras — that was the cathedral.

But let's talk about someone who represents the Saints in a different way. Let's talk about Deuce McAllister.

Dulymus Jenod "Deuce" McAllister was born in Lena, Mississippi, in 1978, but he became a New Orleanian through football. He played running back for the Saints from 2001 to 2008 — the pre-Brees era and the early Brees era — and he ran like a man possessed. Two thousand three was his peak: 1,641 rushing yards and eight touchdowns, carrying a team that didn't have much else going for it.

McAllister was the best player on some terrible Saints teams, and he never complained. He ran hard, he played hurt, and he became the face of the franchise during its darkest years — the years when the Saints were still the Aints, when fans wore paper bags over their heads, when winning seemed impossible.

After retiring, McAllister stayed in New Orleans and became a radio analyst and community figure. He's one of those players who transcended the statistics — a man who represented everything good about the Saints during a time when there wasn't much good to represent. When the Saints finally won the Super Bowl in 2010, McAllister had been retired for two years, but every fan in the Superdome was thinking about the players who had carried the team through the wilderness to get there. Deuce was one of them.