NFL Draft will lift spirits in a dark time

As a child, I remember my father taking me to get my vaccination for the latter. Smallpox is now, for the most part, a footnote in history. We can only hope the same for a virus that has claimed too many, including the father of former Saints quarterback and radio host Bobby Hebert.

           

When the current storm is over, and it will be, sports will lead the comeback.
  The NFL should do its part, by holding its draft in late April. To those who would say it is a bad look for the NFL, I say hogwash.

           

The NFL Draft is a mega event in America. There is no better way of saying that the life we love and desire will be back soon. So what if players can’t attend? So what if teams, because of social distancing, won’t be able to congregate their scouts in a draft room?
           

For the last three weeks, schools throughout the United States have taken their classes, online. The NFL Draft can be “virtual” and still be a success.
           

Now, more than ever, America needs sports. I felt the same way after Hurricane Katrina. For two weeks, we called St. Martinville, home. Each morning, I would pack my lunch and head out the door for the studios of WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge. That was where the WGNO staff huddled.
           

Within weeks, we were back, in trailers outside the New Orleans Centre.
Would the Saints return was a part of a bigger question. Would New Orleans return? Of course, it would.

           

In the weeks and months that went by, I watched workers put a new roof on the Superdome. The race was on to get the stadium ready for a September 2006 re-opening.
           

When I had any doubt about our future as a city, I would walk outside and look to the roof and see the workers. It was comforting.
           

In the days after the storm, I was asked by many well-meaning people (I guess), what I would be reporting. After all, professional sports in New Orleans was likely gone.
 

But, the Saints defeated the Falcons on a Monday night. It was a pigskin affirmative, if there ever was one, that New Orleans would find its way back from a terrible tragedy.
           

And, so it will be after this dark hour has passed.
           

Ed Daniels is sports director of ABC26 WGNO. He can be reached at [email protected]