This design so far hasn’t been used, but I designed it after a seemingly impossible event: the New Orleans Saints making it to the Super Bowl! Then, of course, they won the Super Bowl, which was even better! To understand how this design is associated with the Saints NFC Championship win, check out the video/audio below. Saints fans will probably always remember announcer Jim Henderson’s jubilant words; they were a long time coming!

    Once the Saints made it to the Super Bowl, the insanity began! Long time Saints fan and WWL Sports Talk announcer Buddy Diliberto always promised that if the Saints ever made it to the Super Bowl, he would wear a dress. Well, unfortunately, Buddy never got to see this happen, because he died on January 7, 2005. But former Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert took over Buddy’s role at WWL. When the Saints finally made it, Bobby fulfilled Buddy’s promise by wearing a dress (and a lot of other stuff that an NFL quarterback rarely wears!) and leading a wild parade of thousands of other guys wearing dresses in Buddy’s honor. It was called Buddy D’s Dress Parade (along with a few other names) and there’s another short (and distorted) video from the parade below, complete with a flying pig.

   In the design, the head is a separate piece and is attached by aluminum welding. Use the folds in the neck of the pig to further camouflage the weld. Because the pig’s head is angled upward, the sculpture shouldn’t drip in this area, even if it extends outside of the display tray.

    Given that there are 31 other teams in the league, if you’re even a football fan, you’re probably not a Saints fan. Hopefully, however, there’s a realization as to how much the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast appreciate what the Saints have done to renew the region’s battered spirit. Certainly, nobody would trade the destruction of Katrina for a Saints Super Bowl win, but it does help ease the pain a little. Keep in mind, there weren’t any riots after the Saints won, unlike what’s been seen in other championship cities. Instead, it was the beginning of a brand new celebration: Lombardi Gras! Two days after Super Bowl Sunday, on Dat Tuesday, which was a week before Fat Tuesday, there was a parade in the Saints honor. This parade was scheduled before the game; win or lose, didn’t matter. An estimated 800,000 people showed up to see this parade, making it likely the biggest parade New Orleans has ever seen, Mardi Gras or otherwise!

    So what good is this sculpture design to you? Perhaps it would fit at any sort of celebration of an unlikely event or accomplishment. For example, if I were to suddenly and inexplicably win a Nobel Prize, well that might fit the bill. Maybe somebody should have previously said that it would only happen “when pigs fly,” but I don’t think that’s a requirement. Unless the sculpture is for Saints fans the lettering would have to change, of course, but there are probably lots of events that this design would work for. Another design in a similar vein is “Frozen Hell,” which will be added soon.

P.S. In case you’re wondering about the “Geaux” spelling, that’s kind of the Cajun version of “Go.” “Geaux Saints” and “Geaux Tigers” (LSU) bumperstickers are fairly common.

    If you have any questions about this piece, email me your comments (see below). If you would like to use this design or any other design on this site,,please check the design usage guidelines. The design collection page lists designs on the site.