Drew Brees may be the only quarterback ever to take the Saints to a Super Bowl win, not to mention a man whose leadership after Hurricane Katrina earned him lots of love off the gridiron. But that doesn’t mean he was the first choice to reign over this year’s 75th annual Washington Mardi Gras celebration.
That honor, said U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, belonged to Brees’ former boss, New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson.
Kennedy is chair of this year’s festivities, a role that rotates among the members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation, so the choice of a ceremonial monarch was his.
Interviewed at the luncheon for Brees at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Thursday, the senator — no relation to the venue’s namesake — said that he proposed choosing Benson to krewe leaders, but was told “the king can’t be a queen.”
Given that he’s “labor, not management,” he moved on to his second choice and reached out to No. 9, whom Kennedy lauded this week not just for his football heroics but for his embrace of Louisiana and its people as they fought to recover after the monster 2005 hurricane season, a journey that had strong echoes in Brees’ own fight to overcome major injury and show that his best days still lay ahead.
Kennedy didn’t get an immediate “yes.”
Brees said Thursday that he’d heard stories of this mysterious event, but “it was one of those things where you didn't know if it was so far-fetched, that all the stories were true ... It was like, wait, they actually have a four-day Mardi Gras celebration in our nation's capital? They basically take over the entire city? Every member of Congress wants to attend? Bring their constituents? And every Louisiana businessman and family is jumping at the opportunity to attend?”
So Brees set out to do some due diligence. He got a list of past Washington Mardi Gras kings and recognized some people he’d come to know as friends — shipbuilder Boysie Bollinger, Acadian Ambulance’s Richard Zuschlag and Todd Graves of Raising Cane’s, all more typical of the business-leader types who usually get the assignment — and they told him to keep three things in mind:
First: Everything you’ve heard is true.
Second: Pace yourself. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, but it’s “crazy and exhausting, and you’ve got to do it.”
Third: Get your pocketbook ready and be sure you have a budget, because being king doesn’t come cheap.
Brees also circled back to Kennedy and asked him to describe the duties in more detail.
“I told him, ‘It’s like describing sex. You can try, but it’s hard,’" Kennedy said.
It is indeed.
For one thing, a king might find himself in the elegant home of France’s ambassador to the United States, leading a bunch of Louisianans in a “Who Dat” chant and reminiscing about the time he proposed to his wife in Paris. That happened Wednesday night, as Ambassador Laurent Bili stood at Brees’ side alongside Kennedy, U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy and House Speaker Mike Johnson, wearing a Saints cap.
“I’ll be honest with you, I’ve got no idea what to expect but I know it’s going to be awesome because our state is awesome,” he told the crowd, before finishing with an expertly pronounced “laissez le bon temps rouler.”
Brees also took a brief opportunity to make it clear that he’s already pretty comfortable in the world of politics. He noted that he’d worked with Cassidy before on several issues, and met Johnson previously. As for Kennedy, he joked, the two of them have been talking, and have almost managed to solve problems with the online transfer portal.
It was all in good fun, but it raised an intriguing question that, to be fair, a few folks have asked before. Could Brees ever see himself getting into politics?
That was my first question when I got him one-on-one. And while he again didn’t say yes right away, he also didn’t say no.
“I’m not closing the door on anything,” he said — although he added that it’s probably not the right time for him right now. His four kids are 9 through 15, “so we're just in the sweet spot of with all the activities. And honestly, just the joy of the moments that my wife and I have to spend with them. So I'm really trying to just max out on those moments.”
But he’s also pursuing some “growth opportunities” available since he retired from football, such as sitting on various boards and executive committees. “It’s almost like going back and getting a master's degree, or a couple of them, surrounding myself with people that are a lot smarter and have accomplished a lot in life. Just trying to glean as much information as I can, to see how that applies to not just the business things that I'm doing, but what I might enter into in the future.”
He also said he’s already involved in public issues through his foundation in Louisiana and is a big believer in public-private partnerships on things like housing and economic development.
So if he did run, what would his issues be?
One thing he talked up was the film tax credits that were attracting productions to Louisiana early on during his Saints years — when the Brad Pitts and Angelina Jolies would show up to games because they were shooting movies in town, and like him, fall in love with the place, which he figures benefits the state economically.
Otherwise, he cast himself more as a student than peer, for now at least, of the politicians he occasionally consults.
“I have things that I might read about that appear to be key topics, or issues within the state of Louisiana, that maybe I'm just even trying to learn more about or understand our state's position on,” he said.
If he hasn’t aced the issues yet, the native Texan and part-time Californian has certainly mastered the art of touting Louisiana.
At the king’s luncheon, he repeated his oft-quoted belief that if you love Louisiana, it will love you back.
“I think what (my wife Brittany and I) didn’t realize was that, once you get Louisiana in your blood, it is in your blood forever,” he added.
And for the record, he said he’s got no hard feelings over having been second choice for king: “I will play second fiddle to Ms. Gayle Benson any day.”
