New Orleans Saints' first lady Gayle Benson has come a long way as a fan

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on August 13, 2009 at 9:58 PM, updated August 14, 2009 at 11:45 AM
Gayle Benson, the wife of New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson, says, 'For me, the charm of football will always be watching how fans react, especially young fans. Watching them get caught up in the moment, the highs and the lows, how the game touches so many lives of all ages leaves you with a special feeling.'

From Swan Lake to Saints 23, Falcons 3.

From Beethoven's Ninth to Who Dat.

What a journey it has been for Gayle Benson.

"Can you believe someone who saw her first football game five years ago now has a football field named after her?"

Tom Benson is saying this, unable to restrain a roar of Category 5 laughter.

Later in the month, the owner of the Saints and his wife will be in San Antonio to watch the University of Incarnate Word Cardinals open their inaugural season on the "Gayle and Tom Benson Field."

For the Bensons, benefactors in helping to launch a football program at a small college, it represents a temporary break from the business at hand, for an owner zeroed in on his NFL team's preseason progress here at home, for a spouse continuing to enjoy her life as a football fan.

Saints owner Tom Benson and wife Gayle celebrate with Saints Coach Sean Payton after beating the Falcons 23-3 in the team's return to the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina.

"You can say I started from scratch, from ground zero," said Gayle. "My parents were both sports fans, big Saints fans. Not me. The only things that really caught my interest were ballet and the symphony. Then, thanks to my husband, a whole new world opened."

That was almost five years ago, the summer of 2004, the beginning of a whirlwind courtship by someone who was introduced to his future wife at St. Louis Cathedral.

"I didn't know who he was," said Gayle. "When I was told he owned the Saints, I was busy raising funds to repair the cathedral's roof, and I thought wouldn't it be nice if he made a $10,000 donation."

Well, it wasn't long before Gayle was getting her first taste of football, not the NFL kind but Arena football, watching the New Orleans VooDoo.

Compared to what Gayle Benson would later be watching at the Superdome, Arena football probably seemed like a non-stop version of frantic ballet on a crowded stage.

"I will say this," she remembered. "The fans really got into it."

In a way, her introduction to sports had been the same for her husband.

Before Tom Benson took over the Saints in 1985, he was too occupied in the business world to become a fan of any sport.

"When I hired Jim Finks as general manager," he said, "Jim became my teacher. I was fortunate to learn from the best. Jim had come up through the ranks -- player, coach, GM. He was old school. I learned from Jim, and I'm still learning."

Tom married someone who knew the difference between an arabesque and a pirouette, but because he wanted a wife who also knew the difference between a linebacker and wide receiver, he turned the job over to his GM, Mickey Loomis, for some one-on-one discussions involving the basics of the game.

"They were very instructive," said Gayle. "For me, the charm of football will always be watching how fans react, especially young fans. Watching them get caught up in the moment, the highs and the lows, how the game touches so many lives of all ages leaves you with a special feeling."

To characterize her husband as intense watching his team play is an understatement.

"He's so much more intense," said Gayle. "Sometimes it's tough for him to fulfill his role as host, because he gets so wrapped up in what's going on."

Last season, the Saints were playing the Packers in a Monday-night game in the Superdome that had competition on another channel, a documentary on former New Orleans Archbishop Philip Hannan.

There came a moment when someone switched channels, from what everyone in the suite had been watching, a 51-29 Saints victory, to the program on the archbishop.

"Hey," shouted Benson, "the archbishop is one of my favorite people, but get back to the Saints. He'll understand."

Gayle Benson understood when she suddenly got the word on when she'd be married.

"It's gonna be Oct. 29," said her husband-to-be.


"Because it's bye week."

This was the countdown she experienced in that Gayle-in-Wonderland year of 2004.

This was a bride-to-be who met her future husband in April, whose first "date" was a football game on Mother's Day, who was shocked when her suitor pulled "the most gorgeous ring I've ever seen" out of his pocket when he proposed in September.

"I thought he was having a bad day because he was so preoccupied," said Gayle.

Now with many good days behind them, they're on their way to a fifth anniversary.

"I know it'll sound like a cliche, but it's been a dream," said Gayle Benson. "As an up-and-coming football fan, it can be tough picking one moment over another. But I don't know if anything can top the first game played in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina, that victory over Atlanta on a Monday night.

"The feeling you had of how a football game, and a football team, was pulling a city together after a terrible tragedy. It was other-worldly. Swan Lake was never like that."

Peter Finney can be reached at 504.826.3405.