You might recognize Larry Rolling from his season-ticket-holder seat at the Superdome, where he’s often pictured holding a handmade sign. These clever painted messages have landed Rolling on television screens and the front page of newspapers around the country.
In a room full of New Orleans Saints memorabilia in his Covington home, WDSU caught up with the superfan while he packed for his trip to Canton, Ohio, to watch Drew Brees enter the NFL Hall of Fame.
“There’s so much history in here,” Rolling said while giving a WDSU reporter a tour of his so-called Saints sign room. “I mean, you have the ‘Home Sweet Dome’ sign. Drew Brees signed it. has signed a lot of my signs in here. If you look at them, you’ll see his signature.”
Rolling calls Brees his favorite Saints player of all time.
“This man put so much heart into this city when we needed it after Katrina,” he said. “We need to support this man, and we are going to have the biggest fans up there .”
Fans like Cindy McRae, who landed in Ohio with her daughter, Sarah Matthews, Thursday night. McRae said this is her bucket list trip and an early 70th birthday present.
“I feel like I’m going into the Hall of Fame. I mean, I feel like we never got to really say goodbye when he retired,” McRae said on a Zoom call from her hotel room. “It really is like we’re all being enshrined, and I’m tearing up, saying it. You know, (we) waited so long … Now it’s time for us to honor him for what he did for us.”
Matthews said being a Saints fan is about more than football; it’s a tradition shared through generations of families.
“The Saints is part of the culture of New Orleans,” Matthews said.
Rolling gave WDSU an exclusive sneak peek at the sign he will be holding to watch Brees enter the Hall of Fame.
“So when Drew’s making his big speech, the sign man is going to be holding this up and it’s going to say ‘ is a Brees,'” Rolling said. “It really was for Drew Brees, right? I mean, I think it was for Drew Brees.”
READ MORE:Hall of Fame is a Brees: Fans go to Ohio for Saints legend enshrinement
