For months he couldn't make himself walk the broken neighborhoods, gaze upon the houses with the number of dead scrawled on the doors and ponder ruined lives. This was too much even for Joe Horn, wide receiver for the New Orleans Saints, always boasting how he's afraid of no one, skipping across the field, arms jangling, fingers jabbing, words spitting like machine-gun blasts.
He could still catch a pass knowing he was about to be splattered across the grass and won't even think twice about walking into the Superdome on Monday night for the Saints' first game back in this city despite the horrors of what happened in that building last year. But he couldn't get in his car, drive over the canal and into the heart of Hurricane Katrina's devastation.
"It hurts me, man, every time I go into a poverty-stricken neighborhood," he said Thursday standing in the Saints' locker room "I grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood. To see what happened there, I couldn't do it. I couldn't go in."
Then in the last few days, there came a request from producers at ESPN, who wondered if they could get him to go the Ninth Ward and the Lower Ninth Ward, the places that still look like the storm had swept through yesterday, where the streets are dark and the houses -- what's left of them -- are shells. And the wide receiver who is something of a ham, didn't want to go but couldn't say no.
So last week, as he stood in the ruins of Katrina absorbing the fury of the hurricane and the lagging recovery, he began to cry.
"You're damn right I cried," he said. "I had to get myself together just to do the interviews."
Soon people had gathered around, recognizing the man who was the face of the Saints the last several years. He began asking questions. Who all was a Saints fan? Who was going to Monday night's game?
That's when the woman stepped up and said she had been in the Superdome for Katrina and experienced horrors she could never repeat. The stadium represented nothing but terror for her. There was no way she could ever walk through the doors again, she said.
"I just put my arms around her and said, 'It will be all right,' " Horn said.
What else could he do?
There is something rough but endearing about Joe Horn, who was the scorn of the league three years ago when he orchestrated a touchdown celebration so elaborate that he pulled a cellphone from the goal post padding. In the fury of the storm, he was the Saints' conscience, lying on his bed in the team's San Antonio hotel room watching day and night as Katrina tore through the city that had come to embrace him. He was never one to hold his words and soon they were spilling out every day: about the shock, about the anger, the pity he felt.
"It was personal," he said Thursday.
He tries to remember that. Even though he couldn't step into the destruction, he could talk. He found the fans in the streets, in the restaurants and at the team's practice facility. They told him they were depending on him this year, on the Saints, and that moved him even more.
One day a man told him that if everyone could get together and spend millions of dollars to rebuild more than 1 million feet of the Superdome, then people should be able to come back and rebuild their 1,000-square foot houses. This sounded inspirational to Horn, who began repeating the man's words. Why shouldn't he help New Orleans rebuild?
Yes, it is personal. The other day in Green Bay, as the Saints were fighting to come back in a game they eventually won, Horn -- who had already been criticized by Sean Payton, the Saints' new coach -- kept thinking about the faces he saw back in New Orleans. He couldn't let them down. Suddenly there was even more inspiration.
"I couldn't show my face if we lost a game," he said.
Later Payton said: "He came up with some good plays for us when he needed it."
These days, the Saints have other stars than Horn. This year has been all about Reggie Bush, last year's Heisman Trophy winner, and Drew Brees, the quarterback signed from San Diego. Horn is still expected to be a big part of the offense, but it's not just all about him and running back Deuce McAllister now. Horn says he is fine with the diminished attention, especially if it brings along the winning.
Mostly, he just wants to see everyone in New Orleans having fun again. "I'll be happy for the fans," he said. "I'll be happy for the real Saints fans who didn't think the Saints would be back in New Orleans."
The team's commitment to its city was questioned often last year before owner Tom Benson announced in January that the Saints were staying in New Orleans. It's probably not a subject a Saints player should be addressing, especially on the week the team returns to the dome many thought they would never play in again.
Then again, that's Joe Horn. As was the way he stood on the practice fields here after a June minicamp open to the public, signing autographs for nearly an hour, long after his teammates had retreated to the showers on a steamy late spring day. When one approached him later, wondering why he had done this, Horn shrugged.
"Ahhh, man, they had been out there all day. I couldn't just walk away," he told the player.
Thursday, when asked about this, he laughed and said, "We forget sometimes there are little kids and babies waiting all day for us, sweating and dying just to get our autographs. What happens when we get old and bring our kids and stand out there sweating our butts off and no one signs autographs for them? You'll say, 'Man, I should have signed back when I was playing.' "
He is back with his people again.