Saints Will Be Marching In

Saints will train in Jackson, Millsaps president says

By Michael Wallace
mwallace@clarionledger.com

The New Orleans Saints are marching in to Jackson for training camp this summer. The National Football League team has reached an agreement in principle with Millsaps College to hold its month-long training camp in the capital city, Millsaps president Frances Lucas said today.

Lucas said the Saints have accepted the school’s invitation to use Millsaps’ facilities from July 21 through Aug. 24.

That would place the Saints in Jackson through their Aug. 26 preseason game against the Indianapolis Colts at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

“We’ve heard back from them, we’ve entered some agreements and we’re looking forward to having the Saints here,” Lucas told The Clarion-Ledger. “Everything hasn’t been signed yet, but we have a team of people working on that right now.”

Saints officials were not immediately available for comment. An official announcement about the Saints’ training camp move could come as early as Wednesday.

Millsaps officials had been waiting for Saints owner Tom Benson to sign the final contracts. Lucas would not discuss any financial agreements between the Saints and the school.

The Saints players will stay in dormitories at Millsaps and will practice at Alumni Field. Lucas said the camp will end before Millsaps students return to school for the fall semester.

Millsaps and Saints officials have been negotiating for at least two weeks. Those talks intensified when Saints general manager Mickey Loomis visited the campus with other team officials last Wednesday. Another team of Saints officials are expected to be in Jackson later this week.

The team also considered training at its own facility in Metairie, La., where the team has held camp the past three years.

But new coach Sean Payton, a former assistant with the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants, favors taking his teams on the road for training camp to bond and avoid distractions.

“There are benefits to going away for three, four weeks, from a standpoint of distractions, whether those be family, friends, whatever there may be,” Payton said Monday after the Saints wrapped up a weekend rookie mini-camp in Metairie. “You check into a dorm and concentrate on one thing, without the little things that might come up when you are at home. Does the one offset the other? We’ll see.”

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