It ain't easy finding a video of a WHO DEY chant. -bri
When you’re “just a fan,” you’ll do just about anything to occupy your time during a week-long run-up to the NFC Conference Championship. When your Saints are hosting in the Superdome for the first time ever, the stress is even greater. So, naturally, you’ll start a fight about WHO DAT vs. WHO DEY? Say what?
Watch a game with Saints fans and you’ll wake up with “who dat” ringing in your ears. It’s the clarion for all true Saints fans and just about one of the most fun chants in professional sports.
We wear it on our shirts, make it our ringtones, and create countless music videos and photo montages featuring WHO DAT.
It’s all fun and games unless you are a Bengals fan. Cincy fans try to rain on the Mardi Gras parade not because they think their team is better or they’re in the NFL Conference Championships this weekend – they aren’t and they aren’t. Their tiger-striped panties are in a bunch because they think they coined the chant, with a small variation: “Who dey?”
Most agree the Bengals marketing operation jumped on-board the WHO DAT /WHO DEY train before the NOLA team. The Bengals operation formally began using WHO DEY during a stunning winning streak in November 1980. It was recorded on a local record and a local brew carried the name. (Although most agree the original cheer was a much more Midwest appropriate “Who they…”) In fact, the chant probably didn’t inspire the beer, but rather the beer – brewed by Hudepohl – may have inspired the chant.
WHO DAT was popularized during a run of the Saints in 1983. Issue resolved, you say? 1981 comes before 1983? Well it depends. Countless reports of WHO DAT, which has origins in jazz (you know, invented in New Orleans) and vaudeville, place it in the grandstands of Bayou country high schools during the 60s and 70s. When those high-schoolers grew up, they took the chant with them to Southern University (in Baton Rouge) and LSU, and this is likely where it found favor with Saints fans. Southern was using the chant when Nixon was still president, and there are reports of the chant at LSU games from the late 70s up to 1982 during a massive run.
But let’s get back to those videos. A YouTube search unveils more than 22,000 WHO DAT videos to a paltry 2,400 WHO DEY videos. How about 19,700,000 hits on Google for WHO DAT to a demure 774,000 for WHO DEY?
If I’m in a crowded bar and hear a group bust out in a WHO DAT/WHO DEY (unclear to my drunken ears) chant, what team are they probably rooting for? Being that I’ve never seen more than one Bengals fan in a bar at any given time, I’d assume the Saints.
So the dates are confusing but the numbers are clear. When Joe-Green Bay hears WHO DAT/WHO DEY in a bar, he looks up in heaven to Breesus and thanks God for the Saints!
WHO DAT was popularized during a run of the Saints in 1983. Issue resolved, you say? 1981 comes before 1983? Well it depends. Countless reports of WHO DAT, which has origins in jazz (you know, invented in New Orleans) and vaudeville, place it in the grandstands of Bayou country high schools during the 60s and 70s. When those high-schoolers grew up, they took the chant with them to Southern University (in Baton Rouge) and LSU, and this is likely where it found favor with Saints fans. Southern was using the chant when Nixon was still president, and there are reports of the chant at LSU games from the late 70s up to 1982 during a massive run.
But let’s get back to those videos. A YouTube search unveils more than 22,000 WHO DAT videos to a paltry 2,400 WHO DEY videos. How about 19,700,000 hits on Google for WHO DAT to a demure 774,000 for WHO DEY?
If I’m in a crowded bar and hear a group bust out in a WHO DAT/WHO DEY (unclear to my drunken ears) chant, what team are they probably rooting for? Being that I’ve never seen more than one Bengals fan in a bar at any given time, I’d assume the Saints.
So the dates are confusing but the numbers are clear. When Joe-Green Bay hears WHO DAT/WHO DEY in a bar, he looks up in heaven to Breesus and thanks God for the Saints!
Well done Brian- a very accurate post. In fact, it's so accurate that it should PROVE to my sister that I was correct in our original conversation on the topic since we were simply discussed "which came first". Even with roots in NO that may have preceeded Who Dey, we were speaking only of usage by the professional franchises.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I feel like the Saints should be the rightful owners of the chant. Cincy is a cesspool, especially Norwood. In fact, I for one would like to nominate that the state of Ohio hand the city over to Kentucky. The Bungles are a terrible franchise with chili-eating, ugly ball cap wearing turds of fans. Thank you for the time and clarification.