Monday, Mickey Loomis arrived in Miami for the Super Bowl as the architect of the New Orleans Saints.
As executive vice president and general manager, Loomis is the guy who led the Saints through the 2005 season in which New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
He's the guy who hired coach Sean Payton and took a chance on quarterback Drew Brees and oversaw the drafts and free-agent signings that have produced the first Super Bowl team in the 43-year history of the franchise.
You might remember that Loomis, 53, is from here. That he grew up in Eugene's Bethel area and attended Malabon Elementary School and Cascade Junior High and graduated from Willamette High School in 1974. That he played basketball (and played it well) at Northwest Christian University when it was NCC and earned a degree in accounting from the University of Oregon and a masters degree in sports administration from Wichita State.
You might even remember that Loomis got an internship in the Oregon athletic department but was passed over for the position of ticket manager, and so in the fall of 1983 he was teaching in Elmira and serving as JV basketball coach at Willamette. The Oregon job wasn't the only job that Loomis wasn't getting back then, and here's the rest of that story.
“He'd applied for a bunch of jobs and got turned down for all of them,” recalled Dave Lipp, the former NCU men's coach who, as an assistant coach, recruited Loomis for the Beacons.
“He came over to my office and he started crying. He just felt there was no place for him. At the end, he said 'I have an interview with the Seattle Seahawks this Friday.' And I said, 'Mick, this might be exactly the job God wants you to have.' And he said 'Ah, I don't have any chance for that job.'
“He left my office still crying. But he went up and got the interview. I said 'Mick, it's going to be OK.' He called me that weekend and said 'you're never going to believe this. …'”
Loomis got the job, as the Seahawks' business manager. “And I said, 'praise the Lord,'” Lipp said. “You could see the handprint of God on his life through that.”
In 15 years with the Seahawks, Loomis rose through the ranks, ultimately becoming executive vice president, dealing with contracts and salary cap issues. In 2000, he went to the Saints and two years later became general manager.
In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city and the Super Dome, Loomis guided the Saints through that nightmare, logistical and otherwise.
And as New Orleans began rebuilding, Loomis, in the aftermath of a 3-13 season, began rebuilding the Saints. He hired Payton, a Bill Parcells disciple, as head coach and signed Brees, when the San Diego Chargers let him go, even though Brees was injured, with a torn labrum. He oversaw the draft that brought New Orleans running back Reggie Bush and all-pro guard Jahri Evans and wide receiver Marques Colston and the ensuing drafts and free-agent signings.
In 2006, the Saints reached the NFC title game and Loomis was named NFL Executive of the Year.
And now, on Sunday, the Saints are in the Super Bowl.
“The Saints got better the old-fashioned way,” wrote Richard Justice in the Houston Chronicle. “By hiring a terrific head coach. By making first-rate personnel decisions. Let's push the pause button to salute general manager Mickey Loomis and his staff for seeing value in players other teams didn't. … The Saints were constructed one roster spot at a time, through critical evaluation and a willingness to take chances.”
In an interview last week, Loomis said that in his 26 years in the league, he's learned football from experience and from coaches he's worked with — Mike McCormack and Tom Flores and Chuck Knox and Dennis Erickson in Seattle; Jim Haslett and now Payton in New Orleans.
But some of his values clearly go back farther than that.
“We're very high on character, intelligence and toughness before athletic ability,” he said. “Certainly, you want athletic ability, but Sean has a saying that 'smart players do smart things, dumb players do dumb things.' In this league, the game is so sophisticated, you have to be very precise in the way you approach a game, in the way that you practice, and so you're going to have to have intelligent players to be successful.”
Although the Saints are more than the coach and the quarterback, both additions have been life-changing for the franchise.
“The standout feature for both of them is that they're super leaders,” Loomis said. “They're both extremely talented in football terms. Sean is as good an offensive mind as you're going to find in the game, and Drew certainly is one of the top two or three quarterbacks in terms of decision-making and accuracy on the field. … But I think the standout quality for both of them is leadership.”
In the aftermath of Katrina, Brees has received national recognition as an athlete who cares about his community; he backs that up not simply by giving, but by giving of himself.
“The New Orleans Saints are an important part of the fabric of New Orleans and so whoever the quarterback or the coach is, they're going to be icons in the city,” Loomis said. “You know that comes with the territory here. What you don't know is that Drew is going to be so successful and that he's going to embrace his role, not only as the quarterback of our team but as an ambassador for the city and as a guy who rolls up his sleeves and does things in the community.
“But the great thing about our team, and the character of our team, is that we have so many guys that have done that and do that, and they've been doing that for quite a while.”
When Garrett Hartley's field goal in overtime a week ago gave the Saints the NFC championship and a berth in the Super Bowl, the celebration in New Orleans was heart-felt.
“I think it's definitely more emotional given the history of this team — 43 years, never been in this game — and along with Katrina, and what happened with Katrina,” Loomis said. “I know the emotion is probably greater than most places.”
But there was emotion in Eugene, too. Loomis' parents, Gerald and Viola, still live here, and he has friends that he's known since Malabon Elementary School.
“I know their heart was in their throat at the end when Garrett kicked that field goal, just like mine was,” he said.
(It will be a family gathering at the Loomis' Eugene home to watch the Super Bowl on television on Sunday. Although Mickey offered tickets, his parents have chosen to watch the game at home, with his sister, Kimberly McDaniel and brothers, John and Clifford, who all live in Eugene, and with his other brother, Richard, who will fly down from Alaska for the occasion.)
Immediately after the NFC championship game, Loomis got a message from a former Willamette High School classmate who'd gone to the rival junior high, Shasta. “He sent me a text that said 'Not bad for a Cascade greaser,'” Loomis said. “I thought that was pretty funny.”
He's also heard from people he knows at Oregon, including director of football operations Jeff Hawkins, a former New Orleans resident who worked game-day operations for the Saints in the past and who visited Saints' facilities for the Ducks last year. (Small world: For years, Hawkins has run the summer camp for Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning and his brother Eli; he'll be rooting for the Colts on Sunday.)
Loomis still communicates regularly with Lipp and they talked Sunday, when Loomis called to offer his old coach a ticket.
“He's still the same guy he was,” Lipp said. “He'll call me up and say 'Dave, what do you need, and how can I do it for you,' … and he follows through on things like that. He looks after people. I'm really proud of him. You get to a high level and some people forget their roots and forget what got them there. He's definitely remembered those things and tried to live them out. …
“You feel loved when you're around him. He's a charismatic type of guy, and yet you see his humbleness. That's where a lot of leaders lose it; they think they're better than everybody else and they want you to know it. Mickey's never been there.”
It's been a long road from Eugene and those rejected job applications of 27 years ago.
“That worked out,” Loomis said. “It didn't seem like it was going to work out at the time, but, hey, we all find our path and sometimes it's not the path we predicted. I'm glad I grew up and was raised and went to school in Eugene, and I'm certainly glad where I've ended up right now. It's been a fun experience.”
Sunday, at last, it will be Super.
