Tom Benson

Sport: Administrator

Induction Year: 2014

Induction Year: 2014

Known for his ownership of the New Orleans Saints since 1985 which saved the NFL franchise from perhaps moving to Jacksonville, Fla., the New Orleans native has been at the forefront of sports in the Crescent City for nearly 30 years. In 2012, he became owner/chairman of the board of both of New Orleans’ major league sports teams when he purchased the NBA’s New Orleans franchise. In 1985, Benson bought the Saints from John Mecom and quickly hired Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Finks as general manager and Jim Mora as head coach, who two years later helped deliver the club’s first winning season and playoff appearance since its inception in 1967. He also presided over the team’s first division title (1991), first playoff victory (2000) and first NFL title (2009) after the Saints took a 31-17 win over the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV on Feb. 7, 2010. He has also been instrumental in helping bring five Super Bowls to the city, including Super Bowl XLVII which was played on Feb. 5, 2013. He also owned and operated the New Orleans VooDoo of the Arena Football League from 2002-08 and in March 2012 surprised the entire region when he paid $338 million to buy the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets, now renamed the Pelicans. Benson and his wife, Gayle, are active philanthropically in New Orleans. He has been a member of numerous NFL committees as an owner, including three stints as chairman of the powerful Finance Committee. A World War II veteran who served in the Navy, Benson was born in 1927 in New Orleans.

Benson adds Hall of Fame induction to long list of honors

By: Lori Lyons

There are many paths to the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and each visitor must find his or her own way.

Some take the Expressway, the swift and direct route, never detouring off the beaten path. Others take the back roads, enduring the potholes, the bumps and the hazards. Eventually, however, all reach their destination in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

The same is true for the Hall of Fame inductees. Some get there swiftly and surely, while others have to find their way. And some have to make their own way.

Such is the case of Tom Benson. Over the course of three decades, the Louisiana sports icon went from humble car salesman to hugely successful businessman to somewhat improbable sports mogul and, now, to Louisiana Sports Hall of Famer.

Benson will be enshrined in Natchitoches on Saturday night, June 21 to culminate the June 19-21 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration.

Once best known for his wheeling and dealing as the owner of several automobile dealerships in the New Orleans area, as well as in San Antonio, Texas, in 1985 he began his journey to becoming the patriarch of Louisiana’s two biggest sports franchises – the Saints and the Pelicans. For a while he also owned the city’s Arena League team, The Voodoo. In between, he also became a beloved figure to New Orleans sports fans (although not without some bumps along the way) and a generous philanthropist.

While is no record of Benson ever claiming to be an athlete, not even in his youth, he is one of the world’s best-known cheerleaders, infamous for his post-Saints victory dances on the sidelines with Saints coaches, staff, players and fans, complete with his ubiquitous black-and-gold umbrella.

But he also has showed that he knows how to build a winning team.

For more than 20 years, New Orleanians had faithfully followed their beloved Saints, win or lose. And, at the time, there was quite a bit more losing than winning. The team had never had a winning season by the mid-1980s.

When then-owner John Mecom put the team up for sale in 1985, fans were horrified by the idea that the team – loveable losers that they were – might be sold and shipped out of state. At the urging of some of the state’s heavy power-hitters, including former Governor Edwin Edwards, Benson was convinced to buy the Saints and keep the franchise in New Orleans. The May day the deal was signed, Benson promised Saints fans that he would, one day, bring a championship to the city.

But he had some work to do. First he had to put the right people in place to turn the team around. Among his first moves was to hire the late Jim Finks as his general manager, then Jim Mora as the coach of the team. Together, in 1987, Benson’s leadership team steered the Saints to their first winning season, then their first playoff appearance. The team notched its first playoff win in 2000.

While Benson’s head for business proved to be just as successful in football as it was in car sales, Benson said he had a lot learn about the game itself.

“When I hired Jim Finks as general manager,” Benson said in a 2009 interview. “Jim became my teacher. I was fortunate to learn from the best. Jim had come up through the ranks — player, coach, GM. He was old school. I learned from Jim, and I’m still learning.”

“From the get-go, he was smart enough to surround himself with good people,” said former Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert, “and not letting his ego ever get in the way of what he needed for the team.”

Benson was determined to build a winner for the city of New Orleans.

“(Winning) is a big part of his life,” said Gayle Benson, Tom’s wife of 10 years, a woman who knew virtually nothing about football when she met her future husband at church. “He and I have a lot of long talks about that. It’s important to him because he feels the passion about the city, the state and the welfare of the people. It’s really about those people. A lot of those people spend their last few dollars just to go to these games and it means a lot to him to see the team winning. Tom is very competitive and he wants to win.”

The road got rocky both for Benson and for the Saints after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005. The Superdome, the team’s home field and the landmark of the city’s skyline, took a horrific hit both from the storm and from the thousands of people who used the building as a shelter of last resort. Damages were in the millions of dollars, and there was speculation that only recourse was demolition. While the Saints training facilities, located in the suburb of Metairie, suffered only minimal damage, rumors began to fly that Benson was looking to use the hurricane as an excuse to take his team and move it to Texas.

The Saints endured a nomadic season in 2005, playing several games on the road – including one at LSU’s Tiger Stadium, as repairs to the Superdome got underway. The team limped to a 3-13 finish. But Benson regained the city’s favor by announcing that the Saints would be back for the 2006 season and that the Superdome would be ready. The team also would have a new coach in Sean Payton and a new (albeit slightly used) quarterback in Drew Brees. The team promptly sold out its entire 2006 season for the first time in franchise history.

“He gave me the opportunity,” said Brees. “He brought in Sean Payton. You can say, ‘unproven coach Sean Payton.’ He basically said, whatever we need to do to create a winner, we need to do.”

Benson, Payton and Brees proved to be keys of the ultimate winning combination for the Saints. In 2006 the team won its third division title, its first NFC South title and earned a first-round bye in the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. The team also won a coveted ESPY Award for its emotional Superdome-reopening win against the Atlanta Falcons, sparked by Steve Gleason’s now-legendary blocked punt, in a game that signaled to the rest of the world that New Orleans was back. Then the Saints showed that they were better than ever, winning Super Bowl XLIV 31-17 over the Indianapolis Colts in Miami on Feb. 7, 2010.

Benson also has been instrumental in helping bring five Super Bowls to the city of New Orleans, providing a global spotlight for the city and state, let alone major economic impact.

In April of 2012, Benson added to his New Orleans sports Monopoly board corner when he agreed to purchase another floundering franchise, the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets, to keep pro basketball in the city. In 2013 he announced the team would change its mascot to a Louisiana and New Orleans iconic figure, the Pelicans, with a new color-scheme and logo designed, in part, by his wife Gayle.

“The nickname Hornets didn’t mean anything to this community,” Benson said at the time. “The pelican represents New Orleans, just like the Saints. They have incredible resolve. If they can to that, the team can do the same.”

Gayle Benson said her husband has worked tirelessly to create the empire he has built.

“He’s come from nothing,” Gayle Benson said. “He’s a self-made man and in a unique spot. Owning two franchise teams in this level in the same city is just phenomenal. And he’s always looking for another deal. He loves the chase. He’s very humble. He doesn’t spend a lot of time making sure his legacy is intact and in place. He doesn’t worry about what his legacy is going to be. I think people in New Orleans are going to remember him for a very long time.”