NEW ORLEANS - Only a Super Bowl victory parade could upstage Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Carnival floats carrying Saints players, coaches and team owner Tom Benson rolled past tens of thousands of jubilant fans in downtown New Orleans on Tuesday, two days after the 43-year-old franchise won its first NFL championship.
Players tossed beads into the crowd and signed autographs for throngs of screaming fans. Benson shouted "Who Dat!" into a microphone from his perch atop a float. Head coach Sean Payton blew kisses and held the Lombardi Trophy over his head.
"This is wilder than Mardi Gras," said Frank V. Smith, 55, a lifelong New Orleans resident who shot photographs of players. "I've never seen so many people out here like this. This is beautiful, man."
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
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Stanford hires 3 assistant coaches
STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford hired former NFL assistant Vic Fangio as defensive coordinator.
Coach Jim Harbaugh also announced Tuesday that Brian Polian will take over as special teams coordinator and Randy Hart is the new defensive line coach.
Fangio spent the previous 24 seasons in the NFL. He most recently was linebackers coach under Harbaugh's brother, John, in Baltimore.
Co-defensive coordinator Andy Buh left last month for Nevada. Ron Lynn will stay on as director of player development.
Polian is the son of Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian. He coached special teams the past five years for Notre Dame.
Hart had served as defensive line coach at Washington for 21 years before holding the same job at Notre Dame last season.
PIMA COLLEGE
Trujillo throws softball no-hitter
Jordan Trujillo threw a no-hitter in the first game of a softball doubleheader Tuesday, and the visiting Aztecs swept Glendale 3-0 and 9-4.
Trujillo had six strikeouts and improved to 4-0. Adrianna Garcia (5-1) had eight strikeouts and earned the victory in the second game. Four Aztecs had three hits: Claudia Nuñez, Chelsea Slama, Charissa Ballesteros and Mercedes Garcia.
The Aztecs are 9-1, 2-0 in the ACCAC.
• The Pima baseball team swept the UA club team 8-1 and 11-5.
Pima's Jesus Vega was 4 for 5 with a triple in the second game. Pima is 2-5.
MISCELLANEOUS
Thoroughbred owner Gann dies
RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif. - Edmund Gann, a prominent thoroughbred owner who campaigned Medaglia d'Oro and several other major stakes winners, has died.
Gann, who was 86, died at his home Sunday. The cause of death was cancer, according to Gann's family.
• St. Louis Rams running back Steven Jackson won't face criminal charges over allegations that he beat a girlfriend who was nine months pregnant with the couple's child at his Las Vegas home last year, a police spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Investigators found insufficient evidence that Jackson, 26, attacked Supriya Harris of Mableton, Ga., in March 2009.
Includes material from news releases
