Not every football fan in Vicksburg is succumbing to the Saints Fever that has gripped the Gulf South this season.

Some have developed a case of the Blue Flu.

Klondyke owner and operator David Day is among a small pocket of Indianapolis Colts fans in the city. In a sea of black and gold, the Indiana native isn’t shy about rooting for his team as it prepares to face the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV tonight.

“It’s the other way around. I’ve been giving it to them. I tell them I’m proud of the Saints, but it’s a shame they’re going to lose,” Day answered and laughed when asked if he’d been keeping his Colts fan-dom on the down-low. He then added, “I’m secretly rooting for the Saints. It’d be a great comeback story.”

It’s understandable why a long-time Colts fan — Day has cheered on the franchise since it moved to Indianapolis from Baltimore in 1984 — would sympathize with the long-suffering Saints. Although New Orleans was long the poster child of NFL ineptitude, the Colts put together a 20-year run that could rival the worst of the “Aints.”

From 1978 to 1997, the Colts finished with the league’s worst record four times, made the playoffs just three times, and never won more than 10 games. Future Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, who appeared in five Super Bowls and won two with the Denver Broncos, refused to sign with the Colts after they selected him with the first pick in the draft in 1983. Their first-round draft pick in 1982, quarterback Art Schlichter, was suspended from the NFL in 1983 and banned in 1987 for betting on games.

The Colts even accomplished something the Saints couldn’t — a winless season. They went 0-8-1 in the strike-shortened 1982 season.

“If the Colts weren’t here, I’d be 100 percent for the Saints. But everybody loves the underdog,” Day said.

Indianapolis reached the AFC championship game in 1995, and the playoffs in 1996, but won only three games in 1997. That gave the Colts the No. 1 pick in the draft once again, and this time they got it right. They picked quarterback Peyton Manning, and the franchise hasn’t been the same since.

Since 1999, Manning’s second season, the Colts have won fewer than 10 games once and made the playoffs 10 times. They won Super Bowl XLI in 2006 and many more fans around the country. Manning jerseys are among the top-sellers each year.

“It’s the more the merrier. It’s a sign of success. Everybody wants to be part of a winner,” Day said.

That includes such fans as 14-year-old Carlisle Koestler, an eighth-grader at St. Aloysius.

Koestler’s father, Mike, has been a Colts fan since Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas quarterbacked them in the 1960s, and the son latched onto the team as he grew up watching Manning. The younger Koestler has a roomful of Colts paraphernalia, including a helmet autographed by Manning and a blue No. 18 jersey. He’s even attended several Colts games against the Texans in Houston, where a family friend has a luxury box at Reliant Stadium.

“He’s known no other team but the Colts. He just turned 14, and Peyton’s been there 12 years,” Mike Koestler said.

Like Day, Carlisle Koestler isn’t trying to hide for whom he’ll rooting tonight. He’s enjoyed some good-natured trash talk with friends at school who are Saints fans, but is ready to gain the upper hand once and for all.

“That’s the main reason I want the Saints to lose, is because everybody likes them,” Koestler said.

*

Contact Ernest Bowker at ebowker@vicksburgpost.com