MIAMI (Reuters) – The New Orleans Saints completed their long-awaited transformation from chumps to champions by defeating the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in the Super Bowl on Sunday to claim their first NFL title.

Saints quarterback Drew Brees completed 32 of 39 passes for 288 yards and two touchdowns to out duel the Colts’ Peyton Manning in a match-up of marquee quarterbacks.

A Mardi Gras-style celebration broke out in Dolphin Stadium when Tracy Porter picked off a Manning pass with just over three minutes left and raced 74 yards for a score to give the Saints a 31-17 lead.

“I’m proud of this team, these coaches and everybody back in New Orleans,” Saints coach Sean Payton told the crowd after the game.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) – Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith, two record-setting offensive powerhouses, were elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday in their first year of eligibility.

Also elected to the Class of 2010 on the eve of the Super Bowl were Russ Grimm, John Randle, Rickey Jackson, Floyd Little and Dick LeBeau.

Rice, 47, owns virtually every significant receiving record, including receptions (1,549) and yards (22,895), and has scored more touchdowns (208) than anyone.

Smith, 40, rushed for a record 18,355 yards during his 15 NFL seasons, most of them spent with the Dallas Cowboys.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) – NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell vowed Friday to complete a labor agreement with the players union and avoid a work stoppage that could potentially wipe out the 2011 season.

Goodell denied claims made a day earlier by union chief DeMaurice Smith that the league was setting the stage to lock the players out when the current deal expires next year.

“We want an agreement,” Goodell told a news conference. “Every owner will tell you the same thing. We want an agreement that’s fair to the game, to the players, and allows us to continue to invest in the game.

“The idea that ownership would be anxious for a work stoppage is absolutely false. You don’t make money by shutting down your business.”

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) – Tony Dungy remains a large presence in the Indianapolis Colts’ locker room despite stepping down as head coach more than a year ago.

Jim Caldwell, who has taken the reins from the soft-spoken, deeply religious Dungy and has the Colts playing in Sunday’s Super Bowl, readily tips his hat to his predecessor.

“More so than anything else Tony’s impact on us is more how he lives his life, not necessarily what he says,” Caldwell told reporters Thursday.

“That more so than anything else was extremely important. He modeled it out, in terms of being a Christian, in terms of being a man of faith, every single day in the way he lived.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) – The most passionate New Orleans Saints fans outside of Louisiana on Sunday will come from the unlikeliest of places — Baltimore.

It’s not that Baltimoreans have any kind of special relationship with The Big Easy, or an uncommon affinity for Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street or historic Jackson Square.

More than a quarter-century after the Baltimore Colts left town for Indianapolis, Marylanders continue to seethe, desperately wanting to see the team mauled each time it plays.

The stakes will rise — along with Baltimoreans’ blood pressure — when the Indianapolis Colts face the Saints in the Super Bowl on Sunday at Dolphin Stadium in Miami.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) – A right ankle injury to Indianapolis Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney has thrown little-known reserve Raheem Brock into the limelight just days before Sunday’s Super Bowl at Dolphin Stadium.

With Freeney walking gingerly and listed as questionable for the game against the New Orleans Saints, Brock went from obscurity to the center ring in the Super Bowl’s media circus.

“Right now we’re approaching it as if he’s not going to play,” the 6-foot-4, 274-pound Brock told reporters Wednesday.

“That’s how we’re approaching everything. If he’s able to play, he’ll probably come in on third down. We won’t need to show him anything — he knows how to get to the quarterback.”

MIAMI (Reuters) – With one swing of his leg, Garrett Hartley rose from relative anonymity to the toast of a city known for throwing the best party in America.

Hartley’s 40-yard field goal in overtime lifted the New Orleans Saints to a 31-28 victory over the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC title game, giving the once-downtrodden franchise its first Super Bowl berth.

“I’ll be at a restaurant, and when I walk out I’ll get a standing ovation,” the 23-year-old told reporters as the Saints prepared to face the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl on Sunday. “It takes me a while to understand what’s going on.

“The other day I’m leaving a restaurant and this guy, he must have been 70 years old, busts out a harmonica and starts playing, ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.”

MIAMI (Reuters) – When kicker Matt Stover showed off the Super Bowl ring he earned with the New York Giants in 1990 to his Indianapolis Colts team mates they were startled.

The beauty of the diamond-encrusted ring had nothing to do with their reaction.

“Some of the guys yelled, ‘Whoa, I was three years old during that one!’” Stover told reporters Tuesday during the NFL’s annual media day run-up to the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Loyalty and fate played key roles this season in allowing the 42-year-old Stover to be the Colts’ kicker when they face the New Orleans Saints in the title game at Dolphin Stadium.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) – The tender ankle of Dwight Freeney was the dominant talking point when the Indianapolis Colts arrived in South Florida to make their final preparations for Super Bowl on Monday.

Freeney, a five-times Pro Bowler and anchor of the Indianapolis defensive front, hurt the ankle in the AFC title game against the New York Jets and is questionable for Sunday’s title game against the New Orleans Saints.

“He’s a great player, obviously a very talented guy,” Colts coach Jim Caldwell told reporters barely an hour after the team’s plane touched down in a driving rainstorm.

“There have been some guys from time to time that we’ve had to play without. If he can’t go, it’s kind of an old mantra that we’ve said time and time again: ‘The next man is up’.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hannah Teter has led such a charmed life that the Olympic snowboard champion even has an ice cream flavor named after her: The Maple Blondie.

The easygoing, 23-year-old Vermont native has fame and fortune, and concedes that making a living doing tricks on a snowboard is not a bad way to go through life.

Yet social awareness has a big place in the soul of the 2006 Olympic halfpipe champion, the youngest of five siblings, who began snowboarding at the age of nine.

“I’ve always felt really lucky and really privileged with my life, how I grew up and the opportunities I’ve had,” she told Reuters in a recent telephone interview.