Exorcizing Demons: Northwestern State Football Returns After Tragedy

Northwestern State football players finally had reason to smile after a canceled season and a teammate's senseless murder.

Thursday night’s most noteworthy contest was one played in relative obscurity. Its significance had nothing to do with the 62-28 final score.

To call Northwestern State’s loss at Tulsa a win might be somewhat patronizing—Demons coach Blaine McCorkle specifically downplayed any “moral victories” per the university athletic website.

“The first thing people need to recognize and remember is Northwestern State just completed a Division I football game today. I've said it many times, a lot of people thought this program was going to be dead and gone, but that's not true. We're alive and well, and we have a lot of good football ahead of us. We don't believe in moral victories – that's not who we are – but there is an awful lot for our whole university and the city of Natchitoches to be proud of tonight.”

Two weeks before Halloween 2023, Northwestern State faced Southland Conference counterpart Southeastern Louisiana in a game of far more consequence than each team’s winless record coming into it suggested. For Northwestern State, it marked the abrupt end to the Demons’ season in the wake of safety Ronnie Caldwell Jr.’s shooting death a week earlier.

Following the 37-20 loss to SELA — NSU’s return to action after the previously scheduled game against Nicholls, which was canceled just two days after Caldwell’s murder — Demons then-coach Brad Laird explained NSU’s decision to play the Lions:

“When we first met going into the week – we have a word of the week – and it was honor. When we talked about honor, you want to honor how Ronnie played the game. That was the challenge to our guys, seven days removed from a devastating situation for these young men and our coaches.

"We talked about honor in a lot of different ways. Honor your family. Honoring how they live their life each and every day. Yes, we had a football game to play seven days from that incident, but our biggest thing was wanting to come out and play how Ronnie would play. He played with great effort and had fun playing the game. That's what I wanted our guys to do, and I was proud of our guys.”

Laird resigned the following week, announced the same day that the university administration declared the remainder of the Demons’ season canceled. Caldwell’s family initiated a wrongful death lawsuit just days later, naming the university, the apartment complex where roommate John McIntosh is alleged to have shot and killed Caldwell, and Laird as defendants. Kyle Bonagura reported extensively on the lawsuit for ESPN.com with details including that McIntosh pulled a gun on Caldwell days before the murder.

Caldwell’s NSU teammate, Maurice Campbell II, was also arrested in the aftermath, further compounding the tragedy directly impacting the Demons football program.

To call this a horrible situation undersells the gravity of it all. Most tragic is that a young man pursuing his dreams was needlessly killed. And, a facet to college football that only garners much discussion in awful instances like this, is that families entrust the protection of their loved ones to the caretakers of these programs. There’s a unique responsibility in coaching at the college level that doesn’t exist in high school or professional sports.

Perhaps I’m naive or overly idealistic, but I truly believe there are far more coaches and administrators who prioritize the development of their athletes as people than not. I also believe that some of the outliers that make it seem like those in positions of leadership do not have the right motivation are not the result of maliciousness.

Certainly there are examples to contrary: The murder of basketball player Patrick Dennehy at Baylor, Dave Bliss’ attempts to cover it up and his seeming lack of contrition in the years since might be the most odious.

However, I attribute a vast majority of missteps not to sinister motivations but erring in judgment. We all have choses to make in life, and sometimes those choses are incorrect. Of course, there are consequences for those choses — and those in positions of leadership are tasked specifically with making the right choices for others.

I cannot comment on Laird’s decisions nor his motivations preceding Caldwell’s death until details from the lawsuit emerge. I can say that I understand Caldwell’s family response. I can also say that I believe Northwestern State decisionmakers, faced with a difficult choice, made a bad situation worse for the remaining Demons players when the final month of the season was canceled.

Shreveport-area TV station KTAL detailed the public response of shock and frustration NSU players felt upon learning of the cancelation. Tight end Travon Jones is quoted:

“I want a platform to where the players are heard,” said Jones. “I feel like this decision was made with not everybody knowing what was going on.”

Jones feels like ending the season wasn’t in the best interest of the Northwestern State players, and he says the best way to honor Caldwell would be to finish what they started.

“We understand that everybody grieves differently,” said Jones. “I feel like it should have been taken into consideration the ways that we grieve and I don’t think that was done.

Jones noting that “everybody grieves differently” resonates with me on a personal level. The circumstances are much different, so I bring this up noting it’s not a one-to-one comparison. The weekend after my older brother died by suicide, my junior high basketball team played in a one-day tournament at a school two hours away by bus. I chose to play despite missing school that week.

The results of the games we played or my individual performance in them were of no consequence to me. More significant was that being with my friends offered temporary relief from unrelenting sadness and bewilderment. Having a reason to leave the house meant a break from the continuous stream of well-wishers stopping by whose intentions were noble and comforting for my parents but only added to the weight on my 13-year-old shoulders.

Most importantly, though, the decision to play basketball offered me reassurance that my family was going to be OK. My parents made the drive, trailing the school bus on the way down. I rode back with them. I still remember our dinner at a roadside diner that night—the kind of diner New York Times reporters haunt for man-on-the-street political journalism—as a seminal moment. It was a rare moment of happiness for us as a family in that trying time, but a building block toward returning to normalcy.

When college football players or coaches refer to their teams as “families,” the metaphor fits. For most athletes, it’s the first time they are away from their actual families; the team provides a similar infrastructure. Wanting to rally around those closest to you, your “family,” and doing the things that made you happy together before tragedy is only natural. Pulling from my own experience, I also believe it’s vital.

Northwestern State’s hard-fought loss at Tulsa on opening night may not be a moral victory, as its new coach emphasized. But it can be considered a morale victory.

Seeing the smile running back Kennieth Lacy cracks when discussing his 75-yard touchdown run to open the Demons’ return to the field, it’s hard not to smile along with him.

Here’s to Northwestern State having plenty more reasons to smile in 2024—the team deserves it.