JOURNAL STAFF
NATCHITOCHES – Two more key players on the Northwestern State football team said Monday they were shocked when university president Dr. Marcus Jones and athletics director Kevin Bostian cancelled the Demons’ last four games of the season last Thursday, and they want to resume playing.
Sophomore tight end Travon “Champ” Jones launched a petition four days ago, at the suggestion of a Student Government Association official, urging resumption of the season. Nearly 800 people had added their support on Monday, when by 10 p.m. the petition had collected a total of over 2,100 signatures.
Several other players were among those commenting on the petition, along with parents, and family members of other NSU students directly impacted as members of the Spirit of Northwestern marching band and other support groups such as cheerleaders and dance line members.
The Demon tight end, who had 20 receptions last year and added 15 in five games this season, estimated “I could easily say over 75 percent (of team members), easy … would like to continue to play” the rest of the season, beginning with Saturday’s cancelled homecoming game at Turpin Stadium.
“We want to play. It’s definitely not the players,” said Jones on the “Billy West Live” podcast distributed by the Natchitoches Parish Journal Monday afternoon. (LISTEN BELOW)
In the introduction to the petition, Jones wrote, “the fight to finish out the season is because it’ll give the athletes an outlet for the troubled times we are facing. This is a life-changing decision we should have say in.” (LISTEN BELOW)
Cadillac Rhone, a sophomore safety who is third on the team with 23 tackles, told Alexandria’s KALB-TV “we should have been playing football, playing the sport that we came here to play.”
Rhone was described as a close friend of the late Ronnie Caldwell Jr., the junior safety who was shot to death Oct. 12 at the Quad Apartment Complex across La. 6 from the university campus.
“We sacrificed our time away from our family and loved ones and all the work that we put in, and we get to display that on the field … that’s all I could think about, just going out there and playing ball,” said Rhone. “I miss it already.”
NSU cancelled its Oct. 14 game at Nicholls, then resumed the season Oct. 19 with a hard-fought 37-20 home loss to Southeastern. The game was moved up two days so Northwestern players, coaches and team personnel could attend Caldwell’s funeral in Austin, Texas, where Demons’ coach Brad Laird was invited to speak by the victim’s family.
Five days later, President Jones announced that the rest of the NSU season was cancelled due to Caldwell’s death and cited “the mental health and well-being of its student-athletes as the primary reason.” It scrapped the Demons’ game 48 hours later at McNeese, which was celebrating its homecoming.
President Jones said in the Thursday announcement NSU officials “learned that the hurt on our team was too deep. Now it is in the best interest of our players, coaches and staff to pause and take this time to mourn, to heal, and to support Ronnie’s family.”
Jones and Bostian also announced Laird had resigned. A day later, Caldwell’s parents and two Houston attorneys announced plans to sue the university, Laird and the apartment complex, and any other parties they deem responsible for Caldwell’s death.
On Saturday, Northwestern quarterback Tyler Vander Waal made a social media post criticizing the decision, saying players were “kept in the dark about everything” and calling the cancellation “a cop out.” Over 300,000 people have viewed his post on X (formerly Twitter).
He termed the cancellation “unacceptable” Monday, and said he was soon returning home to California, regrettably ending his football career.
“Ronnie would want us to play,” Vander Waal told Shreveport’s KTAL-TV. “That’s why we played Southeastern … (to) honor Ronnie …. he wasn’t a quitter. That’s not what he would want us to do … to quit is not honoring Ronnie at all.”
Meanwhile, the Southland Conference Monday issued guidelines addressing the cancellations’ impact on league standings. NSU’s five games not played are deemed “no contests” and will not be reflected in opponents’ final records, but will be counted as wins for the opponents to determine the Southland standings. They will not count as losses for NSU, the league said.
The Petition: