NATCHITOCHES — Northwestern State, Central Louisiana and friends and colleagues from around the country will have a final chance to say thank you and goodbye to legendary Demon football coach Sam Goodwin in a most fitting place.
Goodwin, who passed away at home March 20 at age 82, will be honored with a memorial celebration at Turpin Stadium at 10 a.m. April 25. Along with his legendary tenure as head coach at Northwestern, Goodwin was a Pineville native who helped the Rebels win the 1960 state football championship and later revived (2014-15) a struggling program at Alexandria Senior High, where he had current Trojans coach Thomas Bachman as his offensive coordinator.
The celebration of Goodwin’s life will lead into the annual Joe Delaney Bowl spring game that caps Northwestern’s spring practice, which began Tuesday. Goodwin launched the Delaney Bowl tradition and also inaugurated the Joe Delaney Memorial Leadership Awards for permanent team captains after Delaney’s heroic drowning death in 1983.
In case of inclement weather, the ceremony will take place in A.A. Fredericks Auditorium on campus.
Goodwin won a school-record 102 games in 17 seasons at the helm of the Demon program, turning it into a perennial Southland Conference championship contender while setting the Southland Conference wins record.
Goodwin led the Demons to four conference championships – the 1984 Gulf Star crown and the 1988, 1997 and 1998 Southland titles. He twice was named Southland Conference Coach of the Year.
His 1998 Demon team reached the FCS semifinals where it fell to eventual national champion UMass. That 1998 team equaled the school single-season record of 11 wins and featured four of the 22 All-Americans Goodwin coached at Northwestern.
His 1988 squad advanced to the FCS quarterfinals and is the only Northwestern team to go unbeaten in Southland play. That season, Goodwin’s “Road Warriors” picked up five straight conference or playoff wins away from Turpin Stadium, including a regular-season-ending 20-17 victory at Stephen F. Austin, which had previously been ranked No. 1 in the nation. Two weeks ahead of the win at SFA, the Demons took down another top-ranked team, North Texas, on the road.
In addition to the 20 on-field All-Americans he produced, Goodwin also coached two Academic All-Americans, a National Football Foundation Scholar-Athletes, 42 first-team All-Southland Conference selections and 38 players who reached the NFL – several whose only Division I scholarship offer was from Goodwin.
Goodwin earned induction into the N-Club Hall of Fame – the highest honor the university awards to student-athletes and athletic staff members – in 1999. He was inducted into the Southland Conference’s Hall of Honor in 2007.
His granddaughter Jaycee Goodwin designed the graphic announcing the memorial event.