The NSU football team, past and present, was out in force this Saturday, August 12 for the first scrimmage of the season. The Demons came out to learn, prepare and get better under sixth year Coach Brad Laird and his staff. The players worked on their skills and continued to meld together into one team and one family.
NSU Demon Athletics is about more than competition. The players are part and parcel of traditions that stretch back more than a century. These traditions, what Winston Churchill referred to in a more perilous context as “the long continuity of our institutions” bind players and coaches into a family. The NSU Football Player Alumni came home to NSU to visit and to treat the players to a BBQ lunch after the scrimmage. The lunch was more than a meal, however. It was an opportunity for the current players to meet the men who came before them and for the former players to see that the team is in good hands.
The former players also showed by their presence that the effort required to play a sport at the collegiate level is indeed worth the sacrifice. They are a group of men who have built successful lives in a variety of areas. There are lawyers, businessmen, physicians, coaches and retired professional players, all of whom once wore the Demon uniform and all of whom care about the young men who come after them. From 1975 St. Mary’s alumni and NFL star Petey Perot to 2008 NCHS alumni and Houston attorney Justin Warner, Natchitoches Sheriff Stuart Wright, 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals judge Van Kyser and NFL luminaries Bill Johnson, Barry Rubin, and Gary Reasons, the brotherhood of former Demon players have gone on to lives of accomplishment after their gridiron days. The alumni players presented NSU Head Football Coch Brad Laird with a check for $10,000.00 to assist with feeding the team while traveling and with equipment.
Effort, attitude, being the best you can be day in and day out in every aspect of your life, these are the ingredients of success in football-and in life. The Natchitoches Parish Journal wishes to extend its best wishes to the Demon football family for victory as they prepare for the upcoming season. We are most certainly looking forward to the best time of the year! Fork ’em Demons!
