Story and photos by KEVIN SHANNAHAN
The second annual Demon Brothers’ CrawFest brought music, food and fun Saturday afternoon following the Delaney Bowl and the Sam Goodwin memorial service at Turpin Stadium.
The annual Joe Delaney Bowl has ended spring football practice at Northwestern since 1990, and Saturday morning’s 37th edition featured a quality of play that was a promising portent of things to come. This year’s event was particularly poignant, taking place immediately after the memorial service for Goodwin, the beloved legendary NSU football coach.
The afternoon and evening provided fun for everyone with the Demon Brothers Booster Club’s second annual CrawFest event.
The DBBC is an organization of former NSU football players and family members founded a few years ago to provide financial support and encouragement to the NSU football program. Each spring, the DBBC has fed the team after the Delaney Bowl and earlier this decade hosted a low-key public crawfish boil after the team meal.
In 2025 the organization’s board of directors decided to up their game and added a flavorful twist, the inaugural Demon Brothers CrawFest. As with the inaugural event, many former players from miles around with their families joined Demon fans to support the young men who currently wear the NSU purple and white.
Arranged by former defensive tackle and Delaney teammate Bryan Arceneaux, Louisiana Environmental Transportation’s Let’s Geaux Crawfish Crew served up over 2,000 pounds of mudbugs to a hungry and appreciative crowd of several hundred supporters and visitors. That amounts to over a ton of juicy crustaceans with all the fixings!
For those who couldn’t enjoy crawdads, longtime NSU supporter and former Demon baseball player Layne Miller offered over 100 gallons of his signature homemade jambalaya, long a staple of NSU and community events. Two bands were on hand to entertain the crowd with an eclectic variety of music spanning mid-afternoon into the pleasant night air. The Spirit of Northwestern and NSU Pom Line also performed a rousing set of their gameday standards.
CrawFest also included well-received live and silent auctions. Revenue from the gate receipts combined with auction sales and sponsorships from an array of local and statewide businesses, some owned by former players or alumni, all serve to advance NSU football. Demon Brothers leaders stated that every dime raised will go to supporting the team.
Former Demon, author, two-time Super Bowl champion linebacker, College Football Hall of Famer and college football analyst for ABC, Fox and ESPN, Gary Reasons gave each member of the football team a personally autographed copy of his latest book “Reasons to Believe.”
The man the spring game is named in honor of is Joe Delaney, a former Northwestern athlete. He was an All-American in track and field as well as football, setting school records in both sports. Joe was a second-round NFL Draft choice and played for two seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs where he was named “Rookie of the Year” by United Press International.
For all of his athletic accomplishment, the Haughton native left a legacy of courage and character on and off the field. His life ended in heroic fashion. Before his third pro season was to begin, on June 29, 1983, Joe went with some friends to an event at a water park in Monroe. Three children, trying to cool off, had ventured into a nearby drainage pond and could not get out, and bystanders were calling for help. Despite not being able to swim, Joe Delaney dashed to the scene and nonetheless dove in to try to rescue the children. One survived, but tragically the other two and the man who gave his life to try to rescue them did not. At Joe’s funeral, Vice President George Bush personally delivered the Presidential Citizen’s Medal at the direction of President Ronald Reagan and read Reagan’s remarks during the ceremony in the packed Haughton High School gymnasium. Those words sum up this remarkable man’s legacy well.
“He made the ultimate sacrifice by placing the lives of three children above regard for his own safety. By the supreme example of courage and compassion, this brilliantly gifted young man left a spiritual legacy for his fellow Americans…”
Forever more, all NSU Demons have some big shoes to fill.
