On Oct. 26, 2023, Northwestern State University of Louisiana President Marcus Jones sent a mass email to all students, officially breaking news of the cancellation of the 2023 football season following the tragic passing of junior safety Ronnie Caldwell Jr.
“The Northwestern State University family is going through a difficult and somber period following the tragic passing of junior safety Ronnie Caldwell,” Jones wrote. “In light of this, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the remainder of the 2023 football season.”
The decision to cancel the season has impacted students, teachers, staff and the community at large. As a university, the football season schedule typically provides stability for various university activities, including NSU’s spirit groups the Spirit of Northwestern Band (SON), Demon Heat Colorguard, Demon Dazzlers and Demon Cheer.
Despite the abrupt change, NSU’s spirit groups continue with their performance and adapt to the cancellation of football.
David Steele, director of Demon Heat Colorguard, described how he received the news.
“I was in the middle of teaching and it was almost like this rumble in the classroom, and I didn’t know what was going on. It definitely took me by surprise, I was not expecting that, so we found out just like everyone else did,” Steele said.
The news saddened Steele, and he feels that the entire NSU community was affected by the news. “Not only are we going through the mourning of losing Ronnie in such a tragic way, but the South and this school in general sort of lives and breathes football, so when we realized that the season was over, there was almost this second mourning that a lot of the students and the staff and directors are going through.”
Anthony Pursell, director of the Spirit of Northwestern Band, was made aware of the football season cancellation before the official announcement. He met with other NSU leadership, including Reatha Cox, dean of students, and Yonna Pasch, director of student affairs.
“I was in a meeting about an hour before the press release came out. We were just talking about the decision that had been made and how we could best comfort our students,” Pursell said. “By the time I got back to my office, I was already flooded with questions coming from students and there were already things coming in on social media.”
Pursell shared the information with the SON and its alumni through a mass text on their private channel. In this message, Pursell wanted the SON to understand the decision to cancel the season was made in the best interest of the university and out of respect for Ronnie Caldwell’s team, family and friends.
While recognizing that the cancellation of a football season is a significant disappointment in this region, Pursell expressed his firm support for President Marcus Jones, understanding that the loss of a student takes precedence over any sporting event.
“Canceling a football season, especially in this region of the country, is almost like taking church away on Sundays. But as a program, and as a director and as one human being to another, I firmly support and understand what the president is going through,” Pursell said. “While it may be disappointing, there’s a much bigger issue… and that is the loss of a student,” Pursell said.
Pursell stressed the importance of trusting the university’s leadership during this challenging period, and that the decision was made with the students’ best interests in mind.
“Especially with the story not known completely, and until that investigation and that report comes out, we have a responsibility to trust our leadership,” Pursell said.
The directors and staff of the SON met several times to discuss their course of action following the football season’s cancellation. While they were uncertain about the specifics of their plans, they unanimously decided to continue offering SON student scholarships.
“Once we sort of figured out what administration expected from us, we got together to decide what we expected from the Spirit of Northwestern and Demon Heat moving forward,” Steele said. “There was no question about it, we were gonna move forward, we just didn’t know what that looked like.”
Typically, these scholarships are tied to participation in football game performances. Students of SON, Demon Heat, Demon Dazzlers and Demon Cheer are all required to attend and perform at halftime shows to retain their scholarships.
“We do require the performances, but we’re reasonable, especially for last-minute things,” Pursell said. “The cancellation of the football season is not a student decision, no matter if they support or don’t support, we do not see how it should penalize our students.”
Pursell said that SON members have already demonstrated their commitment and met scholarship requirements. For SON, the scholarship represents a promise that Pursell intends to honor. He emphasized that they do not want to impose any additional financial burden on the students.
“This is happening near the end of the season, so the students really have put in a lot of time to really justify their full scholarship, as long as they’ve met the requirements before this decision happened,” Pursell said.
NSU Cheerleaders are also required to attend and perform at football games. Amy Dodson-Stepp, director of the NSU cheer team, said that scholarships would not be affected as the games are not the only requirement for student scholarships.
But with the cancellation of the football season, Stepp needed time to process the news before deciding on her course of action.
“When we got the email that said the season was canceled, I was kind of glad I wasn’t with the team because I had to process, and I felt emotional just thinking about them and everything that’s going on with the university,” Stepp said.
NSU Cheer performs in two seasons: football and competition. With the newly available weekends, the team will prepare for their national competition in January 2024.
“We never want our routine to impact our purpose of being game day cheerleader advocates for Northwestern, so usually we wait until football is over to focus on nationals. But this gives them something to look forward to, and we’re going to focus on trying to win first place at nationals,” Stepp said. “Their Saturdays are still going to be full.”
Demon Heat will also focus on their competition season in the Spring 2024 semester in the upcoming weeks.
“There will be performance opportunities next semester that are not at all associated with the football games, so even though the football season was cut a little bit short this year by a few games, we’re gonna start working on a whole new show in the next couple weeks for our competition,” Steele said.
SON only operates within the football season, so there will be no additional performances to replace the typical halftime shows.
“The band performances are pretty much in line with the football season, so as we are in the season, technically, our performances at all of our home football games are required and any other performances that are in conjunction,” Pursell said. “We don’t typically ask for anything too much outside of that time frame.”
However, on Nov. 4, 2023, at Turpin Stadium, the SON, Demon Heat Colorguard, Demon Dazzlers and Demon Cheer groups hosted a final performance in the spirit of homecoming.
Pursell wanted SON to perform one last time, specifically for homecoming, but also to honor the SON members in the class of 2024.
. “We wanted to make sure that seniors, especially, would not relive their senior year of high school again,” Pursell said. “They already are used to having their traditions of the rite of passage of graduation taken away from them, but obviously that was for a health scare and a health emergency.”
Demon Heat, Demon Dazzlers, and NSU Cheerleaders from the class of 2024 were also recognized during the event. As a cheerleader herself, Stepp felt it was important for the senior cheerleaders to have an opportunity to savor their last performance at Turpin Stadium.
“Not that we could’ve done things differently, but just the mindset that, ‘I’ve cheered my whole life and I’m in my senior year,’ going into the game. The pictures, and taking every moment in, they didn’t get that opportunity,” Stepp said. “I’m excited that Northwestern is offering this so that the cheerleaders can be on Turpin one last time before we truly wrap up the football season.”
On the evening of Oct. 26, during cheer practice, Stepp reassured her members that the cancellation of the football season would not lead to a repeat of the pandemic-related cancellations.
“We said, don’t go thinking that this is like the pandemic when everything’s closed. The university is operational, and we want to be as strong as we can to support the football team,” Stepp said.
Steele shared his belief that their Homecoming performance will help the NSU community look forward to the remainder of the 2023-2024 academic year and to the next football season.
“The decision that was made, to do one last performance in Turpin stadium for homecoming, it made sense to the directors, to the staff, to our performers. I think the school deserves this, we deserve this,” Steele said. “Let’s do this one more time, like this is it so let’s make this one really count.”
The spirit groups at NSU, including Demon Heat and the SON, remain determined to persevere and maintain their commitment to the university and its students.
“Demon Heat and the Spirit of Northwestern will continue to be Demon Heat and Spirit of Northwestern, that’s one of the lessons you learn in these group activities when you do something that’s bigger than yourself, is that perseverance is important and will carry through,” Steele said.
