The killing of Ronald “Ronnie” Caldwell Jr. shook Northwestern State University of Louisiana, upended the 2023 football season and left wounds that are still healing more than a year after the fatal shooting. While confronting the trauma, Caldwell’s teammates faced an additional challenge: the university actively suppressing their voices as it responded to the tragedy.

“There’s not a manual for how to handle a situation like this because nobody has ever done it, it was a first time for everybody in the situation,” said Travon Jones “Champ,” a player on the team that year who feels strongly about the cancellation and how the athletic department handled the death of Caldwell. “I do believe our opinions and our thoughts could have been heard more. The athletes didn’t have a voice. We were silenced bad.”

Within two months, the players had to cope with a teammate’s funeral, the cancellation of their season, the abrupt resignation of their head coach, Brad Laird, a lawsuit against Laird and NSU and the hiring of a new head coach. These changes affected players and altered their college experience. Some 40 players ultimately would transfer to other schools.

Tyler Vander Waal is a former quarterback who left NSU because of the cancellation and thinks that decision was wrong for a multitude of reasons. He was only at NSU to play football, and it was his last year of eligibility. Vander Waal said when Caldwell was killed, the team wanted to finish the season.

“We were all going through the same thing together. I know that everyone I spoke to wanted to keep playing,” he said. “They wanted to do what Ronnie would’ve wanted to do. Ronnie wasn’t a quitter by any means. When we found out that they were canceling the season we were all like, ‘we have to play, we have to honor Ronnie’s memory, this is what Ronnie would’ve wanted.’”

Jason Pugh, a spokesman for the team, said that NSU players were asked not to speak out, but if they did, there was no recourse.

“That was between our university, talking to the system, that was the recommendation was to not have them talk,” said Pugh, NSU’s associate athletic director for external operations. “That’s what we decided as a university and as an athletic department was the people who spoke would be the administration.”

But the short run of the 2023 season left players, students, fans and alumni searching for answers and not sure what would come next.

John Kulakowski is an NSU alumni who is the president of the Demon Brothers Booster Club. The booster club helps to fund and support the football team. “The decision was devastating to the university and the football program. Absolutely devastating,” Kulakowski said. “Not only that, but they didn’t understand the repercussions of that decision nationally.”
Vander Waal, the former quarterback, said he believes the school may have instilled fear in players who were thinking about speaking out.

“Guys were scared that if they said the wrong thing, the school would take action. Their scholarships would be revoked, that playing time would be cut, that things would be held against them because of what they said against the school or against coaches,” said Vander Waal, who eventually made headlines after taking to social media to air his disappointment with the canceled season. “I don’t think they duct taped these players mouths shut, but I think in a round a bout way they said, ‘Hey it’s in your best interest not to say anything.’”

He said the school couldn’t silence him because there was no leverage against him, so he wasn’t scared of repercussions.

A former football player who later quit the team said he also thought the cancellation wasn’t handled properly. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his chances in the transfer portal.

“It felt like there was a certain agenda that they were forcing and they put it on us like there was no participation and they were trying to help us heal, but nobody came and asked us what we wanted,” he said. “We didn’t really get a lot of answers. They gave us one, but we’re not naïve. We know there’s more at hand. They were just trying to shuffle off some information to us to keep us quiet and to get us to move on.”

After Laird resigned as head coach, NSU announced the hiring of Blaine McCorkle in late 2023. McCorkle, who came from Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi, said he supported the university’s response to Caldwell’s killing as it pertained to players not being able to speak out.

“I think that protects the kids because they’re young, they’re immature, they’re growing,” McCorkle said. “It protects them from putting themselves in a bad spot and saying something that they don’t mean or regret.”

McCorkle came to NSU while players were still grieving, and his coaching style didn’t align with everyone on the team.
“Sometimes pain is comfortable because it gives you an excuse not to do the hard things and be successful. That’s one thing we really sold to our players, get out of your pain and move on because there comes a certain time where nobody feels sorry for you, and you just have to go back to work. If not, you’re just going to be the next bum on the street so move on. That doesn’t mean you forget what happened, but it means you move forward,” McCorkle said.

“I don’t want anybody in my program to ever feel comfortable,” he added.

Multiple players said they felt like they didn’t have a voice and that their opinions didn’t matter.

During the lawsuit Caldwell’s family filed against the university, the athletic department for months refused to discuss the shooting and the events that followed.

In November 2024, NSU President James Genovese released a statement after the university’s dismissal from the lawsuit. “We feel the court’s decision to dismiss Northwestern State University from this case was appropriate. The safety of our campus community remains our top priority, and our thoughts continue to be with all those impacted by the tragic loss of Ronnie Caldwell.”

Even after the case was dismissed, Pugh still would not give an interview.

“We have no further comment on the situation. The statement from the President stands as our response,” he said.