JERRY BYRD SR. INTERVIEWS JOE DELANEY AFTER A NORTHWESTERN STATE FOOTBALL GAME
[EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a column my father, Jerry Byrd Sr., wrote about Joe Delaney. Delaney died on this day 40 years ago while trying to save children, who drowned in a man-made pond in a Monroe park.]
The Sunday School lesson was about people who go to dangerous places to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. The book Lives Given, Not Taken tells the stories of eight Southern Baptist missionaries who were killed in recent years. The movie End of the Spear was about five missionaries who were martyred in Ecuador in 1956.
More people have been killed because of their Christian faith in the 20th century than the combined total for the previous 19 centuries. Thinking that some of the class members may have known a soldier, police officer or fireman who lost his life in the line of duty, I asked if anybody had ever known a person who died attempting to help someone else. No hands were raised. So I raised my hand and said, "I knew a man who did this. His name was Joe Delaney."
In 1976 and 1977, Haughton's Joe Delaney was the fastest high school athlete in Louisiana.
He set a Caddo-Bossier record in 1976 by running the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds, and tied it the following the year. He was the LHSAA Class 3A 100-yard dash state champion both years, and had the fastest time on the Louisiana Sports Writers' Association All-State teams both years.
But Delaney's great speed didn't translate into impressive offensive statistics in football.
He played wide receiver on a Haughton High team that rarely threw the ball.
Even if the Bucs had thrown a lot of passes, the arm of quarterback Greg Keith wasn't strong enough to take a five-step drop and get the ball to Joe Delaney on a fly pattern. This area (North Louisiana) has produced may great quarterbacks, including National Football League stars Terry Bradshaw, Bert Jones, Joe Ferguson, and Stan Humphries, but I doubt that many of them could have done that.
Although he made the all-state team as a wide receiver, Delaney's greatest value to the Bucs was as a defensive back. He moved to trailback a few times and made some long runs. He made the all-state team because his speed made him a blue-chip college prospect, although most major colleges coaches projected him as a defensive back.
When LSU coach Charlie McClendon came to Shreveport to visit Delaney, Joe had already decided to go to Northwestern State.
McClendon shook hands with Delaney before he got on the plane for the trip to Baton Rouge, and LSU coaches spread the word that the handshake meant Delaney had decided to become an LSU Tiger. It was a ploy used by many coaches to pressure prospects into honoring "commitments" that had never been made. But it didn't work with Delaney.
In the first two weeks of two-a-day practice sessions at Northwestern State, Delaney would play wide receiver in the morning sessions and running back in the afternoons.
When it was time to make a decsion, Coach A.L. Williams left it up to Delaney. He chose running back.
"After I learned how to run with the ball, I liked being a running back," he said. "I get excited when I run."
A lot of people got excited when Delaney ran. In his senior season, he set school records with 1,110 yards rushing for one season and 3,047 yards rushing for his career.
"If he were playing for Southern Cal," one pro scout said, "he'd win the Heisman Trophy."
On June 6, 1981, a lot of people in Bernie Moore Stadium on the LSU campus got excited when Delaney ran past Jeff Phillips of Tennessee and Herschel Walker of Georgia to put little Northwestern State in front of the pack in the 400-meter relay at the NCAA track and field championships.
The previous night, Phillips had finished inches behind Houston's Carl Lewis, considered the world's fastest human at that time, in the 100-meter dash. Walker had led Georgia to the national football championship as a freshman, and was also a world class sprinter. But neither could match Delaney's blazing speed that day. For those 100 meters, Joe Delaney was the world's fastest human.
Delaney was a step ahead when he handed the baton to freshman Mario Johnson, and Northwestern State was insided both of its primary rivals.
By the time Johnson gave the baton to Mark Duper, Tennessee was rapidly fading out of the picture, and Georgia, with Olympioan Mel Lattany on the anchor leg, was the only team with a chance to catch the Demons.
Victor Otis, the Demon's leadoff man, knew Lattany wasn't going to catch Duper.
"When Mark gets the stick in front," he said, "it's all over."
And it was. For the first time, a small-college team won an NCAA championship in the 400-meter relay. Duper crossed the the finish line with a four-yard cushion over Lattany. The time was 39.32 seconds, a state record.
.....
The Baton Rouge crowd at the 1981 Championships gave the Demons a great ovation. But none of the spectators was more excited than eight-year old Jerry Byrd Jr., who had been hanging out with the Demons for a couple of days while his dad covered the NCAA meet for the Shreveport Journal.
When Duper crossed the finish line, he raced down the stadium steps, vaulted over the rail and landed in the middle of his buddies moments after they won the national championship.
Two years later, I was taking Jerry to Dayton, Ohio, for his first national championship of his age-group track and field career.
As we crossed the Ohio River bridge in Cincinnati early in the morning, I heard the name "Joe Delaney" on the radio and turned up the volume, thinking he might have been traded. But the newscaster reported that Delaney had drowned attempting to save three children who were in trouble in a man-made pond at a Monroe park. One had been pulled out when Delaney arrived at the scene. Although he was a poor swimmer, Delaney dived into the water to help the other two. He became the third victim of the tragedy.
I was hoping Jerry was asleep in the back seat. But he wasn't. A few minutes later, he asked, "Dad, does drowned mean he' dead?"
"Yes, son," I replied. "I'm afraid it does."
Delaney's jersey number, 37, wasn't officially retired by the Kansas City Chiefs, but nobody has worn that number in 25 years. A foundation known as 37 Forever has been formed to pay for swimming lessons for underprivileged youths.
In John 15:13, Jesus says, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
Joe Delaney didn't know those three children. But he was their friend, and still is. Forever.