ESPN film tells Joe Delaney’s story
NATCHITOCHES – About 350 people watched a screening of the ESPN 30 for 30 short film “Delaney” on the campus of Northwestern State University, the alma mater of NSU and Kansas City Chiefs star running back Joe Delaney.
The 19-minute film was directed by Grant Curtis, who has had previous involvement in movies such as “Spiderman” and “Oz.” “What I tried to do is get out of the way,” Curtis said, “and let Joe, through these others, tell the story.”
The others Curtis referred to were several former teammates and coaches and relatives throughout his career, which ended tragically with his drowning while trying to save the life of three young boys at a pond near Chennault Park in Monroe on June 29, 1983. One youngster survived and two did not.
Van Kyzer, a former NSU teammate who is the district attorney in Natchitoches Parish, was among a panel of former teammates who spoke about Delaney after the screening. He said he was a lawyer at the time of Joe’s death for his son, Carlos. He said it was an “awesome responsibility” for a young lawyer three years out of law school as well as an honor for someone who knew Delaney as a former teammate.
He said taking depositions from witnesses at the event left a strong impact, especially one with Marvin Dearman, “a grizzled officer with the Monroe police” who wept during the deposition.
“He was part of the dive rescue team,” Kyzer went on about one of the people quoted in the film, “and he told us he’d never dive to recover bodies again because the incident was so traumatic for him.”
“I cannot fathom his thought process” that led him to go into the pond when he couldn’t swim, said Greg Burke, the athletics director at NSU, “but his actions had less to do with thought than with character and selflessness and personal responsibility.”
NSU President Jim Henderson asked the crowd, prior to the screening, for some moments of silence to reflect “on what love and sacrifice really mean as embodied by Joe Delaney.”
In the screening, cartoon-type drawings help reenact the story of a little Joe Delaney knocking on the door of the coaches’ office at Haughton High School, saying he wanted to play football. After being told he was too small, a tear came to his eyes and the coaches knew he was determined to play. He told them “I’m going to play in the pros one day.”
He did. After setting NSU’s career rushing record (3,047 yards) — plus setting records in the 100 and 200-meters and running the second leg on NSU’s 1981 NCAA championship 4x100 relay team, he was trhe 1982 AFC Rookie of the Year as a Kansas City running back.
The opening scene of the film is the play-by-play of Delaney scoring a touchdown on a long run as a Chiefs running back while the camera pans the Kansas City Chiefs’ empty Arrowhead stadium.
His drowning was at a Summer Splash Festival, and Dearman said in the screening a witness told him that Delaney ran by her and handed her his wallet before jumping in the pond. He was the only one to attempt the rescue.
“I ask myself every day why Joe was the only one to respond,” said his wife, Carolyn, in the film, “but that’s just the type of person Joe was.”
Joe’s sister, Alma, said, “The way Joe died is the way Joe lived.”
Brett Knecht, who was a running back in the same backfield with Delaney, looked at the crowd at the Haunchey Art Gallery and asked in the panel discussion, “How many of us would’ve gone running to save three guys while knowing you can’t swim?”
The film will debut nationally Aug. 19 on Grantland.com and ESPN.com. After watching the film Tuesday, his former teammmates understand better why Delaney did what he did.
Petey Perot, who was an offensive lineman for Delaney who went on the play several years with the Philadelphia Eagles, thanked Curtis for making the film. “That film will live on,” Perot said. “It really will.”