Joe Delaney: A Real Hero

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right up until eight o'clock last night. I was going
to spend our five minutes this morning explaining why Conservative
America's dream girl Amy Coney Barrett stood us up on
the Supreme Court's version of prom Night. Really, Jimbo, is
that what this massive audience, the biggest in five states
wants before work today? Scrolling through Facebook, I landed on

(00:21):
a highlight reel of a long ago football player and said, Ah,
that's the one. Anybody under fifty ain't going to remember him.
He only played one in a third seasons, but he
was a fine player, promising player, Rookie of the year.
Joe Delaney. He died forty three years ago yesterday. A hero,
the best kind of hero. One of the things we

(00:44):
fear most about death is that nobody will remember us.
Will there be any morsel of evidence that I did
anything to make it a better place? And if I did,
how soon will they forget? Joe Delaney made it a
better place? Poor black kid from Houghton, Luue, Louisiana. Dad
drove a truck, Mom raised babies seven other than Joe,

(01:06):
in a five room house. On June twenty nine, nineteen
eighty three, Joe d was just weeks from training camp
when he spent a day at a public park. In
the park was a huge hole in the ground. Public
workers dug up dirt for a water slide. This wasn't
a swimming pool, just a hole in the ground. After
a big rain, it filled with water. Three little boys

(01:28):
waited in no big deal. It was only two feet
deep until each of them took another step, and now
it was twenty feet deep. Suddenly all three were in
over their heads. Since public pools in black communities can
be rare, kids never learned to swim, so here they
were thrashing and screaming for help. All sorts of folks

(01:50):
were watching, worried, but they didn't know how to swim either.
In a flash, with the very moves that made him
a thousand yard rusher for the Kansas City Chiefs, Joe
d jumped in problem. He didn't know how to swim either.
One of the boys remembered sinking until what seemed like
a meat hook grabbed him under the shoulder and threw

(02:10):
him toward shore coffin water. He pulled himself out In
the murky, muddy water that was left, Joe couldn't find
the other two. A minute went by, and then two, three,
five minutes before the sirens arrived. The frog men jumped
in and they pulled three lifeless bodies out, including the

(02:31):
most promising young running back in the NFL and the
most beloved young man in Houghton, Louisiana. Five days later,
the funeral was planned for Galilee Baptist Church, where Joe
was an usher even had a chair says for Joe
d But when not hundreds, but thousands descended on Houghton,

(02:51):
they moved it to the biggest building in town, the
Houghton High School Gymnasium. There seated among the humble heartscrabble
Hotten's where the owner of the Kansas City chiefs Lamar
Hunt and his wife, Norma. If the town was impressed
the millionaire Hunt was there, they were inspired. His glamorous
Norma wife joined him and walked hand in hand the

(03:13):
two mile procession from the Hades Hot gym beneath the
stubborn July sun to Hawkins Cemetery, which is really just
a clearing in the woods. The sandy earth is still
piled up from graves dug long ago fit for a hero.
But before the march down that dirt road. Those who
knew the kind and big hearted Joe reminded us of

(03:34):
all of his good deeds. How as a kid he
mowed the neighbor lady's yard, or looked in on the
old guy down the street. How he just shows up
with a carload of new shoes and new clothes for
kids he didn't even know. President Reagan wrote a personal note,
sealed it in an envelope, handed it to Vice President
George Bush, who delivered it to Joe's mother, Eunice, in person.

(03:59):
Those who knew Joe and could have tried to ensure
that we never forget. His name is on the Ring
of Honor with other legendary chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. No
chief has worn number thirty seven. Since there is a
nonprofit group in Kansas City that provides free swimming lessons
for inner city kids, our country could use a few

(04:19):
Joe Delaneys today, even if it's been forty three years
since he acted like one.