NATCHITOCHES – Longtime Northwestern State head football coach Sam Goodwin will be honored for his dedication and service to the game Thursday in Shreveport.
 
Goodwin will receive the S.M. McNaughton Chapter's Contributions to Amateur Football Award at the annual National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete Awards Banquet held at East Ridge Country Club.
 
The event hosted by the NFF's S.M. McNaughton Chapter of North Louisiana begins with a social hour at 6 p.m. at East Ridge Country Club in Shreveport. Tickets ($40 individual, $320 for a table of eight) are available by calling McNaughton Chapter secretary Toni Goodin at 318-347-4453.
 
Goodwin will receive the McNaughton chapter's Contributions to Amateur Football Award. He is the winningest football coach in Northwestern history with 102 wins from 1983-99. His Demons won conference championships in 1984, 1988, 1997 and 1998, making FCS playoff appearances in the latter three seasons and reaching the national semifinals in 1998.
 
Thirty-eight of his players reached the NFL, and 22 won All-American honors, including College Football Hall of Fame member Gary Reasons. Goodwin also coached 1998 National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete winner Dr. William Broussard and two other Academic All-Americans, along with 42 all-conference selections. After ending his collegiate coaching and administrative career, his love for coaching the game returned him to prep football sidelines in Arkansas and then back in Louisiana at Pineville, Alexandria Senior High, Natchitoches Central, Lakeview and St. Mary's.
 
The Pineville native is in the Southland Conference Hall of Honor, NSU's N-Club Hall of Fame, and the hall of fame at his alma mater (Henderson State) and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame for his playing career at Henderson and his high school coaching accomplishments in the 1970s at Little Rock-Parkview, where his teams won five state championships in the nine seasons he started the program and coached there.