NATCHITOCHES – The beginning of March means a little bit more to the Northwestern State football team than just the final days before Spring practice begins.
 
Around this time every year, players trade their footballs, weights and workout gear for kick balls, basketballs, dodge balls and a whole lot of smiles, hugs and high-fives on Chris Waddell Day.
 
On the 22^nd annual day Monday morning, NSU football players fanned out across Natchitoches, visiting NSU Elementary Lab School, St. Mary's, L.P. Vaughn Elementary, M.R. Weaver Elementary and welcomed children from the Child Development Center to Turpin Stadium.
 
The day of service and fun has become a fabric of the program and a chance to honor Waddell, a redshirt freshman whose life was cut short by complications from Kawasaki Syndrome, and to live our what he stood for.
 
For some of the Demons, this year carried a little extra weight, and brought them back to their roots.
 
Jake Peveto and Ben Bienvenu weren't just visiting schools, they were going back to where it all started.
 
"I remember everything, all the football guys coming here hyping us up like we did today," Peveto said who spent his early years at NSU E-Lab while his father Bradley Dale Peveto was the Demons' head football coach. "It's definitely a full circle moment. I remember being in the gym and being ecstatic when the football players came through, so it's definitely cool to be on the other side of that."
 
Time, as everyone knows, has a way of speeding up. And also never know where life can and will take you along the journey.
 
"They were shooting me out on the hoops a little, but it was definitely fun to relive my childhood," Peveto said with a laugh. "I was telling one of my teammates how time has really flown by. It was cool to see those kids and how much joy they had when we came through and just love on them a bit. That's what it's all about. It was a really special day."
 
Bienvenu experienced the same kind of déjà vu walking the halls of his alma mater at St. Mary's.
 
"It's crazy coming back," Bienvenu said. "Everybody smiling and wanting a hug in the front office and get a chance to play with the kids that I was Pre-K buddies with my senior year, it was definitely a full circle moment. Seeing everyone so happy to have me back, it really is a family here."
 
As a kid, Bienvenu remembers think the players were "10 feet tall and Superman." Now he understands something even bigger.
 
"Coach McCorkle talks about raising young men and things being bigger than just football," Bienvenu said. "Being in the community, bettering the community and being an example for the younger kids like we had a chance to do today. Kids look up to us and being that example is really what it's all about."
 
The idea of being part of something bigger than yourself or the game you play is the core of Chris Waddell Day.
 
Established in the wake of his passing, the annual day of service every March 1 – or a date close to it depending on when it falls on the calendar – Demon players step away from the field and into the gyms and classrooms across the city. They shar Waddell's story, talk about kindness and perseverance, and do what they all do best: play.
 
"It's been an inspiration," receiver Dane Wallace said. "Coming out here playing kickball with the kids was so fun, just like every year. Chris Waddell stood for something bigger than football and it was spending time with kids in the community. I think as players we can enjoy this more than the kids sometimes because it's challenging and competitive like we are. It's nice to come out, give them a good time and have some fun."
 
Like Wallace and his fellow senior teammate Danny Sears who have been a part of multiple Waddell Days, this one hit a little different knowing it was the last time he would be able to experience it as a player.
 
"At first you may take it for granted but as each one comes and this time being my last one it was really special," Sears said. "I get to have fun with my friends and teammates, getting out with the kids and seeing the big smiles on their faces it makes your day."
 
And for offensive lineman Isaiah Ybarra, who was clearly in his element interacting with the kids between rounds of various basketball shooting games, the day felt especially personal.
 
"I've always enjoyed working with elementary school kids and something that I want to pursue as a career," the senior offensive guard said. "So being here with them and seeing how much joy it brings them just having us here and them seeing us, their faces just light up. It's a kind of joy that you don't see very often from anybody.
 
"Any opportunity we have to pour into the community we try and take it. And we're going to keep on doing it."
 
Years from now, some of the children who ran around the gym, dodged balls, shot hoops and shared smiles may find themselves wearing purple and white. They'll remember the day the football players came to their school. 
 
They'll remember how tall they seemed.
 
And if history is any indication, they'll be back one day, on the other side of it, passing that same joy along and carrying on the legacy of Chris Waddell.