NC State senior center Joe Scelfo expects at least 40-plus family members to convene to Shreveport, La., for his last college football game.
Scelfo previously played in a bowl game with South Alabama, falling 33-28 to Bowling Green in the inaugural Raycom Media Camellia Bowl on Dec. 21, 2014, a little over two hours down the road in Montgomery, Ala. Playing with NC State against Vanderbilt at the Camping World Independence Bowl on Dec. 26 in Shreveport will bring an added excitement to his second bowl appearance.
Scelfo has split time over the years living in New Orleans, Atlanta area and Mobile, Ala. He was in the sixth grade when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and vividly remembers what his family experienced. His father, former Tulane head coach Chris Scelfo, later wrote a book on how he coached the Green Wave during the turbulent time.
A part of Scelfo’s family lives in New Iberia, La., which is a little over two years west of New Orleans. they’ll be making the trip up I-49 to Shreveport.Chris Scelfo now lives in Pensacola, Fla.
“My dad is one of eight [children] and all of them were raised in New Iberia,” Scelfo said. “They’ll be about 45 Scelfo’s at the game, so they’ll be all over the place.
“They are all crazy. They’ll be in the lobby at a hotel and just hanging out.”
Tulane football was essentially displaced to Ruston, La., and the Scelfo family was staying in Choudrant down the road. There was also an initial displacement to Dallas, Texas, where the Green Wave was getting helped out by SMU.
“I was old enough to know what was going on,” said Scelfo about the affects of Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 3 hurricane when it hit southeast Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005. “It was scary. We had a little bit of damage.”
The flood gates didn’t hit where Scelfo lived, which was on the West Bank, but he knows how the city was affected. Some of his friends had their homes collapsed in and loose cows would be randomly walking in the neighborhood.
“I remember when we went back down to New Orleans when they let people back in the city, our whole neighborhood was destroyed,” Scelfo said. “The front got a lot of damage, but we lived in the back, so we didn’t get too much.”
Scelfo watched the Red Cross, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other organizations lend a helping hand to the region, which has influenced him to this day.
“That is where I get mine from because I saw people giving back to a city that obviously needed it,” Scelfo said. “I saw how the city changed.”
Scelfo last went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in March.
“Last March, I drove through Tulane where my dad was and a lot has changed there, but the buildings are still the same,” Scelfo said. “They built a stadium there where they used to practice.
“As far as the city, you still see the ‘X’s’ on houses. There are still several neighborhoods that have that going on. My old elementary school and middle school got destroyed. They built new stuff there.”
Scelfo, who had a 3.5 grade-point average this fall in his master’s program at NC State, hopes to get a shot at the NFL. When putting on the pads and cleats come to an end, he plans to get into the family business of coaching.
Chris Scelfo, coached collegiately from 1986-to-2006, including being the head coach at Tulane from 1998-2006, where he went 37-57 overall. Joe Scelfo grew up loving to watch running backs Mewelde Moore and Matt Forte, who both went on to the NFL. Soon, Scelfo had the chance to watch the league play every Sunday.
Chris Scelfo moved on to be the tight ends coach for the Atlanta Falcons (2008-2014), so Joe was used to growing up in different cities.
Scelfo’s uncle, Frank, is currently the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Texas-San Antonio, which just played New Mexico in a bowl game. Frank Scelfo coached in the high school ranks from 1982-1995, and then moved up a level and was an assistant coach at Tulane, Louisiana Tech and Arizona. He spent three years with the Jacksonville Jaguars before making the move to UTSA.
Frank Scelfo’s son Anthony Scelfo, a former Tulane quarterback, is a graduate assistant at Texas-San Antonio this season. Joe Scelfo knows that could be a similar path for him one day.
“I’ll be looking for a GA spot or coach wherever,” Scelfo said. “I’d love to stay around here, but who knows what is going to happen with that.”
Scelfo has seen the highs and lows of the coaching profession, from winning to seeing his father lose his job at Tulane.
“I’ve been around it for so long,” Scelfo said. “It’s a scary business.”
Scelfo also half-joked on how he’s matured in his picking out of bowl gifts. He got a remote control helicopter that he still hasn’t used, pair of Beats by Dre head phones, that got broken, and a portable charger that didn’t last longer than a week. Scelfo went in a different direction with his bowl swag this month.
“I got the chair,” Scelfo said. “I knew it had a good warranty. That is the reason I got it. It is good up to a 500-pound man. This chair will give me a great feeling of relaxation. It is made for big dudes.”
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