‘A hometown legend.’ Lewisville man shot dead was beloved high school football star
Dwayne Brazzell Jr. wouldn’t try to run around guys in the other jerseys who had him cornered, according to his younger brother, Shannon Brazzell, who played with him on the 1993 Lewisville High School Fighting Farmers varsity football team. He ran through them.
Dwayne, Shannon said, was a bruiser of a fullback, using his strength and speed to plow through defenders and become a leading rusher in a position typically associated with blocking for the tailback. In the team’s wishbone offense, where he set up right behind the quarterback, he was an explosive goal line threat that ‘93 season, his senior year. He helped lead Lewisville to the biggest stage in Texas, the state championship game, held in the Houston Astrodome. It would be the school’s first title if they won.
Taking on Aldine MacArthur, favored in part due to a quarterback having a standout year, the game was a high-scoring affair that went back and forth all night, according to Shannon, then a sophomore linebacker. “We knew it was going to come down to whoever scored last,” he said.
Lewisville was on the 10-yard line with less than a minute to go, as many high school football fans across North Texas can still recall to this day. The ball went to Dwayne, who did what he did best, powering through and finding room to run.
“He knows because his touchdown solidified the first state title, that’s what made him legendary,” Shannon, told the Star-Telegram over the phone on Thursday. “But I don’t think he really knows, because he’s not here to — he’s looking down upon us. The love that he’s getting right now would really ... He hasn’t seen it like this before.”
The news this week that Dwayne, at the age of 44, was shot and killed in south Fort Worth has for many people brought back memories of that 43-37 win more than 25 years ago. Some took to Facebook to remember that game and the man who with one play was forever immortalized as a hometown hero. People paid tribute to him again three days later, on his birthday.
He leaves behind his daughter, Teah, as well as his mother, Sheila, father, Dwayne Sr., and his brothers, Shannon said.
Friends and family have been mourning not only Dwayne the football star, who had a brief NCAA career at Tyler College after high school. They have been remembering the person who took on that role with charisma, known for his happy-go-lucky spirit and sense of humor that made him the the life of the party.
Latoya Cummings, 46, of Houston, was in middle school when she met “the Brazzell brothers,” which included Dwayne, their middle brother Danielle and Shannon, all of them strong football players. She remembers going on a first date with Dwayne at the dollar movie theater in town even though their parents told them they were too young. “I laugh at that now,” she said over the phone on Friday.
Cummings, who had kept up with what Dwayne was doing over the years through social media, said he could get anyone to smile. He used to sneak up behind her to give her hugs.
“Just a real charismatic guy, really nice, outgoing,” Cummings said. “To find out what happened was devastating.”
Bradley Perez, a Fort Worth police spokesman, was unable provide on update on the case by deadline on Friday. He said in an email a little before 1 p.m. he was checking with homicide detectives.
Police initially reported officers responded to a shooting call around 11 p.m. Sunday in the 1100 block of Savage Drive and found Brazzell Jr. dead inside a pickup truck with multiple gunshot wounds. The truck had rolled into the side of a home, police said.
Dwayne’s family still doesn’t know why he was in Fort Worth then, especially because those who had spoken with him that night indicated he was in his Lewisville home by 9:30, Shannon said. His youngest brother acknowledges he had fallen “victim to the streets” in recent years, hanging out in the wrong parts of town with the wrong people. But Shannon can’t think of anyone who would want to harm him.
His killing was the 102nd homicide in Fort Worth in 2020, the most violent year in the city since 1995.
Shannon, reflecting on a 2020 that has been unprecedented in many ways, said “I think this year has affected somebody — everybody — in some type of way.”
“This one, it rocked everybody,” he said. “People hadn’t spoke to my brother in years and they’re calling, crying, just because of the memories of him. He was considered a hometown legend.”
In a Facebook post, the Lewisville High School Booster Club mourned Dwayne’s death and wrote, “If you know the Brazzell family, you know how much they’ve touched the lives of everyone around them.”
‘That’s what made us who we are’
Football was everything to the Brazzell brothers when they were children, Shannon told the Star-Telegram.
They were born in Abilene, he said, but their family moved to Lewisville when they were in elementary school, where they would play tackle football out in their street for hours, using driveways and cars to mark the endzones. They got recruited each year by all the pee-wee teams, which their father loved, Shannon said. They competed intensely with each other.
“That’s what made us who we are,” Shannon said.
The brothers all had successful and even historic careers at Lewisville High School, including Danielle, who was a part of the team that won the state championship three years after his older brothers did it, in 1996. Danielle and Shannon, like Dwayne, went on to collegiate football, with Shannon suiting up for TCU and Danielle playing at the University of North Texas.
Over the years, Dwayne had been working for an oil company, Shannon said. He never married but had one daughter, a 22-year-old Oklahoma State student who was his pride in life. He continued to be passionate about the sport of football, from the NFL to the local youth leagues.
Those who knew Dwayne and the Lewisville community in general have rallied together to show their support for the family in the form of a GoFundMe to pay for funeral expenses. More than $30,000 had been raised for the family as of Friday, Shannon wrote on the GoFundMe, noting that Dwayne didn’t have life insurance.
A visitation for Dwayne is set to be held Dec. 11 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Dominion World Ministries at 1108 Dallas Drive, Suite 360 in Denton, Shannon announced on Facebook. It will be a “walk-through,” with no sitting or gathering, due to COVID-19, he said.
A celebration of life is scheduled for the next day at 1:30 p.m. at First Baptist Church, located at 1251 Valley Ridge Blvd. in Lewisville, Shannon said. Masks and social distancing are required.
In the coming years, Shannon said, he hopes to start some type of annual event for his brother through his two-year-old charity, the Brazzell Be a Blessing Foundation.
“We’re not going to let his legacy die,” Shannon said. “We’re going to do something every year, in his name, to honor him, to give back to the community.”
This story was originally published December 4, 2020 at 4:02 PM.
