Mike McConathy transformed a long-struggling basketball program at Northwestern State, and didn’t take long to do it.
Then the Bossier City native stayed at it for a long time, 23 seasons total with the Demons, 39 in the college ranks – folding in the 16 years he started and steered the Bossier Parish Community College program, and a few years before that coaching at his alma mater, Airline High School.
His place in sports history goes past the great success he sparked at both schools, and his remarkable playing days at Airline and Louisiana Tech. He will probably forever rank as Louisiana’s winningest college basketball coach, shaking hands smiling 682 times from that inaugural season at BPCC through the end of the 2021-22 campaign in Natchitoches.
When NSU athletic director Greg Burke gave McConathy the Demons’ job in March 1999, there was little to build on from the 24-year Division I history of the program – just five winning seasons, no NCAA Tournament appearances, low expectations. At his introduction, McConathy talked about restoring the level of extended success at Northwestern in the late 1940s and 1950s, when his father Johnny and uncles Leslie and George came from Bienville Parish to stack up 20-win seasons like logs outside their farmhouse six miles from the infamous site of Bonnie and Clyde’s demise in 1934. As a little boy, Johnny heard the roar of the gunshots, and never forgot that sound.
With his dad proudly standing nearby years later with about 30 family members, NSU’s new coach almost sounded delusional. It seemed an even steeper climb when he didn’t chase off the players on hand to stock his first roster with transfers, players he coached or watched or heard about from the junior college ranks. He told the players on hand it was their team, not his, and went about finding the best they had to offer.
That 1999-2000 season was all about his first program tenet – “Making Believers.” In what became a recurring pattern, McConathy’s Demons hit their stride about the middle of the Southland Conference race, and soared all the way to the SLC Championship game, just seven points shy of the Big Dance.
They got there the next year, in 2001, and won the first-ever Opening Round game in Dayton. Soon after came two straight Southland regular-season titles, the mind-bending 2006 March Madness stunner over Big Ten Conference champion Iowa, and longstanding status as a Southland and mid-major stalwart.
It’s the long list of on-court accomplishments that will not fade from the record books. But how he went about it, and his profound impact on the people in and around the Demons’ program, stretching not only across campus and through Natchitoches but all around north and central Louisiana, are even bigger reasons that Saturday is a very, very special day at Prather Coliseum.
In a halftime ceremony of NSU’s 3:30 game against Stephen F. Austin, Mike McConathy Court will be dedicated. The name’s been on the floor all season long and the decision was announced as his tenure as coach ended in March 2022. Saturday, it becomes official, and many of his 254 players, coaches and staff members from NSU – and BPCC – will be there to see it happen.
Why? Because the second, and most important part of his core philosophy has shaped their lives: “Championship Basketball with a Purpose.” The guiding principle was to assure the players grew as people and left with degrees. Over 90 percent departed with diplomas, in a sport where the overall graduation rate among the 350 or so Division I programs has hovered under 40 percent.
They learned much more than basketball and academics in a program whose third core standard was “The MVP of Our Team IS Our Team.” Everybody in the program had value, from student managers and junior varsity players to the most prominent and productive stars like Jalan West, Zeek Woodley, Clifton Lee, and Chris Thompson – all north Louisiana grown, another tenet. Out of state recruits were the exception, not the norm, in McConathy’s tenure.
To further appreciate “Coach Mike’s” approach, consider these names: Colby Koontz, Lanky Wells, Demetress Bell, Trey Gilder, Stephen Kim. Bell and Gilder became pro athletes. Koontz never played a minute. Kim played only a few seconds. And Wells, a tremendous teammate of McConathy’s during their stellar playing days in the mid-‘70s at Louisiana Tech, was the oldest “student manager” you’ve ever seen.
Koontz was a sturdy 6-9 post, a prized recruit whose parents were standout Oklahoma Sooner athletes. A month before his freshman season, he ran into an elbow in practice and sustained a severe concussion. It not only proved to be the end to his playing days, but it challenged the 4.0 student’s career path to becoming a doctor. McConathy nurtured him through treatment, four years of persistence on his academic path at Northwestern, and today Koontz is a physician back home on Oklahoma.
Kim was a graduate assistant athletic trainer from Baylor and a hoops junkie, a gym rat. His idea of fun was putting up more shots after practices than the players did during workouts. In the last game of his final season with the Demons, McConathy let him dress out. Needing a 3-pointer to tie in the final few seconds, he put in Kim – as a decoy, not to shoot, but to set a pick. The shooter missed, but Kim did exactly what he was asked in his one shining moment of playing Division I basketball.
Bell, a Summerfield standout, was Karl Malone’s son. He was a few inches shorter, and several pounds heavier, than the Mailman. “D-Bell” was a solid role player for McConathy in 88 games, and two years in, he shared an interest in giving football a try. He never had pulled on a pad or helmet but his basketball coach blessed the experiment.
Three seasons later, Bell lined up at offensive tackle for the Buffalo Bills. He started 35 games in his four NFL seasons – after earning his undergraduate degree at Northwestern. How many coaches would give a prized recruit the blessing to focus on another sport? McConathy knew it was Bell’s best shot to blossom.
Gilder was a talented junior college player, a rail-thin 6-8 swingman from Dallas who was unsure about his immediate future and unsteady on the academic front. McConathy kept a scholarship open long after spring signings, giving Gilder time to sort through his ambitions and get his grades in order, and welcomed him to NSU at the 11th hour. Two seasons later, Gilder graduated and began a 15-year professional playing career that included brief stays with four NBA teams.
Helping him settle down and chart his path was Wells. The Arkansas native made the Southland Conference All-Decade Team for the 1970s for his 16-point career average for the Bulldogs, then played pro ball in Europe and Mexico before joining the Army and six years later, beginning two decades with the U.S. Postal Service. But he hadn’t finished his degree, and he felt hypocritical as he urged his children through their college years.
McConathy treasured his teammate’s impeccable character. He discovered a new state program that helped long-dormant students return to college, convinced Wells to become a student coach (technically a manager to comply with NCAA rules), and two years later, in 2009, Wells was a Northwestern graduate.
Wells then earned a master’s degree from Grambling and resumed working as a minister before he passed away suddenly in 2017. McConathy gave the eulogy for his friend, who was a magnetic presence on every path he followed.
Wells will be among those in McConathy’s heart Saturday. “From a spiritual end and his strong beliefs in doing the right thing, Lanky is a tremendous influence for our players,” the head coach told legendary Ruston sportswriter Buddy Davis for a 2008 story.
The same can still be said about Mike McConathy – a great coach, but a much greater figure in countless lives inside, and beyond, the game. He’s set a standard that we can only hope will be modeled for generations to come.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com