By DOUG IRELAND
Written for the LSWA
The straw hat. The overalls. A weed eater, and a rake.
At other times, a wet mop, or a paint brush. In another setting, a spatula, griddle, and serving dishes.
Some of the tools of the trade for Louisiana’s all-time winningest college basketball coach.
Yes, Mike McConathy also relied on dry erase boards, whistles, and video replay equipment as he led teams at Bossier Parish Community College for 16 seasons, then the next 23 at Northwestern State.
But “Coach Mike” approached his role differently. He was not just breaking down tape and building teams. He was building two programs, one from scratch and the other from the doldrums, and fundamental to the process was lifting up everyone involved or in the vicinity.
It’s his coaching resume that has earned him induction in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, upcoming Saturday in his adopted hometown of Natchitoches. The Saturday night ceremony at the Natchitoches Events Center, carried live on LPB, culminates seven events beginning Thursday. For information and purchases for the four ticketed events, visit LaSportsHall.com or call 318-238-4255.
The credentials are impeccable. He was a prep All-American guard at Airline High School, pursued by Dale Brown at LSU and future NBA coach John McLeod at Oklahoma, but ultimately choosing between his father’s alma mater, Northwestern, and Louisiana Tech, where one of his dad’s best coaching pals, Scotty Robertson, was head coach – and near the family’s roots outside of Bryceland in Bienville Parish.
He became one of Tech’s great players, combining his genetics – his father John was the No. 5 pick in the 1951 NBA Draft – with a relentless work ethic.
Retired NBA and college coach Tim Floyd was a Bulldog teammate.
“I have never seen the drive Mike had in any other player on any level. Looking back, I realize that the things we coaches try to emphasize each day to our players are the things that Mike did back then. He was completely self-made and his numbers each year reflected how hard he was working. He could have started for North Carolina, UCLA or anybody else.”
By the time McConathy’s career (1973-77) ended at Tech, he was a two-time all-conference pick, conference “Player of the Year,” honorable mention AP All-America and his name was splashed throughout the record book. He scored 2,033 points, tied the school record for points in a single game with 47 and is the only Bulldog to score 41 or more points in a game six times.
Ater making it to the last cut with the Chicago Bulls, and briefly playing in Europe, McConathy turned to his life’s work – influencing lives through teaching and coaching.
His 682 wins (330 at Northwestern State in 23 seasons, 352 in 16 seasons after starting the Bossier Parish CC program) tops any state college coach in men’s or women’s basketball. McConathy’s overall 330-373 mark at NSU included a winning record (220-203) in Southland Conference games against peer opponents while he led the Demons into 117 guarantee games bringing in over $5 million to the school’s athletic budget — including road wins at Auburn, Oklahoma State, Mississippi State, UTEP and neutral-court victories over Oregon State and most notably, beating 15th-ranked Iowa in the 2006 NCAA Tournament.
His 43-year coaching career began as girls coach at Airline High, before he launched the Bossier Parish CC program, initially playing home games at Airline. Following 16 seasons literally driving the team bus while building the Cavaliers into one of the more successful NJCAA programs, including seven seasons of 23-plus wins, in March 1999 he took over a Demons’ program with only five winning seasons and no postseason trips in 24 years of Division I history.
The junior college coach didn’t gut the roster and bring in a horde of transfers. Without a roster makeover, McConathy led Northwestern to the Southland Conference championship game to cap his first season, then won that contest the next March to earn the first of four postseason tournament appearances (NCAA 2001, Opening Round win over Winthrop; NCAA 2006, No. 14 seed First Round upset of No. 3 seed and Big Ten Tournament champ Iowa; NCAA 2013, First Round loss to eventual NCAA champion Florida) and the 2014 CIT.
His NSU teams made seven Southland championship game appearances (four straight from 2005-08) and graduated 90 percent of his players. Five current or former Division I head coaches, including Maryland’s Buzz Williams, were part of his NSU staffs.
He is in the Louisiana Tech and Northwestern athletic halls of fame, the Ark-La-Tex Museum of Champions and NSU’s Hall of Distinguished Educators — he served as an active faculty member during his 23 seasons.
Understandably, the Prather Coliseum court was officially named for him Feb. 15, 2025, with close to 200 family, former players, coaches, and staff members gathered on the floor during the halftime ceremony.
How best to describe him?
“He’s unassuming,” said James Smith, who was Northwestern’s highly-successful women’s coach during McConathy’s first five years with the Demons.
“Mike is about people. He looks at others before he looks at himself,” said Smith, who won 340 games in 17 seasons with the Lady Demons.
“Examples of that run amok. Before the games, home AND road, he’s up in the stands, shaking hands, thanking people for showing up. If need be, at halftime, he would mop the floor.
“I enjoyed home games, because I always got my office vacuumed. He’d do that on game days – he couldn’t sit there looking at tape. He wanted to be doing something useful, something to help somebody else,” said Smith. “He comes way second, third or fourth, when it comes to people. If you’re around him very much, you can’t help but like him. You’re drawn to him because he’s so sincere, so laid-back and easy-going.”
McConathy was, and still is at age 71, a servant-leader. He continues teaching a Sunday school class at First Baptist Church in Natchitoches, his involvement in prayer groups, his daily morning devotional e-mails, and lending a hand however he can to help a friend or a community group.
Four years after his college coaching days ended, he’s in his second year as a special assistant to NSU president Jimmy Genovese, primarily focused on recruiting – general students, not simply basketball players.
That often takes him to high school gymnasiums, stadiums, and athletic events – or the office of a guidance counselor, principal or the teachers’ lounge, asking about students looking for a college destination.
He remembers being a late-bloomer, nicknamed “Opie” for his tousled red hair and slight build that reminded schoolmates of Ronnie Howard’s character on the iconic 1960s “Andy Griffith Show.”
“It all started because I fell in love with the game when I was a kid. I just thought it was normal to turn the lights on outside at our house and keep shooting at night, then get in a gym any time I could,” who came from off the radar to become among 100 U.S. prep players named Sunkist All-America in 1973.
“What I accomplished was through having a passion for the game. Even when I was playing at Tech and things were going well, I always had this desire to work harder than the day before.”
Hard work remained a cornerstone. Symbolic of that, when his Demons were winning back-to-back Southland Conference championships in 2005 and 2006, McConathy donned a hard hat in a locker room talk to his team – then began wearing it in his pregame travels through the stands at Prather Coliseum.
When janitors didn’t have time to sufficiently wet mop or even sweep the court, there he was, sometimes in his game gear, taking care of it. When the campus grounds crew was overwhelmed and didn’t have the grass trimmed around the arena before a Lady Demon basketball camp, there was “Coach Mike,” in straw hat, long sleeves and overalls, with assistants if needed, doing what was needed. It didn’t stop there – or even, on campus.
Smith had been cooking breakfast for his players on game days for a few years when McConathy arrived. The new coach asked if his team could join in – starting a routine that extended to hotels on SLC road doubleheader mornings, and resulted in the renovation of a concession stand at Prather into a fully-functional kitchen.
“Bonds were formed between the teams. Mike was always up for doing the work and getting his staff involved,” said Smith. “We also did the Sixth Man Club, TV shows, radio shows – his idea, ‘let’s do it together,’ and he was always wanting to include us – include everybody, really.”
The mantra for his program was “Championship Basketball – With a Purpose.”
He was a leader in the Louisiana Association of Basketball Coaches, helping spearhead an annual free kids clinic in Baton Rouge. He engaged the Demons with local and area schools, promoting literacy and other educational activities. The National Association of Basketball Coaches gave him its Pillar of the Game for Education Award in 2013 for a program NSU pioneered with junior high students at Zwolle High School near Toledo Bend, 45 miles west of Natchitoches.
One of his most staggering credentials is the Demons’ 90 percent graduation rate during his career, when other Division I programs were graduating players at less than half that. His NSU program consistently topped the Southland and nearly every state program in the NCAA’s two surveys of academic achievement.
“So many times we get caught up in the fact we are teaching kids to play games,” McConathy said. “If we don’t teach those kids to be young men and what’s right and what’s wrong, and that as people we need to reach out to those in trouble, we have failed as coaches and teachers. There is more to life than the game.”
For all of McConathy’s endeavors off the court, what NSU and BPCC accomplished in competition will also stand any test of time. Bossier Parish had to overcome well-established and well-funded opponents in Texas and Mississippi to succeed, and emerged as a regional powerhouse. Northwestern was never near the top half of budgets in the state or Southland, but with rosters brimming with in-state products, the Demons had sustained success with “Coach Mike.”
In the brightest spotlight, after his team knocked off Iowa, CBS Sports analyst Bill Raftery pegged it perfectly.
“Mike is remarkably relaxed in this pressure cooker. You can tell his players hold a reverence toward him. If you didn’t meet him, you’d think he was too good to be true,” said Raftery, who was courtside for the Iowa win. “He’s a quality human being, more concerned about his kids getting through school and doing well in life than anything else, and they know it.”
A few weeks later, McConathy was spotted weed-eating outside of Prather Coliseum.