Good news item: Monday in Birmingham, the Northwestern State Lady Demons track and field team won its third straight Southland Conference Indoor championship.
You can add last spring’s SLC Outdoor title to the resume for the traditionally top-shelf program not only in the Southland, but in the state. Other than LSU, Demons can convincingly make a case that their women’s team is the best all-around in the Boot.
That’s reflected each May in the number of national meet qualifiers from Northwestern, bettered only by LSU’s contingent. And NSU’s men’s program, while not as championship-laden as its female counterpart, has an even bigger list of NCAA qualifiers each spring.
Back to the headline of the moment in regional Division I collegiate track and field: NSU just captured its third straight SLC Indoors crown.
Head coach Mike Heimerman threw weights for iconic coach Leon Johnson at NSU in the late 1990s, and then immediately became Johnson’s understudy. He took over head coach duties of the women’s program 17 years ago, and became the overall program leader a dozen years back when Johnson finally retired after an incredible run that began in 1982.
Associate head coach Adam Pennington joined the staff 10 years ago and has been the mastermind behind NSU’s highly-accomplished, heavily-scoring sprint corps. That’s been the difference between the Lady Demons being contenders and the Lady Demons becoming three-peat champs, and on the men’s side, the speed Demons are continuing a sprint legacy that traces back decades, to the days when young Jerry Dyes became NSU’s track coach in the early 1970s and a phenomenal two-sport superstar from Haughton arrived in Natchitoches.
Joe Delaney’s athletic impact was transformational and spearheaded a 1981 NCAA Division I 4×100 relay championship that over 40 years later remains the only relay title ever captured by an FCS-level athletic program. Track and field excellence goes back even deeper at Northwestern, where Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame coach Walter Ledet tutored the Demons’ linemen while building the state’s dominant track teams in the 1950s, winning five straight Gulf States Conference titles and missing a sixth in a row by a half point.
So when it comes to excellence on and inside the oval, there’s an abundance of it at Northwestern. No doubt that the women’s program has never been better.
But is it a dynasty?
That’s what some proud alumni were touting on social media Monday night, and it’s easy to reach that conclusion.
Three straight titles hasn’t happened in the Southland since Sam Houston State did it from 2016-18. It’s rare air.
But is it a dynasty?
Three straight is excellent, but if the Kansas City Chiefs had won the Super Bowl, would that have been a dynasty? Perhaps.
I’m a Steelers guy. Four Super Bowls in six years, yes, I am claiming that’s a dynasty. Bradshaw and the boys never won three straight, though, so score a point for the KC crowd.
MJ and the Bulls – no doubt an NBA dynasty on the level of the great Celtics teams. Chicago won six world championships in eight seasons from 1991-98. Bill Russell spearheaded Boston to eight in a row from 1959-66 and the Celtics aura has flared and at times briefly faded since. But those are dynasties like the Bronx Bombers of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle.
UCLA’s 10 NCAA basketball crowns in 12 years … the UConn women’s extended run of excellence … Pat Summitt’s reign with the Tennessee Lady Vols … and while there weren’t a pile of national championships, the extraordinary extended high-level win rate against the very best competition by the Lady Techsters built by Sonja Hogg and steered for 35 seasons (1982-2002 as head coach) by Leon Barmore, that’s dynasty-level stuff in my book.
I am a very proud Demon today. Having worked with Heimerman and Pennington and Johnson and with so many great competitors, including Olympians LaMark Carter and Kenta Bell and multiple All-Americans and individual NCAA champions, it’s gratifying to see the level of exceptional coaching and commitment pay off with a string of joy-inducing titles.
But in my book, it’s not quite a dynasty – yet. I won’t argue with anybody who says it is, though..
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com