By JASON PUGH, Northwestern State Sports Information Director
The relationship between Louisiana’s sports shrine and its adopted hometown will be strengthened next summer.
Two members of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026 announced Wednesday have deep ties to Northwestern State – former Demon head men’s basketball coach Mike McConathy, the state’s all-time leader in basketball coaching victories, and six-time state champion Florien High School girls basketball coach Dewain Strother, who is second nationally in all-time girls basketball coaching victories.
The two will join six other competitive-ballot inductees and four additional honorees in Natchitoches for the 2026 induction weekend June 25-27. Joining McConathy and Strother in the class are Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Sylvia Fowles, NFL stars Joe Horn, Todd McClure and Pat Williams, Major League Baseball All-Star Jonathan Lucroy and McConathy’s contemporary on the college basketball sidelines, John Brady of LSU.
Former LSU College World Series hero Warren Morris will join the group as the winner of the Ambassador Award, which is being awarded for the third time since 2020. Three “contributor” inductees will be chosen later this year.
A Bossier City native, McConathy spent 23 seasons at Northwestern, coaching the Demons to 330 of his state-record 682 victories and three NCAA Tournament berths.
It took McConathy just two seasons to completely transform the Demons, taking his first squad to the Southland Conference Tournament final and the second, the 2000-01 team, to the program’s first NCAA Tournament and the first March Madness win in program history – a 71-67 triumph over Winthrop. That victory allowed McConathy to helped build on a Demon legacy built by his father and two uncles, all of whom starred at Northwestern.
McConathy’s father, John, was a 1951 first-round NBA Draft pick of the Syracuse Nationals.
“How blessed am I to have coached with people and coach players who would actually allow us to coach them and to take us to greater heights than anyone dreamed?” McConathy asked. “You have to give (former Northwestern Director of Athletics) Greg Burke a tremendous amount of credit. He took a chance on hiring me, but he saw something whether he knew it or not. I had a 50-year head start on anyone coming to Northwestern because of all of the ties my dad had established in the state and at Northwestern. That gave me an advantage.”
Five years later after that first NCAA Tournament berth, McConathy’s “Demons of Destiny” delivered one of March Madness’ signature buzzer-beating upsets in 2006 when Jermaine Wallace’s late 3-pointer capped a stunning second-half comeback to lift 14th-seeded Northwestern to a victory that lives on every March in NCAA Tournament highlight packages.
McConathy’s third NCAA Tournament team came in 2013 when his Southland Conference regular-season runner-ups outlasted rival Stephen F. Austin in the SLC Tournament championship game to earn its spot in the big dance. That victory in Katy, Texas, was one of seven appearances for a McConathy-coached team in the Southland Conference tournament championship game.
Those three tournaments were part of four national postseason appearances for McConathy’s Demons, who also played in the 2014 College Insider Tournament.
A member of the Louisiana Tech and NSU athletic halls of fame, McConathy also has been enshrined in the Ark-La-Tex Museum of Champions and the Northwestern State Hall of Distinguished Educators – the latter coming after spending 23 years as a member of the university faculty.
In addition to graduating more than 90 percent of his NSU players, McConathy mentored five future Division I head coaches during his Demon tenure. Included those who followed their leader’s footsteps to the top spot on the bench were Buzz Williams (currently at Maryland), Dave Simmons (McNeese) and Mark Slessinger (New Orleans).
Northwestern christened Mike McConathy Court at Prather Coliseum on Feb. 15, 2025, adding to his list of honors for his 43-year coaching career that began as the girls basketball coach at his prep alma mater. McConathy’s team’s lived by the slogan, “The MVP of our team is our team,” something his induction into the state’s biggest sports shrine echoed.
“It’s special, but it’s special because there are so many people who helped me along the way – my parents, my teammates, my brothers and sister, my wife and my children,” McConathy said. “Every player was a part of my family because they allowed me to be part of their life and to use what God’s given me, a gift to be able to reach out to others and see the best in them. By doing that, we were able to achieve a lot of great things. It was a collective thing with so many people contributing to me to make me able to give back to them.”
McConathy’s coaching career blossomed from the ground up at Bossier Parish Community College where he built a program from scratch and led it to seven seasons of 23-plus victories and two trips to the NJCAA national tournament, including a seventh-place finish.
As a player, McConathy was a prep All-American guard at Airline before becoming the Southland Player of the Year in 1977 as part of a Louisiana Tech career where he averaged 20.7 points per game. Just as his coaching career circled back to his father, so did McConathy’s time as a player.
“The playing part of my career is pretty special,” he said. “To go from being a 5-foot-3, ninth grader who wanted to play because his dad was a great player and a coach, the needle’s not moving. To be able to develop into a player, nobody thought that was going to happen. I wasn’t big, and I wasn’t strong, but my work ethic carried over from being a player to being a coach.
“I remember (future Louisiana Tech head men’s basketball coach) Tommy Joe Eagles (under whom McConathy student taught at Cedar Creek in Ruston) a long time ago told me great players don’t make good coaches. The reason is they don’t have to do the little things. I was not in that category. I had to do everything I could possibly do (to succeed as a player).”
Like McConathy, Strother built a remarkable winning legacy on the hardwood.
A two-time Northwestern graduate – bachelor’s in 1974, master’s in 1984 – Strother built a girls basketball dynasty at Florien High School, located roughly 40 miles southwest of Natchitoches in hoops-crazed Sabine Parish.
It was in – and out of — the classroom at Northwestern where Strother honed the skills that made him an effective communicator on the sideline.
“They taught me how to handle students,” Strother said. “When I was going to school, I had to go through a whole semester of methods and a semester of student teaching at Parks Elementary. I learned a lot through the professors at Northwestern. I was around the athletic department a lot with (former director of athletics and head basketball coach) Tynes Hildebrand and (former head basketball coach Don) Beasley. I watched them and tried to learn as much as I can.”
During his 40-year career at Florien, which came to an end with a state semifinal loss capping the 2022-23 season, Stother collected 1,235 victories, winning more than 75 percent of his games.
Strother’s career made the Lady Black Cats’ synonymous with winning and postseason staples.
Florien reached the state playoffs 39 times in Strother’s career, advancing to the semifinals 21 times. Six times Florien captured the ultimate prize in girls basketball, including a three-peat from 1991-93.
Those wins helped Strother earn the Class B Coach of the Year honor from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association five times, including his final season. In addition to his coaching prowess, Strother served as Florien’s athletic director for more than 30 years while also coaching softball and golf at times during his tenure.
Strother sent numerous players to the collegiate level, including 2012 N-Club Hall of Fame inductee Joskeen Garner. Garner’s recruitment eventually led her to her head coach’s alma mater, which led to some consternation from opposing coaches, including two (then Louisiana Tech assistant Kim Mulkey, and then-Stephen F. Austin head coach Gary Blair) who have been enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame this decade.
“I was close friends with (former NSU women’s basketball head coach) James Smith,” Strother said. “He recruited my girls, just like a whole bunch of different coaches. Blair told me, ‘You’re not giving me a fair chance with Joskeen.’ I told him, ‘Coach, there she is. Talk to her all you want.’”
Building a program with standouts like Garner helped Strother leave his mark on Louisiana basketball in a career that was maybe unexpected but not unappreciated.
“I didn’t expect it, but I wanted it,” Strother said. “I had a passion for the job and for the game. About the time I started was when Title IX came into play, and I asked to start the girls program back at Florien. After my first year, I needed to learn a lot. I got busy. I listened to a pile of coaches. Three days with Bobby Knight at his clinic, as he called it. I went to the LHSAA clinic 30 years in a row. I went to hear those coaches talk. What they say is important, and you pick out the things that can help you and help your program.”
McConathy’s and Strother’s inductions bring the total of Northwestern State alumni in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame to 14. They are the first competitive-ballot selections since weightlifting coach Gayle Hatch and basketball coach Geraldine “Jelly” Pigott each were enshrined in 2008.
Among the NSU sports heroes in the LSHOF include Joe Delaney, Mark Duper, Bobby Hebert, Tynes Hildebrand, Gary Reasons, and Lee Smith.
