McConathy is home: family ties to NSU span more than 50 years by Jerry Byrd, Bossier Press-Tribune
For more than 50 years, the name of McConathy has been synonymous with Northwestern State University basketball tradition. It all started on the Bienville Parish hill farm of O. L. McConathy in 1945, the year that World War II ended. McConathy’s oldest sons, Leslie and Johnny, were plowing corn that day when their work was interrupted by an automobile winding its way up the dirt road leading to the farmhouse. The three men in the automobile were representatives from the Louisiana Normal College in Natchitoches. The Bryceland High School basketball team had defeated Coushatta in a rally at Natchitoches, and the men made the trip to Bienville Parish to offer an athletic scholarship to Leslie McConathy. One of the men was the Normal football coach and athletic director, Harry “Rags” Turpin. Another was Monty Cheeves, an assistant basketball coach. The other was Joe Webb, a chemistry professor who later became head of the alumni association. Webb’s son, Randy, is now the president of Northwestern. Legend has it that Leslie McConathy picked up his plow by one handle, pointed in the direction of the farmhouse and told them he would meet them there as soon as he and Johnny plowed their way around the hill. But Johnny’s memory is a bit foggy on that point. When they reached the house, the scholarship offer was made and accepted, sealed by a handshake, and the visitors left. A few weeks later, Leslie changed his mind after visiting Louisiana Tech at Ruston, and sent a letter to Coach Turpin informing him that he had decided to attend Tech. Turpin returned to the McConathy farm to discuss the situation with Leslie and his father. O. L. McConathy asked Leslie if he told the people from Normal that he would go to their college. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “Then you told the people at Tech you would go to their college?” “Yes, sir.” “Well, that’s a mighty poor way to do business, isn’t it? You gave your word to these people first, so that settles it.” “We lived right behind the school,” Johnny McConathy recalls. Actually, it was six miles as the crow flies -- and much longer when Leslie rode a horse and Johnny pedaled a bicycle to the gym for basketball practice and games. Two years after his older brother went to the Natchitoches college, when Johnny was a senior at Bryceland High (which had an enrollment of 69 students), no college recruiters made the trip to the McConathy farmhouse. One reason was that Johnny McConathy broke his ankle early in the season. Another was the fact that he was a 6-1, 155-pound stringbean who would grow four inches taller in the next two years. Johnny hitchhiked to Natchitoches, where he found legendary coach H. Lee Prather playing a ping pong game. “What can you do?” Prather asked him between serves. “I can play ball,” said Johnny. Prather looked at him and shook his head. “You don’t look like much of a ballplayer to me,” he said. “I don’t have anything for you.” Then he resumed his ping pong game. Johnny McConathy wasn’t easily discouraged. When classes started the following fall, he hitchhiked to Natchitoches again. Once again, Prather told him no scholarship was available. But after Johnny managed to hang around for a few days, Prather called in Leslie and told him one of the boys he was expecting hadn’t shown up. “I’ll give your brother an opportunity, one day at a time,” he said. By that time, the Natchitoches school had changed its name to Northwestern State College. Leslie and Johnny McConathy both played on the 1948-49 Demon team which posted a 23-5 record and is still regarded as Prather’s greatest team. So did another McConathy, Herschel, a distant relative from Florien. The McConathy clan was part of a group of settlers from Alabama who traveled west along the route of what is now Interstate 20 (because it was the high ground, and their wagons wouldn’t bog down in the mud.) They hung a left at Arcadia, where they founded the Alabama Baptist Church, and some stayed in Bienville Parish while others continued to Sabine, Vernon an Beauregard parishes. Johnny McConathy went from his “one day at a time” trial period to set a school scoring record and win All-America honors in 1952. After a brief stint in the National Basketball Association, he coached Bossier High to its first state basketball championship in 1960 and later served as superintendent of Bossier Parish schools. Leslie was superintendent of Richland Parish schools.
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NCAA Tournament: 2001 • 2006 • 2013 SLC Tournament Championships: 2001 • 2006 • 2013