Mike McConathy

Fits Many Leading Roles

Mike McConathy fits into any collection of Bossier Parish athletic greats in several categories, as a high school or college player, as a college coach or as a teacher of the game of basketball. After an outstanding career at Airline High School, he started as a freshman at Louisiana Tech where he was selected Southland Conference Player of the Year in his junior season (1975-76) and ranked as the seventh leading scorer in the NCAA (27.5 ppg) in his senior campaign.

Mike had six games of 40 points or more in college, topped by 47 against Lamar University. He totaled 2,033 career points with the Bulldogs and the Chicago Bulls selected him in the fourth round of the National Basketball Association draft in 1977. His all-star honors followed in the footsteps of his father, John, who was a Little All America at Northwestern State and had a short NBA career before becoming one of Shreveport-Bossier's top high school coaches.

Chosen the first basketball coach at Bossier Parish Community College in 1983, Mike would win 69 percent of his games and compile a 352-159 record with the Cavaliers. In 13 of his last 14 seasons with BPCC, McConathy's teams reached the National Junior College Athletic Association Region 23 tournament and two of those teams won championships and the right to advance to the NJCAA national tournament.

Mike was chosen to lead the basketball program at Northwestern State in 1999 and guided NSU to 17 wins, more than NSU reached in any of the 18 seasons before his arrival in Natchitoches. In 2000-01, his Demons qualified for their first-ever NCAA tournament berth and won their opening game. Mike, was voted Louisiana's College Coach of the Year by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association following that season. In of 2005, McConathy's Demons won their first-ever Southland Conference championship, the first league crown for the school in 31 years. In 2006, the Demons repeated the league title with a school record 25 victories and won the league tournament to reach the NCAA Playoffs. They scored a major upset over the Big Ten champion Iowa Hawkeyes in the first round.

Mike served as a coach of the Jamaican team for the 2006 World Championships.

Mike has touched the lives of countless young people and passed along his love for the game through his summer basketball camps in Bossier City.