NATCHITOCHES – When he took over as Northwestern State's president in 1996, Dr. Randy Webb grudgingly gave up his front row season tickets behind the Demons' bench and moved up to the sixth-level President's Suite far above the action at Turpin Stadium.
 
But he kept a very close watch, and a steady hand, on NSU Athletics, overseeing a 19-year period of unprecedented and remarkable achievement in intercollegiate sports at the university, before retiring last December. He also stepped forward to represent the Southland Conference on the national level in service on NCAA committees and in league business and policy making.
 
Webb and the late Dr. Jack Doland, former head football coach and later president at McNeese State, will be inducted as the Southland Conference Hall of Honor's Class of 2015, the league office announced Monday.  The inductions will be part of the Southland's annual spring meetings and will take place during its Honors Ceremony on May 19, at Frisco's Westin Stonebriar Hotel.
 
Doland and Webb will become the 43rd and 44th inductees to the Southland Hall of Honor since it was originated in 1999. They are also just the third and fourth presidents inducted, joining Lamar's F.L. McDonald and Stephen F. Austin's William Johnson, both first-year entrants in 1999.
 
"We are truly honored to recognize and celebrate the distinguished careers of Presidents Doland and Webb," Southland Commissioner Tom Burnett said. "Both presidents served as outstanding academicians with great knowledge of and participation within athletics.  These are two truly deserving Hall of Honor inductees."
 
For Webb, Northwestern has always been part of his identity. His father Joe worked on campus and dozens of family members are NSU alumni.
 
A proud native of Haynesville, Webb arrived at NSU in the fall of 1961 as a walk-on center on the Demons' football team. Four years later, he graduated with degrees in mathematics and business education. He earned his master's in mathematics from Northwestern State in 1966, and earned a doctorate in education with a concentration in mathematics and research from Southern Mississippi in 1971.
 
After serving on the faculty at Longwood College in Virginia from 1966-74, he returned to his home state as the Director of Higher Education and Teacher Certification with the Louisiana Department of Education.  In 1976-83, Webb served as Director of Institutional Research and EEO officer at Southeastern Louisiana University, and was Southeastern's registrar and a part-time mathematics faculty member from 1983-89.
 
Webb returned to his alma mater in 1989 as Dean of Instruction and Graduate Studies, and served as a member of the math faculty while also joining the NSU Athletic Association's board of directors. He became the university's 18th president on July 1, 1996, and was Northwestern State's longest-tenured president at the time of his retirement in December 2014. His term as president was marked with record enrollment and increases in retention, incoming ACT scores, and graduation rates, along with unprecedented athletic success.
  
He led the university's first capital campaign, and its goal of $18.84 million actually turned into $32.7 million, leading to the establishment of numerous endowed chairs and professorships to enhance academic improvement. A second capital campaign in 2009 surpassed its goal of $25 million with a total of $36 million in contributions. During Webb's tenure, Northwestern also received more federal and state grant monies than at any other time in the institution's history.
 
On the athletics side, Webb remains an avid supporter of Demon athletics, and devoted himself to ensuring the university's athletic programs remained competitively successful. In his 19 years as president, Webb enjoyed teams winning 19 regular-season Southland Conference championships, 17 Southland Tournament titles and making 21 NCAA Tournament appearances, while 35 NSU track and field competitors won Division I All-America honors by virtue of top 16 finishes at NCAA championships.
 
Two former Demon track and field competitors, LaMark Carter (2000) and Kenta Bell (2004, 2008), represented the United States in Olympic Games during Webb's presidency.

Among the NCAA Tournament appearances: the 2006 "Demons of Destiny" victory over No. 15 Iowa in basketball's March Madness, a contest which still annually draws mention in reviews of the most noteworthy and stirring games in tournament history, and one that netted a $100,000 endowed scholarship from General Motors benefitting dozens of students outside athletics at NSU. The widespread, global media exposure and alumni pride which still resonates from that game led Webb to call it "the greatest moment in over 125 years of Northwestern's existence."
 
Webb served the Southland Conference as chair of its Board of Directors, and remained an enthusiastic advocate of the league throughout his presidential term, helping create stability among the membership.
  
When it came to national issues in intercollegiate athletics, Webb was an active participant while representing the Southland on the NCAA Division I Board of Directors and the NCAA Executive Committee from 2001-05. He also served on the NCAA Division I Presidential Advisory Group from 2005-13.
 
Doland holds the unique standing of serving as McNeese State's head football coach (1970-78), athletic director (1971-1980) and president (1980-87), and while on the field, he was one of only two NCAA coaches with a Ph.D.  As an athletic administrator, he led McNeese's efforts to gain admission into the Southland Conference in 1972, and also used considerable influence to help start the Independence Bowl that hosted the Southland football champion from 1976-80.
 
His nine-year coaching record at McNeese was 63-32-3 overall, and led the Cowboys to their first Southland championship in 1976, earning Southland Coach of the Year honors.
 
Doland left the McNeese presidency in 1987 to run for and successfully serve in the Louisiana State Senate.  He died in 1991 after a long bout with cancer. He was inducted into the McNeese State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1970 and into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. McNeese State's Jack V. Doland Field House and Athletic Complex is named in his honor.