NATCHITOCHES – For the Northwestern State N-Club Hall of Fame Class of 2026, the university and its community played a pivotal role in making them who they are.
 
In fact, it became ingrained in many of the 13 who were feted Saturday morning at the induction ceremony for the university's athletic shrine.
 
"There's something about this place that just gets in your soul," slugging baseball catcher/first baseman Anatole Vincent said.
 
Vincent took a long and winding path to Natchitoches, including two separate stops at the same junior college before becoming a two-time All-Southland Conference performer whose 119 career RBIs in two seasons ranked third in school career history after his final season in 2003 and remain eight in the Demon baseball record book.
 
Vincent was joined in the class by his teammate, pitcher Jason Slanina, a four-year workhorse who remains in the top 10 in Demon career history in wins (23, 5^th), starts (40, 6^th), strikeouts (197, 6^th), innings pitched (295 1-3, 6^th) and appearances (64, 7^th).
 
The pair were teammates for one season (2002) but remain bonded as their Hall of Fame classmates did.
 
"We were the golden era of Northwestern State athletics," Vincent said. "Byron (Allen), Katie (Priest Riccobono), Crista (Miller Hobbs), Jason (Slanina), Buck (Greg Buckley). Each year, it's going to be that group from 2000-05. We had some great teams, some unbelievable coaches, but what really matters is we cared about each other.
 
"Baseball was at football. Basketball was at baseball. Softball was at soccer. Everybody supported everybody. We wanted each other to be successful, and we were very successful."
 
Slanina echoed his former teammate's thoughts.
 
"The championships and records are great, but what I'll cherish the most is the time on the bus and the camaraderie and the memories built through that," said Slanina, who also recounted a bus ride where the Demons found out they had entered the Top 25.
 
The Demon baseball team was one of three programs with multiple honorees Saturday, joined by a trio of football players and a pair from the Northwestern soccer program.
 
The soccer pair of coach Jimmy Mitchell and Katie Priest Riccobono, a standout defender, helped build the Northwestern program into a model of championship consistency.
 
The two shared ties to North Carolina, but it was Mitchell who was destined to reach Natchitoches – even moving up his wedding six months to take the reins of the program.
 
"Me and my wife were about to get married in about six months," Mitchell said. "I was coaching at a Catholic school, and I'm a strong Baptist. They wouldn't let me get married in the church, so I had to go to the monastery and get permission to get married in the Catholic church.
 
"I took the job down here, and I wasn't coming without her. We moved our wedding up six months so that she can come with me, because I wasn't coming without her. We came down and started our family with both of our children being born in Natchitoches."
 
That family atmosphere helped Mitchell build a program that reached three NCAA Tournaments in 13 seasons, won 134 games and 33 All-Southland Conference performers.
 
One of those was Priest Riccobono, who was the 2002 Southland Conference Player of the Year as a sophomore and a three-time All-Southland Conference player.
 
Priest Riccobono called the Player of the Year honor a team award and praised Mitchell for how he shared the news of her award with her, encapsulating their player-coach relationship.
 
But it was the pull of Natchitoches that brought and kept Priest Riccobono, a Raleigh, North Carolina native, at Northwestern.
 
"Coming back into town for the first time in a long time, I saw a sign that said, 'Hard to pronounce, easy to love,' and I think that is a perfect description (for Natchitoches)," she said. "The community really pulls you in. Jimmy said this, too, it may not always be easy to get recruits here, but once you got them here, it's hard not to fall in love."
 
The trio of Demon football players inducted Saturday – All-American offensive lineman Greg Buckley, All-Southland tight end Carols Treadway and highly productive quarterback Warren Patterson – did not share the field together at Turpin Stadium but they entered the Hall together.
 
Treadway did so for the second time after earning the Distinguished Service Award in 2024. Saturday's induction hit differently for the Alexandria native, whose mark went far beyond his statistical contributions.
 
"It's extremely special," Treadway said. "I always wanted to serve the university, so being selected as the Distinguished Service Award was really special, but I came here to play football. To be recognized for my accomplishments on the field means so much. It's completely different, because this is recognition from my teammates and coaches as to how I contributed on the field. It just means so much."
 
As a tight end, Treadway's responsibilities straddled the line of an offensive lineman and a skill-position player.
 
While Treadway remained at tight end – and enjoyed the blocking side of the position – Buckley came to Northwestern as a tight and became a standout on an offensive line that allowed the fewest sacks in school single-season history.
 
An All-American in 2004 as Northwestern captured the Southland Conference title, Buckley started for two FCS Playoff teams and earned inclusion on the Top 100 Demons of the Century in 2007.
 
"The individual honors were great, but what it really came down to was that ring," Buckley said. "I had chased that championship throughout high school and a few years here before we finally got it. It was the brotherhood we had."
 
Patterson, a Bunkie native, turned in one of the most productive careers of a Demon quarterback despite never putting together a fully healthy season.
 
It was a former teammate who helped put Patterson's numbers – 3,851 passing yards (currently 8^th in school history) and 29 passing touchdowns (currently 4^th) – in perspective.
 
And it was that bond with his teammates on days where the Demons weren't play that remain etched in Patterson's memories even as he was injured during the Demons' 1998 run to the FCS semifinals.
 
"What people don't understand is y'all see Saturdays," Patterson said. "Y'all see what happens on gamedays. What y'all don't realize and see is what happens before those days. You don't see what us athletes go through to play. I had that in '98. I got hurt, and those were some of the most memorable times for our team. To watch my fellow quarterbacks go through that, I was happy for them.
 
"My roommates told me, 'Hey, you got us here. Don't feel like you're not a part of this.'"
 
Like Patterson, Louise Chase came from a small town – Ringgold – and delivered in a big way at Northwestern.

Chase wrapped up her Lady Demon basketball career as a two-time All-Southland Conference player and two-time member of the Southland Conference All-Tournament Team.
 
Chase admitted it took her a year to recognize what it took to balance school and basketball before becoming the then-11^th-best scorer in NSU career history (1,391 points) and still the ninth-best rebounder (761) in career history.
 
Chase credited the support of head coach James Smith, himself an N-Club Hall of Famer, with helping her reach her full potential.
 
"He was the father I never had," Chase said. "I didn't have a father figure. I saw my father, but I didn't see my father. When I got here, I was a bit of a knucklehead. I got on academic probation. I wasn't into school like that. I liked to party. I wouldn't have graduated in psychology if it weren't for that man."
 
While Smith helped Chase reach her potential, John Fleckenstein helped numerous Northwestern athletes in various ways.
 
Fleckenstein spent eight years as both an equipment manager and athletic trainer, working with N-Club Hall of Famer Dr. Eugene Christmas in the training room.
 
Northwestern baseball coach Herbie Smith placed Fleckenstein in the athletic dorm with the baseball players and took Fleckenstein on road trips with the team, creating a bond that also provided a unique education.
 
"I spent more time in the fieldhouse than I did the classroom, which is why it took me six years to graduate," Fleckenstein said. "I learned more about football than I did physics, but Eugene Christmas was a saint. I learned everything I knew from that man. It felt like family.
 
"Football in the fall. Baseball in the spring. I don't think I ever left the fieldhouse."
 
Similarly, 2026 Distinguished Service Award winner Steve Pezant never left Natchitoches.
 
Although a shoulder injury derailed his college football career, Pezant has been an unmistakable presence around Northwestern athletics for more than three decades. His role as a state trooper and now as a Natchitoches city marshal has been buttressed by his service to his alma mater.
 
"Just being able to know you can help, to be there, sometimes just listening is what people need more than you talking to them," Pezant said. "Sometimes, these student-athletes just need a little direction."
 
For Crista Miller Hobbs, there was no question where her direction was going in the softball circle.
 
 The author of three solo perfect games – and a fourth with teammate, friend and 2022 N-Club Hall of Fame inductee Amanda Ortego Henley – Miller also found more than just a college degree in Natchitoches.
 
Northwestern's program record-holder for appearances (130), Miller Hobbs remains in the top 10 in fewest walks per seven innings (0.99, 2^nd), complete games (59, 3^rd), innings pitched (614 2-3, 3^rd), shutouts (15, T-3^rd), strikeouts (442, 5^th), wins (48, 5^th) and saves (5, T-5^th). She produced those numbers en route to first-team All-Southland and All-Louisiana honors in 2002 as the Lady Demons reached the NCAA Tournament.
 
Miller Hobbs married NSU baseball player Brian Hobbs and the couple's children were able to join them in Natchitoches for the ceremony, giving the aspiring athletes a first-hand look at their family's newest Hall of Famer.
 
"Coming back to where I played my college ball with two aspiring athletes, it's really awesome for them to come back and see where I played and maybe give them a taste of college, seeing the university and seeing the relationships that are made," she said. "It's cool that they get to sit here and support."
 
While Miller Hobbs had her family in Natchitoches, the Hall posthumously inducted five-time All-American long jumper Mike Brown.
 
Brown, a two-time individual Gulf South Conference long jump champion, was represented through video by his brother Odell Jordan.
 
"This is an honor and privilege for my family to be part of this acknowledgement of my brother," Jordan said. "My earliest memory of Mike is playing with some of the trophies he had earned throughout his career as well as the memories of his plaques on the wall. Mike as an awesome brother. He had a lot of friends and made sure to maintain those relationships throughout his life."
 
Relationships were at the core of Northwestern State's success in men's basketball in the early 2000s as the Demons reached the NCAA Tournament twice in a five-year span (2001-06).
 
Though not a part of the 2000-01 Southland Conference Tournament champions, power forward Byron Allen came to Northwestern the fall after that run to the title.
 
Five years later – after taking a redshirt year – Allen was one of the "Demons of Destiny," the NSU squad that shocked third-seeded Iowa in the first round of the 2006 NCAA Tournament.
 
A unique athlete, whose 6-foot-7, 285-pound frame often was stationed at the top of the Demon press, Allen quickly bonded with the classmates that formed the nucleus of the 2005-06 team that brought national prominence to Northwestern State and Natchitoches.
 
"It was a true team environment," Allen said. "I want to call it the ultimate sacrifice. You had to sacrifice. The first two years, we had to take some lumps, make some sacrifices. We would get up and have trouble closing games.
 
"Everyone was 'the man' on their (high school) teams. By Year 3, we had two back-to-back 20-win seasons, and we knew it was just about one person getting numbers. It was about trying to win no matter what it took."