(Caption of 1948-49 team photo: Front row, l-r: Jodie Stoutamire, George Morris, Dan Poole, Buddy Bates, Lynwood Outz, Herschel McConathy; Back row, l-r: DeWitt "Peewee" Patten, Johnny McConathy, Leslie McConathy, Artie Ranew, Bernard Waggoner, Jim Willis)

 

 

Claude “Jodie” Stoutamire and Bernard “Tussie” Waggoner were the leading scorers for the legendary 1948-49 Northwestern State Demons basketball team, but that’s not how they remember it.

 

Savoring the 60^th anniversary of a 23-5 season that saw the Demons reach the national semifinals, they couldn’t care less about their statistics. They are proud of the team’s accomplishments but their real treasures are the lifelong friendships among their teammates, and the memories of the coaches who were their mentors.

 

Each of them enjoys occasional looks at a black and white team photograph, a copy of which is framed and matted, hanging on the wall outside the Demon basketball offices near the front doors of Prather Coliseum.

 

“They were my best friends then,” said Stoutamire, a Tallahassee, Fla., native and lifelong resident, except for his military service and college years.  “They are still my best friends today.”

 

“I was lucky to play with a group of young men with high character, above average talent and great determination. Each of them was very successful later in life. I’m very thankful to have been associated with that group,” he said.

 

It’s a sentiment shared by all of the surviving players, a tight-knit group then and now. They celebrated the 60th anniversary of that spectacular season last weekend, gathering on campus, being introduced at halftime of the current-day Demons' win over Central Arkansas and receiving cascading standing ovations from the crowd, and enjoying a dinner with today's head coach, Mike McConathy, whose dad and uncles played on the 1948-49 squad.

 

	The 1948-49 Demons, spouses and family members as they were introduced at Prather Coliseum on Jan.31.

“It was a great group of guys who played together,” said Waggoner. “Sometimes that togetherness gets overshadowed, but it’s so important to success. We didn’t worry too much about who scored. It was always a team effort. We just wanted to win.”

 

The team came together in the wake of World War II. Some players were military veterans. In Stoutamire’s case, being in the Army carried him away from an offer to play for the Florida Gators following the war.  Stationed at Camp Claiborne south of Alexandria, he played on a team that visited Northwestern to take on the Demons.

 

“In those days, we played the military teams. They were full of talented players, at Fort Polk, Barksdale, Lake Charles,” said Waggoner.  “That’s how Coach Prather saw Stoutamire, when Camp Claiborne came to play us.”

 

“That game at Northwestern changed my life,” remembered Stoutamire. “When we went up to play there, I was able to spend some time walking around the campus and town, and I just fell in love with Natchitoches. That’s the reason I went to Northwestern when Coach Prather asked me, instead of staying home in Florida.”

 

Nearing the end of his 36 seasons as the Demons’ coach, and about to become the university president a short while later, Prather was a revered figure on campus.

 

“He was a remarkable fellow. He was a lawyer and taught pre-law classes. He was the Dean of Men,” said Stoutamire. “As the coach, he was strictly business. He wanted you to practice just as hard and as well as you played in the games.”

 

“Coach Prather didn’t mince any words,” echoed Johnny “Hound” McConathy, a reserve forward in his sophomore season in 1948-49, when his older brother J.L. was one of the Demons’ top performers.  “Nobody ever gave a thought to breaking the training rules. Practices were basically scrimmages each day. We played a game every day, and when you got into a real game, there weren’t many surprises.

Corene and John McConathy visiting with (right) Jim Willis

 

“He used reverse psychology with a lot of us, and that was certainly true for me. He’d challenge you, tell you that you didn’t seem good enough to help the team. If you’re a competitor, that would be all the push you needed.”

 

Waggoner sees lots of Prather in McConathy’s son Mike, who is in his 10^th season as the Demons’ most successful coach since, well, Prather himself.

 

“Coach Prather was what I consider Mike to be like. The style isn’t quite the same, but Mike is no nonsense. He has high standards for his players. Coach Prather was a Christian man and whatever he told you, we could believe. I enjoyed playing for him, and we all did.”

 

The winter months were thrilling times for Natchitoches and NSC 60 years ago.

 

“The gym was packed. If you weren’t early, you couldn’t get in. The spirit was so much a part of our campus. That was our life. There weren’t dozens of TV channels, all the entertainment options the kids have now. Cars were a luxury. Hardly anyone had one,” said Waggoner. “I didn’t have any way to get home to Tullos other than riding a little ole bus.”

 

There was no bus ride as the Demons prepared for their third straight National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball tournament in Kansas City.

 

They boarded the Southern Belle Railroad for the trip north with a full head of steam. The Demons had won nine straight games, capturing the Gulf States Conference championship and the regional title with a two-game sweep of Centenary. They toppled Puget Sound 70-58 in their first game in Kansas City, then scored a stunning 59-57 triumph over the tournament’s top seed in the national quarterfinals.

 

“Beating Brigham Young, that was a big thrill. That wasn’t supposed to happen, and it did,” said Waggoner. “The following game (against Regis College) came down to the wire, but we weren’t so fortunate.”

	Bernard Waggoner and his granddaughter,  NSU student Lauren Lupo.

 

Today, to borrow a famous line by Lou Gehrig, they feel like the luckiest men on the face of the earth.

 

“It doesn’t seem like 60 years has passed, but it certainly has. I’m just proud to have been part of it,” said McConathy. “We were a competitive bunch and we had great support on campus and in town.”

 

That squad stands alongside the 2005-06 Demons, who won 26 games and defeated 15^th-ranked Iowa in the NCAA Tournament, regarded as the most accomplished teams in nearly a century of basketball tradition at Northwestern.

 

“We never thought about how we’d be remembered. We were having so much fun,” said Stoutamire. “It was simply the time of our lives.”