Torn between two schools

Okay… not really, but it is always a special time for me when Northwestern State and McNeese State hook it up in any sporting event.

I grew up a McNeese Cowboy. My dad has been the sports information director there for 45 years now. McNeese sports is all I ever knew.

I started working for dad as a young kid selling game programs at football and basketball games, earning a quarter for each program I sold. Then moved up to press box duty as I got older helping out with stats and such.

I eventually “graduated” to traveling with the men’s basketball team my first couple of years in college before I decided to take a new career direction for a while before coming back to my true calling.

Being a kid growing up around McNeese sports… I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I can remember lining the baseline of the basketball court with 50 other kids waiting for the game to end as we all rushed onto the court to swipe the wrist bands off of the players. Occasionally you would hit the jackpot and get a knee pad. My favorite player was John Rudd.

Then there was the time I made an overnight trip with dad and the basketball team to Arkansas State. I was 12 at the time and remember waiting to board the bus, I was overlooking the construction of the area that is now the recreation swimming pool on the McNeese campus, when a young freshman came up to me and started talking to me like we were best friends. It was Joe Dumars.

There were times at baseball games when I’d get to go down onto the field and into the dugout. That’s a huge thrill for kids. I called my favorite player on the team back then “The Incredible Hulk” but his real name was Jim Young. He always did the Hulk flex and growl when he saw me.

Football games were always special.

From hauling up fluid operated, hand cranked copiers to getting stuck in the press box elevator… those are events that you would think don’t mean much, but those minute memories will last forever.

I remember getting to meet the San Diego Chicken when McNeese lost to Syracuse at the Independence Bowl but was also there when it played in its first-ever FCS Championship game in 1997 against a Jim Tressel-led Youngstown State team.

Never would I have thought I’d end up at archrival Northwestern State. But I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.

Now, in my eighth year at NSU, I still get excited when McNeese comes to town, but it’s more than getting to watch the team I grew up with or see my alma mater, it’s more because I get to see my family.

I bleed purple and white with a little bit of orange these days.

And those great memories I had growing up around McNeese athletics, I’m hoping 30 years from now my daughters can say the same about growing up around NSU athletics.


Matthew Bonnette
NSU Associate Sports Information Director

Birthday wishes

New Lady Demon cross country coach Heather McDaniel got a birthday surprise Monday when her team worked out at the Demon Hills Golf Course, site of next Monday's NSU Invitational.

Pretty sweet - although not as sweet as the brownies that she had to cook for Coach Black after she bet him that her alma mater and home state flag-bearer, West Virginia, would win last Saturday night at LSU.

Heather was able to attend the game since the NSU cross country teams competed that morning at the LSU Invitational - a happy coincidence.

Good pub for NSU on a popular state site

Louisiana Football Magazine publisher Lee Brecheen, whose printed magazines are hot sellers around the state each summer and early fall, has ramped up his website offerings in 2010.

There's a bustling daily audience, which today is good for NSU. Lee, based in Baton Rouge, circulates e-mail notices about his daily features to a large list of media and avid followers. Today's notice:

Check out today’s story on the Northwestern State University’s Adrian Reese at this link: http://tinyurl.com/26tcwks