There are some ground rules, unwritten but understood, that come with being involved in Mike McConathy's Northwestern State basketball program.

First, check your ego at the door and get ready to go to work. In fact, forget about that ego. By the time you're finished here, you'll have a great sense of pride, most of it in the people who surround you, because of the work you've done together.

Second, you are part of the NSU basketball family, in every sense of the word "family." You will be cared for and respected, treated the way Coach Mike would want his own sons to be treated. It's a two-way street. Everybody you come into contact with deserves the same, whether it's a teammate, a student trainer, a janitor, a bus driver, or a waitress in a restaurant hundreds of miles away from home. What you do reflects on everybody else in your family, so you do the right things. And you know what's right and what's not.

Third, you are part of a program whose slogan is "Championship Basketball ... With a Purpose!" As a Demon, you will be challenged to improve yourself each day, in every way, not just on the basketball court or in the weight room, but in the classroom and in life skills that will remain long after your last college jump shot settles softly into the net.

Fourth, realize how lucky you are to have this opportunity. Enjoy it. Maximize it. Appreciate it, and those who have made it possible, like your family and your coaches and teammates before you arrived at NSU.

Fifth, let's have fun. Basketball is a game. Life is a blessing. It ought to be enjoyable to be around your coaches and teammates, who you're going to spend more time with than anyone else during your college career.

Those are among the core values Coach Mike instills in the Northwestern program.

They're not unique principles. McConathy constantly studies the great motivators and success stories,  not only in sports but in business and religion and education and every aspect of life, looking for lessons he and his coaching staff can teach to their young men.

You'll find the fabled UCLA basketball "Pyramid of Success" designed by legendary coach John Wooden in the Demon basketball offices. On every practice plan, there's a "thought for the day" -- and sometimes it is basketball related, but most often, it's achievement-oriented.

When he arrived at his father's alma mater in March 1999, tasked with turning around a long-downtrodden program, Coach Mike didn't run off the players in the program so he could bring in his kind of guys right away.

At the press conference announcing his hiring, he talked about bringing Demon basketball back to the level of expectation it had when his father and uncles played for Northwestern in the 1950s. Then, 20-win seasons and conference championships were standard fare.

One veteran media member wondered if the new coach was from Mars, so farfetched that goal seemed. After all, NSU had just five winning seasons in 24 years of Division I membership - and had never been close to a conference championship or an NCAA Tournament berth.

McConathy only had two scholarships to work with, just a couple of weeks before signing day, but instead of cleaning house, he created a homelike atmosphere. This program, he told the veteran players, wasn't his. It was theirs. His role was to shape it into something good, for them and for the players to come.

His two pre-teen boys, Michael and Logan, spent as much time in Prather Coliseum as the players did. That wasn't by accident.

Coach Mike told his team that he wanted to be able to have pride in having his boys around the players. So the McConathy kids had a bunch of older brothers, and the players suddenly had a couple of younger brothers, subtly reminding them their conduct was very personal to their new coach.

Deep inside, McConathy also was determined to build a program that would be solid enough that when his sons finished high school, it might appeal to them to be involved, in some way, perhaps even as players, just like their grandfather Johnny and their uncles, George and Leslie, were in the years between World War II and the Korean Conflict, when the NBA was a fledgling league with teams in Ft. Wayne and Syracuse, a decade before color television made its debut.

Now, beginning his 11th season as head coach, Coach Mike's vision has long since become reality.

Sticking with the players already in the program worked. His first team posted the first winning season in eight years at Northwestern, and became the first Demon team to reach the Southland Conference Tournament championship game.

A year later, the Demons were back, and they didn't stop there. The heart of the team he inherited and inspired worked its way to the SLC Tournament title in 2001, into the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever, and to an opening round win as the Demons became "Dayton's Darlings" and somewhat of a national media sensation at the outset of March Madness.   

The swirl of national talk show appearances, the fact that the team's opening win was the lead story on "SportsCenter" and in the next day's USA Today sports section, was all part of the bigger picture for McConathy. It was a chance to solidify the foundation that had been established, an opportunity to springboard the NSU program into a position of being a consistent championship contender in the Southland Conference.

A year later, as seven seniors went through commencement exercises, McConathy was preparing for the consequences of a surprising recruiting decision. The coach who spent 16 seasons in the junior college ranks decided against blending juco players with a few prep prospects to replace the departing senior class. Instead, McConathy and assistants Dave Simmons and Mark Slessinger brought in a dozen high school seniors.

Those recruits were the 2005-06 seniors, except for Jermaine Spencer, who had interest from LSU and Texas, among others, but signed with McConathy and the Demons. Spencer took a medical redshirt year as a sophomore, so his senior season came in 2006-07. Behind that 2003 recruiting class, the Demons layered in a handful of talented high school players in 2004 and 2005, and added a blend of prep and junior college recruits since, averting another wholesale rebuilding.

The plan worked. The youngest team in the country battled through two losing seasons, appearing ready to turn the corner in 2003-04 before some key players were sidelined.

In 2004-05, the payoff began: 21 wins (the most for the Demons since 1960), a Southland Conference co-championship, homecourt advantage in the SLC Tournament and an ESPN-televised championship game at Prather Coliseum.

But it was a stunning last-minute loss. That was the painful motivator for the 2005-06 team - the Demons wanted to fulfill their potential, to repeat as champs, host the SLC tournament championship game again, and win there - and in the NCAA Tournament.

They did that, and much more.

The Demons had a school-record 26 wins, including victories at Oklahoma State, Mississippi State, over Oregon State and No. 15 Iowa in the NCAA Tournament. Attendance records were shattered. They earned a TV game in the ESPN BracketBusters. They won the SLC by the widest margin in nine seasons. Northwestern made its fourth SLC Tournament championship game appearance in McConathy's first seven seasons as head coach. The Demons won the Pontiac Game Changing Performance $100,000 general scholarship prize for the most spectacular play in the NCAA Tournament. Northwestern made four national television (CBS, ESPN2, ESPNU) appearances, let alone the cascade of national coverage during their NCAA Tournament run by the Demons of Destiny.

And NSU was among 34 programs around the nation, alongside Harvard and Yale, North Carolina and Villanova, Air Force and Navy, to receive special recognition by the NCAA for ranking in the top 10 percent nationally in the Academic Progress Rate report for two years of outstanding work advancing players toward graduation.

Seven seniors graduated, five with degrees. For most programs it would be back to the drawing board at that point. For the Demons, it was back to more success in 2006-07 - starting with a jam-packed Prather Coliseum for a  season-opening smackdown of Utah State, and finishing a 3-pointer shy of another NCAA Tournament berth.

For the third straight year, NSU won an SLC title - this time the newly created SLC East Division crown.  Again, the Demons were in the SLC Finals.

It was more déjà vu in 2008.

For the sixth time in nine seasons, and for the fourth consecutive year, the Demons reached the SLC Tournament championship game. Another nailbiting 3-point loss kept them from the Big Dance. But their SLC Tournament dominance is palpable to observers and the competition, who are wary of the Demons' depth that makes them so formidable in the late season and postseason play.

Another equally impressive streak also was extended. For a third straight year, NSU basketball led all Division I basketball programs in Louisiana and in the SLC with their outstanding APR score.

It's all part of Coach Mike's plan. And it's a home grown product. McConathy has built with Louisiana players - 11 of this year's 15 Demons are from the Bayou State.

That's fitting. The McConathy family roots, and values, are deep in the red clay hills of north Louisiana, tracing back decades to his family's farm in hilly Bienville Parish, where his father and uncles did their chores before they used horses and bicycles to make the six-mile plus trip to basketball practice and games.

During his days at Bossier Parish Community College, McConathy had chances to join his college teammate Tim Floyd as an assistant coach at Iowa State and possibly to the NBA, but it never came to pass. He couldn't put a price tag on raising his boys around their grandparents and uncles and aunts in north Louisiana.

Now, as he's brought Northwestern basketball back, and even beyond to a level it reached when his father played for the Demons, he's proud his parents, Johnny and Corene, sit across the court at Prather Coliseum, savoring the experience.

On Homecoming day Oct. 24, a Decade of Dynamic Demon Basketball was celebrated with a reunion of those who made it happen -- almost 100 players, managers, trainers, coaches and staff gathered at Prather Coliseum for a family picnic. Nearly all of Coach Mike's first team in 1999-2000 returned, reflecting their appreciation for the respect, care and leadership he provided. Players traveled from around the country to share fellowship with former teammates and brothers in basketball from throughout the first 10 seasons under Coach Mike's guidance.

The transformation is accomplished. The challenge hasn't ended -- competition never does -- but Mike McConathy has built a program solid enough that he would be proud to have his own son as part of the team.

He's smiling a bit more broadly nowadays. Logan and Michael both play for the Northwestern Demons, along with 13 more of "his boys."