By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
Beginning his playing days in junior high during World War II, riding for an hour in the back of a pickup truck to start college at Northwestern State, and finishing eight decades in organized basketball helping choose officials for the NCAA’s Division I Final Four, Tynes Hildebrand has lived an unparalleled career.
Player, coach, athletics director, officials observer. From the 1940s until a decade ago, the 93-year-old Hildebrand has been immersed in his favorite game, the only sport he could play growing up in rural Sabine Parish and attending tiny Florien High School.
He has counted among his friends and colleagues legends such as longtime USA Olympic coach Henry Iba of Oklahoma State, national-championship coaches John Wooden (UCLA), Indiana’s Bob Knight, UTEP’s Don Haskins, and Louisiana icons including Dale Brown, Fred Hobdy, Billy Allgood, Lenny Fant and Benny Hollis. Hildebrand, Knight and Haskins helped Iba pick the country’s 1972 Olympic team.
As head coach at Northwestern State, Hildebrand helped found the Louisiana Association of Basketball Coaches half a century ago. As the LABC celebrates that anniversary with its 50th Annual Awards Banquet Saturday, May 4 in Baton Rouge, it’s fitting that Hildebrand will become only the fourth recipient of the organization’s Don Landry Award since that elite recognition for long-term impact and service to the game in Louisiana was created in 1998.
It’s named for the founding father of the LABC. Hildebrand, now living with his wife of 72 years, Julia, near family in Flower Mound, Texas, is touched to receive it.
“Don Landry’s the one who has done so much for Louisiana basketball. He involved so many people and did so very much, and got schools around the state invested in the LABC and building our game around the state,” said Hildebrand. “We had such good times with great fellowship that people wanted to be included. So to receive an award with his name on it is a distinct honor.”
Another iconic figure in state basketball history, LABC Hall of Famer and 2023 Mr. Louisiana Basketball recipient Mike McConathy, has a far-reaching understanding of Hildebrand’s impact. McConathy’s father Johnny, the No. 5 pick in the 1951 NBA Draft, was a senior at Northwestern State when Hildebrand joined H. Lee Prather’s Demons. The younger McConathy was a prep All-American at Bossier City’s Airline High, recruited nationally but ultimately choosing Louisiana Tech over his father’s alma mater. Later, he was tabbed to be the Demons’ head coach in 1999 and in 23 seasons became the state’s all-time winningest coach.
“His connections to every aspect of the game in our state, and beyond, from a player to a coach to international play, to referees, he has run the whole gamut. That’s rare, anywhere, and he’s one of a kind in Louisiana,” said McConathy.
Hildebrand spent 16 seasons (1965-80) as head coach at his alma mater, Northwestern State, where he posted 191 wins. He retired, and was named the LABC’s Mr. Basketball a year later, but returned in 1983 as the Demons’ athletics director for 13 years, working at half-salary in a financially-strapped department that under his guidance developed into one of the more successful in the Southland Conference on, and off, the field of competition.
As a coach and administrator, Hildebrand was an outstanding mentor. Among his prize pupils: Demons’ guard and future longtime Notre Dame basketball coach Mike Brey along with athletic department interns Greg Burke, his successor as AD who held that post for the next 26 years, and Greg Sankey, now in his 10th year as the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference.
Hildebrand was enshrined in the LABC’s Hall of Fame in 1992 for his coaching career. A year following his retirement as AD, Hildebrand became one of the NCAA’s Division I officials evaluators in 1997, a role he fulfilled for 17 seasons. In 2006, he became one of the inaugural four NCAA regional officiating supervisors.
Generations of coaches, players and fans – and certainly, officials – have felt the influence. He says it’s been more than an equal trade.
“Louisiana basketball has been my life,” he said. “The Hildebrand family has lived a Louisiana basketball life. And it’s been good to us.”
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com
