Background
McNatt grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, attended Norman High School, and then opted to stay in his hometown to play basketball for the University of Oklahoma.
McNatt grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, attended Norman High School, and then opted to stay in his hometown to play basketball for the University of Oklahoma.
At Oklahoma, McNatt led his team to the first-ever National Collegiate Athletic Association Final Four in 1939, and at Phillips 66, McNatt guided the 66ers (also called the "Oilers") to four consecutive Amateur Athletic Union national championships (1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946). He was a two-time All-American at Oklahoma (1939, 1940) and a four-time Amateur Athletic Union All-American for Phillips 66 (1943, 1944, 1945, 1946). The speedy player came to be known by his nickname “Scat” McNatt, a moniker originally traced back to the term “Boy Scats” which sportswriters had used to describe McNatt’s fast-breaking, sophomore-led 1937-1938 Oklahoma Sooners basketball team
During his collegiate career at Oklahoma, McNatt broke the Big Six Conference single-game scoring record on two occasions.
As a junior, he set the mark with 29 points against Iowa State University on February 18, 1939. Then as a senior, he broke his own record with 30 points against Nebraska on February 9, 1940.
McNatt was the conference"s leading scorer during the 1939-1940 season. In the 1939 National Collegiate Athletic Association Men"s Division I Basketball Tournament, McNatt led his team to the first-ever Final Four.
He topped all scorers with 12 points in the national quarterfinals (“Western Regional Semifinal”) as the Sooners defeated Utah State 50-39.
Both games were played in San Francisco at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. After graduating from Oklahoma, McNatt moved on to a career in Amateur Athletic Union basketball, an early basketball league that preceded the National Basketball Association. In 1943 and 1944, the 66ers defeated Denver’s American Legion team 57-40 and then 50-43 in the tournament-final games.
In McNatt’s final season, Phillips 66 defeated the San Diego Dons by the score of 45-34 in the Amateur Athletic Union championship game.
McNatt was inducted into the Helms Athletic Foundation"s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1960. After his basketball career, McNatt worked as a petroleum engineer for the Phillips Petroleum Company, and held numerous supervisory and management positions at Phillips for his entire career, retiring July 1, 1980.