Mike Schneider vividly remembers his senior year at Northampton.

It was 1972 and the former athletic director was a member of the boys basketball team under then head coach Bob Nemeth - that was the last Northampton team to win a District 11 title.

In that year, the Konkrete Kids downed Easton, 60-57, behind Greg Vogel’s 16 points and Carl “Yogi” Christman added 13 in the win.

Ironically, the Kids met Easton again and lost to them in the Eastern semifinals during a time when the championships were devised in a “Final Four” setup with the top-two teams from the Eastern and Western part of the state played.

The Kids finished the year with an overall 26-3 record. Besides Schneider, Vogel, and Christman, Schneider’s younger 6-8 brother, Jim – a UPI First-Team All-State choice – Jim Spitzer, and Perry Cinatore rounded out the top six.

Northampton lost to Hazleton in the 1971 district final and to Easton in the 1973 finale.

“One thing we have in common with this current team was that we could shoot,” said Schneider. “Teams would play a zone against us, and we would shoot over it. They would play us man and we could still shoot. Teams tried a lot of things against us and we overcame it.”

Schneider’s name is synonymous with the Kids’ program and its success.

Before their title in 1972, the last time Northampton was in a district final was in 1937 when his father, Pete – a 6-4 center – had 17 points in a 29-24 victory over Frackville under coach Woody Ludwig. The Kids returned to the final the following year and lost to Hazleton.

Despite a loss to East Stroudsburg South in this season’s district final, Schneider likes what he had seen from this version of the K-Kids.

“They really have a good chemistry and they all pull for each other out there,” said Schneider, who was the school’s athletic director from 1993 to 2012. “Aidan Ellwood seems to get better every time I see him.

“He (Ellwood) is as good as a player that I have seen at Northampton in a while. This team has something special about it.”