May 28, 2009

Mike Pegram
Peegs.com & Inside Indiana Staff Writer

This is our first of what we hope will be many features on past Indiana basketball players. The guys that brought you great memories, brought the university Big Ten or NCAA title banners, the guys who made Indiana basketball something to be proud of for alums and fans such as yourself.

Today we catch up with Tom Abernethy, a senior starter on the NCAA's last unbeaten champion, the 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers. That last year he averaged 10.0 points and 5.3 rebounds, starting all but one game. The 6-foot-7 forward from South Bend shot an impressive 56.1% from the floor.

Abernethy and his wife Susie have lived in the Carmel area since about 1980 and have raised three boys. Not too long ago they both became grandparents for the first time.

After the dream season of 1976 at Indiana, Abernethy was the 43rd player picked in the 1976 NBA draft by the Los Angeles Lakers. He played there for two years and then signed a three year deal with Golden State. In the final year of that deal he was released and picked up by the Indiana Pacers just a week later. After those five NBA seasons he played professionally in Italy for two seasons. Eye problems shortened that overseas career. In the NBA he earned 40 starts and averaged 5.6 points per game for his career.

"We moved back to Indianapolis around 1980 soon after we had the twins and have lived in the area ever since," said Abernethy.

It was all sons for the Abernethys.

"I have three boys--Matt and Andy are twins and they are 29-years old now," said Abernethy. "Their younger brother Todd will be 25 this summer. He played four years of college ball."

Todd had a very successful career at Ole Miss.

"He was on the all-freshman team his first year," said Abernethy. "His second year he won sixth man of the year award and then his senior year he was all-SEC. He had a great experience including finding a wife at Ole Miss and he got married soon after graduation."

He added that Todd has gone on to play in Holland and more recently Latvia. In fact Tom said his son is involved in a tense playoff series this week.

The older twins started as Division One scholarship players themselves, out at the University of Pacific in California. Both twins were redshirted as freshman and then Matt transferred followed by Andy one semester later. Matt left for Grace College and Andy to Bethel.

Matt scored over 2,000 points in three years for Grace---"really turned into a scoring machine," said his father. Matt met his wife Brittany at Grace, received an accounting degree and works in Warsaw, Indiana now for the company Biomed. He and his wife have one young daughter.

Andy had a freak accident with some lawn equipment that caused some unexpected eye surgeries that eventually curtailed his playing career. The accident propelled him into looking into the ministry and since his Bethel days he has been working on a doctorate degree at Trinity, a Christian college in Illinois.

Flash back to 1981. Tom Abernethy's professional playing career is over and he returns to Carmel, Indiana. He gets into the commercial real estate business in the Indy area.

Leaving the game of basketball behind turns out to be tougher than anticipated.

"I did that (commercial real estate) for 10-11 years but during that time I would coach my son's AAU teams," said Abernethy. "(Bloomington South head coach) J.R. Holmes became good friends then as his son Jonathan, Matt and Andy and Tommy Coverdale all played together. Darnell Archey and a lot of guys played several years with a team called Hoosier Heat. J.R. was the head coach and I helped as an assistant."

Later Abernethy did more AAU coaching with younger son Todd and among his teammates was future Hoosier guard Errek Suhr.

"Back in 7th or 8th grade Todd's team made it to the final eight (AAU nationals)," said Abernethy. "We lost to LeBron James' team. Then the next year we ended up playing them again and beat them when playing for fifth place."

He discovered hoops was too much in his blood and he made some important decisions about his spiritual life.

"That was a lot of fun coaching, especially coaching my son," said Abernethy. "That taste or love of basketball never went away. I became a Christian in the middle of all this and I realized I didn't want to spend all of my life going after money and fame and use the gifts that God has given me."

Indiana Basketball Academy

What Abernethy found was his commercial real estate background and love of basketball and teaching kids motivated him to a take page out of the famous movie, Field of Dreams.  In other words, 'build it and they will come.'

"I acquired some property, got the zoning that was needed and built a building," said Abernethy. "We built a thing called the Indiana Basketball Academy."

That facility is located near 96th Street and Keystone on the north side of Indianapolis (see: PlayIBA.com).

"That was about 14 years ago when I made that career and basically a life change," said Abernethy. "I had a relationship with the Pacers and Donnie Walsh was kind enough to rent our gym for a couple of years as a secondary practice site. That really helped us get going."

Today the "IBA" is a rousing success.  Abernethy says the facility is known for all the work it does with children as young as 4-6 year olds as well as providing basketball opportunities for older kids who may not have the chance to play on the traveling club teams. It features a continuing series of 20 camps over the summer months, going well beyond the early summer times most camps are held.

The IBA's upcoming June 10-11 camp will feature Indiana coach Tom Crean. Because of NCAA recruiting rules, it will be limited to players who just completed sixth grade or younger.

"It's a two day mini-camp and he is going to be accessible or available to those kids that come to our camp and help us teach the fundamentals the character development that we both stand for," said Abernethy.

In the short time Tom Crean has been coach at Indiana, he has made a lasting impression on Abernethy.

"What has impressed me is that from day one he has really reached out to guys like me and others that have been a part of Indiana's basketball past," said Abernethy. "He really seems to have a respect for what the school has stood for."

He appreciated the tough job the Hoosier coach had this past season.

"From a basketball standpoint, I admired him as he was undoubtedly undermanned the entire year," said Abernethy. "The way he treated the kids and the frustrating situation, to me that spoke volumes of his character."

Reunions and familiar friends

Abernethy said he enjoyed the Crean initiated reunion in the French Lick area last summer.

"I had a tremendous time," said Abernethy. "We are going to have one on June 12-13, right after my camp in Indianapolis. Coach Crean is going to come and a bunch of other players are going to come but my son Andy is getting married that day. So I won't make that but I am going down for one of the (IU) camps and speak to the campers again."

"As much as I can be around Coach Crean and the program, I am all about that."

He stays in regular contact with some of his old teammates.

"I have probably stayed closest to Jimmy Crews over the years," said Abernethy. "But I also stay in touch closely with Q.B., Quinn Buckner and I see Scotty May a handful of times per year. Steve Green is my dentist. John Laskowski is still a good friend and my right hand man Andrew White and I are working with his son Scott. He is going to be a senior at Carmel and we are trying to help him develop his game. Those are the guys that I seem to have my path cross with a little bit."

He would like to cross paths more often.

"It has been more difficult than I would have anticipated in seeing former teammates and being involved in their lives," said Abernethy. "All have our own lives that require a lot of attention and I think once Coach Knight left the frequency of our get togethers has drastically been reduced and I for one would love to ramp that up again."

Changing game

It has been over three decades now since Abernethy suited up for the Hoosiers. He has seen a lot of changes in the game since those days.

"There are so many good basketball players today and in our day there were less good players," said Abernethy. "To me that what makes going undefeated in this day and age a lot harder. Every team has great players and great players can get hot and have a great game and all of a sudden beat just about anybody. Back in our day it didn't seem there were a lot of players to really threaten to knock us off. The depth of talent has changed a lot of things."

But he countered that by saying in today's age it is much harder to find guys willing to sacrifice like the guys on his 1976 team.

"I will say in this day or era that it seems like it is harder for guys to be unselfish or play a role," said Abernethy. "Our team was successful to a great degree because Coach (Bob) Knight convinced all of us to do what he was saying to do and not look out after our own individual glory."

"I underscore that by two guys on our team---Quinn Buckner and Bobby Wilkerson. Each of them averaged under double digits. Yet they were #1 draft choices and each played between 5-10 years or 12 years or whatever. To me it is a tribute to Coach Knight and also to Quinn and Bobby and really all of our teammates who gave up our own egos."

Favorite Memories

We couldn't let Abernethy go without asking him about his favorite memories from his four years in Bloomington.

"The people that I met stand out more than anything," said Abernethy. "Coach Knight and all the coaches. The players. My fraternity brothers. I met by wife Susie. She was a Pi Phi and I was a Sigma Nu and we met at the Little 500 my junior year."

The job Knight did with his team continues to resonate.

"Coach Knight, as I reflect on the years there, the confidence that he instilled in us," said Abernethy. "We would sit on the bench during a time out and what he would say, how he would say it. The strategy, just the basketball knowledge and coaching ability. There is absolutely no way without him that we would have won that title my senior year."

"As time goes on I grow in my admiration and respect for what Coach Knight did, not only that senior year but all the years," he added.

One thing may stand above all others.

"Obviously coming back after the disappointment of 1975 and coming back and winning it all, that sense of accomplishment," said Abernethy. "That really stands out."

That is the kind of memory that motivates you to give back to the game, even 33 years later.
 

Thank you to Tom Abernethy for giving Peegs.com/Inside Indiana some of his valuable time this week.