The Wabash Family
February 1981.
I finished basketball practice at Delphi High School and jumped in my 1972 Pontiac LUXURY LeMans for a one-hour drive to Crawfordsville for my first-ever visit to campus. I hadn’t been interested in visiting, but one of the football coaches pestered me enough and I finally gave in.
Still, it was not an exciting proposition to me: a two-hour round trip in the middle of February to a Tuesday night basketball game at an all-male school.
But I loved it!
For a long time, I couldn’t tell you why. There weren’t one or two things I could point out. Now that I am older and, well, just older, I have an idea—I felt comfortable. It was old pair of jeans comfortable. It was being yourself comfortable, hanging out with your buddies comfortable. It felt family comfortable.
The “pesterer” was Coach Mark Deal. My host for that first visit was Jim Kilbane ’84. The head football coach was Stan Parrish. The basketball team scored 100 points in that game. The following year, the basketball team won the National Championship.
many of the players from that National Championship team returned to campus this past January. Coach Mac Petty, Pete Metzelaars ’82, Mike Holcomb ’82, Merlin Nice ’84, Dave Clark ’84, Chris Denari ’83, Kyle Foyer ’83, Dave Bromund ’85, and Robert Seward, father of deceased Kerry Seward ’83, sat together at the game, were introduced at halftime, and gathered for a post-game reception. Though it had been years since many had seen one another, they seemed to pick up right where they left off, just as friends do. Just as family does.
But the Wabash family is an extended one, and soon these old champions were mingling and talking with current players.
It was such a striking scene the rest of us began taking photos. The current students listened in awe as Pete Metzelaars and his teammates told stories from that 1982 championship season. The same Pete Metzelaars who scored 45 points in the national championship game (still a record!) and who held an NFL record for 14 years for the most games started by a tight end.
Yet everyone seemed comfortable in this circle of many generations of Wabash men. I was reminded of fathers and uncles telling stories to the younger cousins; reminded, too, of my first glimpse of the Wabash family 36 winters ago.
—STEVE HOFFMAN ’85
Director, Alumni and Parent Programs | hoffmans@wabash.edu