Coach Drabyn In­ducted into the La­Porte High School Hall of Fame

MISHAWAKA—On Au­gust 20^th dur­ing half­time of the La­Porte High School foot­ball game, Men’s Head Bas­ket­ball Coach, Steve Drabyn, was in­ducted into the La­Porte High School Hub­ner Hall of Fame. He was joined by Terry Miller, Steve Lowe, Tom Der­mody, and Jim Der­mody.

From an early age Steve has been sub­mersed into the world of bas­ket­ball. Every­thing from watch­ing the pros and col­le­giate ath­letes to be­ing in the locker room dur­ing his dad’s time as a coach. This led to him want­ing, and dream­ing, to one day play bas­ket­ball at a high level.

“It all starts with my father.” Coach Steve Drabyn said, “First watching him play in the adult leagues in La Porte and watching him play the game. I couldn’t get enough of it, and he even tried to dial me back at times and take some time off. I loved playing, whether it be pickup or for school. It has drawn me to now being a coach to both share my love of the game, and my faith with my players.”

Dur­ing his time at La Porte High School, Drabyn be­came one of the most dec­o­rated La Porte High School ath­letes of all-time. Some of his ac­co­lades in­clude mak­ing the most three point­ers in a game at eleven, scor­ing 51 points in a sin­gle game, and scor­ing a to­tal of 1417 points in his ca­reer. While at La Porte High School, he helped his team win four sec­tional cham­pi­onships dur­ing his high school ca­reer. He also loves hav­ing the peo­ple that have built him both as a per­son and a coach close to him. This in­cludes his for­mer team­mate Greg Tonagel, who cur­rently serves as the Head Men’s Bas­ket­ball Coach at In­di­ana Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity.

“Very hum­bled, very hon­ored to have been in­ducted into the hall of fame in La Porte.” said Drabyn,, “Be­ing in a one high school town in North­ern In­di­ana dur­ing the win­ter we saw some amaz­ing crowds. It was just spe­cial to see all of our hard work pay off. Once a Slicer, al­ways a Slicer.

 Af­ter his time at High School, Steve com­mit­ted to the Uni­ver­sity of Bel­mont. While at Bel­mont, Steve was named to the Aca­d­e­mic All-Con­fer­ence team three times. Af­ter his play­ing ca­reer fin­ished at Bel­mont, Drabyn had sev­eral coach­ing jobs as an as­sis­tant. This in­cluded his fi­nal job be­fore join­ing Bethel as an as­sis­tant at Lip­scomb. While at Lip­scomb they won the Ath­letic Sun Con­fer­ence and ap­peared in the NCAA Men’s Bas­ket­ball Tour­na­ment. Since join­ing the Bethel Men’s Bas­ket­ball coach­ing staff in 2019, Coach Drabyn has gone 45-22 in­clud­ing 18-18 in Cross­roads League play. This in­cludes an Elite 8 trip in the 2021 NAIA Na­tional Tour­na­ment. Al­though he built an in­cred­i­ble re­sume, Steve’s biggest ac­com­plish­ment is not on there.

“My biggest ac­com­plish­ment is not awards, hall of fame, or ac­co­lades.” Drabyn said, “It's the re­la­tion­ships, and im­pact that I’ve made on play­ers and coaches. It has been nice to see some of my for­mer play­ers com­ing back and thank­ing me and my staff. Whether they re­al­ize that in the mo­ment, or not it makes coach­ing worth it.”

For more in­for­ma­tion about the Men’s Bas­ket­ball team visit https://​www.bupi­lots.com/​in­dex.