Bethel Hires New Bas­ket­ball Coach: Steve Drabyn

MISHAWAKA—Cam­pus is buzzing with talk about the suc­cess of the bas­ket­ball team this sea­son. So far un­de­feated, the coach­ing staff and play­ers must be do­ing some­thing right, and a good part of that credit goes to Steve Drabyn, the Head Bas­ket­ball Coach for the Men’s Bas­ket­ball team. 

When asked why he took on the role at Bethel, Drabyn said, “I was drawn to Bethel be­cause it is a faith-based school that fits my value sys­tem and I want my fam­ily to be in this kind of en­vi­ron­ment. I want to grow in my faith and also help our staff and play­ers to grow in their faith and hope­fully im­pact them in that way. 

“My sec­ond rea­son is I was ready to be a head coach and take that step in my coach­ing ca­reer. I was also drawn to the tra­di­tion. Bethel tra­di­tion is phe­nom­e­nal and is as good as it gets at the NAIA level.” 

Drabyn grew up close to Bethel and would come to bas­ket­ball games with his dad when he was younger. So when he heard that Bethel had an open­ing avail­able for head coach, he ap­plied for the job. Drabyn pre­vi­ously had coach­ing ex­pe­ri­ence as as­sis­tant coach for a high school and mul­ti­ple uni­ver­si­ties, and he has won mul­ti­ple awards as a bas­ket­ball coach and as a player.  

He grad­u­ated from Bel­mont Uni­ver­sity with a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence De­gree in Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion in 2004, then got his Mas­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­sity of In­di­anapo­lis in 2010.  

Drabyn’s coach­ing phi­los­o­phy, ac­cord­ing to the Pi­lots’ web­site, states, “I have been for­tu­nate to have many for­mer coaches in­still val­ues into me not only as a player, but also as a per­son. It is my de­sire to pay it for­ward to the young men I am for­tu­nate to coach, im­pact­ing them be­yond the bas­ket­ball floor. I want to help young men wher­ever they are on their spir­i­tual jour­ney, help­ing them grow in their re­la­tion­ship with Christ, be­com­ing men of em­pa­thy and in­tegrity who will re­ject pas­siv­ity, ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­ity, lead coura­geously, and give God all the glory. I in­tend to build a faith-based cul­ture fo­cus­ing on the core val­ues of unity, hu­mil­ity, grat­i­tude, mind­set, and fear­less­ness. I want to im­pact lives be­yond our locker room by serv­ing our fam­i­lies, fel­low stu­dent-ath­letes, and our com­mu­ni­ties. And fi­nally, I want to carry on the Bethel men’s bas­ket­ball tra­di­tion that has sus­tained a level of ex­cel­lence for many years.”