Wabash College - Class of 1991

Mac Petty knows there is going to come a time when the Wabash College basketball program is going to have to be turned over to a younger coach.

Petty, 60, is in his 32nd year at the Little Giant helm and in his 40th year coaching basketball. He said either at the end of this year or next season, he’s going to turn the Little Giant program over to a new coach.

“I just have to think about my wife and understand that I don’t want to be another Joe Paterno or Bobby Bowden,” Petty said. “It needs to be turned over to a younger coach. But there are great guys here. And the first thing I think about is the players.”

Petty knew little about Wabash when he took over the program in 1976-77. He has gradually made his way up the ranks and heads into tonight’s game against Franklin ranked first on Wabash’s all-time list with 431 wins. His career head coaching record is 479-383.

He has had opportunities to move on, but family and his passion for the game of basketball have kept him at Crawfordsville.

In the early 1980s, he was offered the position of associate head coach at the University of Hawaii. At the time his daughter, Susan, was in high school and his son, Matt, was three years younger.

He later was offered to apply for the head coaching job at Appalachian State. He turned in his information, but later called them and said he was no longer interested.

“I didn’t pursue any of those jobs because my family was more important to me,” Petty said.

It didn’t take long for Petty to become noticed and start his coaching career.

During his senior year at the University of Tennessee while he was celebrating a victory with his teammates, a person approached him and asked him what his plans were after college. Petty said he hoped to move on and become a high school coach.

He graduated from Tennessee in 1968. In the 1968-69 basketball season, he was coaching at Loudon High School in Tennessee. Petty was married with his first child when he took over the job at Loudon.

After three years at Loudon, Petty got a call from a former high school teammate asking if he wanted to move up to the college level. Petty left a strong bond he formed with Loudon’s incoming senior class and took an assistant coaching job at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. After two years as an assistant, he took over the head coaching job and ran the show for three seasons.

Petty led University of the South to the Division III Tournament in his last two seasons at the helm. He formed this bond with the group of seniors that were graduating at the end of what turned out to be his final season at Sewanee. He also was the men’s soccer coach at the college.

Petty grew up in Wooster, Ohio, and always had dreams of moving back to the Midwest. The men’s basketball coach at Rose-Hulman called Petty and informed him Snowy Simpson was leaving Wabash and he should apply for the job.

Petty knew little about Wabash. The only time he had seen the Little Giants play was when both them and Sewanee were in a tournament at Rose-Hulman. Sewanee ended up winning the tournament. Petty called a coach he knew, Bobby Knight, and asked what he knew at Wabash.

“He did some checking and told me he thought the program was a diamond in the rough and if I had the opportunity to take it,” Petty said.

Petty guided the Little Giants to a 9-15 record his first year at Wabash. He since then has guided the Little Giants to five 20-win seasons, including a national championship in 1981-82.

“I have been blessed to stay here this long at an outstanding institution,” Petty said. “The biggest thing is the players. I have a passion for basketball and like to be around it. The game gave me a great experience while I was a player, and I just keep trying to pay it back. I tell people now that I’m more proud of what the players are doing now after college than what they did on the floor. They have become involved with their community or involved with their families and have become successful.”

He has seen the game of basketball drastically change during his time in Crawfordsville. The biggest move came with the implementation of a three-point line and shot clock in 1986. Petty was involved in the decision making for both of those.

“We understood the implications and how those would effect the game,” Petty said. “When I played, basketball was more of a finesse sport and football was a contact sport. Now basketball is more of a contact sport and football is a collision sport.”

Petty has made his name known beyond Wabash.

In his first year at Loudon, Petty became a member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and this year will attend his 40th Division III National Tournament. He was on the NABC Regional Selection Committee in the early 1980s and also was a chairman for the Midwest Regional All-American Committee.

He now is a congressmen for NABC Division III. He discusses Division III rules with other NABC members, then sends that district information to other Division III coaches around Indiana.

Petty has put in around 11-hour days during his time at Wabash. His normal day starts around 8 a.m., then he doesn’t come home until after practice around 7 p.m. Gamedays can even be busier. In Wabash’s last game — a 60-57 overtime victory over Marian — Petty had to follow coaching that game by going on a recruiting trip to McCutcheon High School.

He said he couldn’t be where he it at without the support of wife Gloria, who he has been married to for 41 years.

“She has been the most outstanding person to go along with this occupation,” Petty said. “She takes the losses sometimes harder than I do, because she knows how much it affects me when we do lose.”

The support of his wife and the community has kept Petty at Wabash. With the Little Giants seven games into the 2007-08 season, the veteran coach is not thinking about when the enjoyable ride is going to end.

Josh Estelle looks back and remembers both the serious and sensitive side to his former college basketball coach Mac Petty.

The 2000 Wabash College graduate remembers the moments that at the time they happened weren’t funny, but looking back he now laughs.

Petty kicked Brian Latham, another 2000 Wabash graduate, out of practice after his behind-the-back pass went out of bounds.

He remembers the enjoyment in 2000 when, in their first year in the North Coast Athletic Conference, the Little Giants defeated Ohio Wesleyan 73-46 in the opening round of the conference tournament at Chadwick Court.

Estelle’s biggest memories of Petty, however, have nothing to do with celebrations or big coaching wins. Estelle remembers Petty more because of his genuine personality. He now lives in New Castle and works at Pfenninger Agency, but said if he ever asked Petty to do something, he’s confident he would do anything he asked him to.

“He truly cared about his players, sometimes to a fault,” Estelle said. “The way he treated people, he was not fake and didn’t put on a show. He was just that genuine of a person.”

Mike Crnkovich, a 1993 Wabash graduate who played forward his freshman year then was a center his final three seasons, had the same sentiments as Estelle. Crnkovich always remembers the life chart Petty drew up for his players. Petty would put an A at one end of the chalkboard and a Z on the other, then would draw a line connecting the two letters. He would then make a little dot on the line. Petty told his players that dot represented playing college basketball for four years.

Crnkovich brought out that life chart again during a recent discussion with his wife. Petty was at Crnkovich’s wedding and was in attendance when he was named to the Wabash College Hall of Fame three years ago.

“Mac is the best teacher of the game of basketball that I’ve had,” Crnkovich said. “If he would tell me to jump, I would ask how high. I would run through a wall for the guy.”

Pete Metzelaars, the starting center for Wabash’s 1982 national championship team who now is the quality control coach for the Indianapolis Colts, remembers Petty’s approach to the game.

“He just brought an enthusiasm and passion for the game,” Metzelaars said. “You don’t coach basketball for 32 years at the same school without having a passion and enthusiasm about the game. And that is one thing he always brought across to us.”

Metzelaars has memories of the long road trips where Wabash had to take two vans. On their way back from a road trip to Anderson, they blew two tires on the same van after they hit the same chuckhole twice.

On another road trip, Metzelaars was driving Petty’s car following the team vans after a game at Rose-Hulman. Driving on a two-lane highway during an ice storm, Metzelaars forgot how slick the roads where when he returned to Crawfordsville. Metzelaars stopped for a red light right around the campus, but Petty’s car slid about 40 feet into the intersection.

“He also had a lot of good catch phrases,” Metzelaars said. “He would always tell us to ‘Get after it’ and ‘Super.’ ”

Estelle remembers his first meeting with Petty. The fall before his senior season at New Castle Chrysler High School, he started visiting schools because he hadn’t been recruited. Estelle and his parents went to visit Petty and he said the Little Giant veteran coach treated him the same way he treated all the un-recruited athletes.

“He was very honest and said we had an x number of spots,” Estelle said.

Petty started recruiting Estelle harder during his senior year. He picked Wabash because he thought “it was the best fit.” During his four years at Wabash, Estelle played in 109 games and remains as the Little Giant career leading scorer with 2,065 points.

Coming from a high school system where there was no main scorer, Estelle credited Petty and his staff for instilling the confidence to use his skills.

“I thought I had a good career for someone who was not really recruited his first year on campus,” Estelle said.

Crnkovich credits Petty for turning him into the basketball player he became. He led the Little Giants in scoring in both 1991-92 and 92-93. Crnkovich’s older brother played football at Wabash, so he also decided to come to Crawfordsville. He played junior-varsity basketball all the way until his senior season at Highland High School.

“In my first three years, we didn’t really have a good team, but he was always teaching,” Crnkovich said. “He made the best out of less-heralded players more than anyone I have seen. He always knew which buttons to push with me and was always well prepared.”

Petty had to change his coaching style while leading Wabash to the national championship in 1982.

In the first three seasons Metzelaars put on a Little Giant uniform, Wabash used a man-to-man defense. Metzelaars’ senior year, the Little Giants started with a 2-3 zone, and the Little Giants stuck with that defense all year.

“He was very similar to my high school coach,” Metzelaars said. “And when I moved up and coached junior varsity ball at Charlotte, I used some of the same stuff we did at Wabash. We kind of had that free-wheeling offense and would always go on a fast break after a made basket or a missed basket.”