{"id":2762,"date":"2016-02-15T18:44:30","date_gmt":"2016-02-15T18:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=2762"},"modified":"2016-02-15T18:44:30","modified_gmt":"2016-02-15T18:44:30","slug":"basketball-legends-honor-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2016\/02\/15\/basketball-legends-honor-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Basketball Legends Honor Father"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Paige<\/em> — A medal earned, some tough love, and a connection through sports brought Indiana basketball legends Tom and Dick Van Arsdale to campus to celebrate the accomplishments of a Wabash Man.<\/p>\n

This visit wasn\u2019t about basketball, or even themselves. The twins were on campus to honor their father, Raymond \u201923. It turns out that the man Tom and Dick knew as Dad\u2014a math teacher and track and football coach\u2014was also a standout athlete himself.<\/p>\n

The elder Van Arsdale was one of this College\u2019s first great track stars, finishing second at the 1923 NCAA Track & Field Championships at Stagg Field in Chicago, where he jumped 23 feet, 6 inches, a mark that easily would have qualified him for the 2015 NCAA DIII Championships. He helped the Little Giants finish in 11th place nationally long before the NCAA meet was separated into divisions.<\/p>\n

Click here to view photo gallery<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Dick<\/a>
Dick (left) and Tom Van Arsdale pose for a photo of their father’s Hall of Fame induction plaque in the Allen Center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To say he was fast is an understatement. Raymond once posted a time of 10.1 seconds for the 100-yard dash, only a half second off the world record at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad never talked about himself,\u201d said Tom. \u201cWe knew he was fast, but he never talked about himself. We hardly knew about his athletic career except that he ran track and played football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raymond was inducted into the Wabash Athletics Hall of Fame in 1984.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe also ran in the Drake Relays back then,\u201d said Dick. \u201cHe was good. He might have made the 1924 Olympics if he hadn\u2019t gotten hurt playing football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes when you meet people, you wonder what made them successful. Suddenly, it all made sense when thinking of Tom and Dick. Not only did they inherit great natural ability from Raymond and their mother, Hilda, but the right kind of push as well. The kind that only another great athlete knows.<\/p>\n

These two legends were here to pay homage to their father, their first coach. The guy who was tough on them, always in their ear with a piece of constructive criticism, and pushing them a little further. Their successes have ties to Wabash College. Now they were giving something back.<\/p>\n

They delivered to the College Raymond\u2019s runner-up medal from that 1923 NCAA meet, a letterman\u2019s award from 1921, and a photo. After more than 90 years in the Van Arsdales\u2019 possession, it would become a part of our trophy case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had that for so many years, we thought, what are we going to do with it,\u201d said Tom. \u201cDick has a son and I have a son, so we got them together and said, \u2018Guys, we\u2019re not going to give this to you because you\u2019ll fight over it.\u2019 We\u2019re going to give it to Wabash College.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s good for Wabash, anyway,\u201d said Dick, laughing. \u201cThe boys were happy about it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Runner-Up<\/a>
Runner-Up medal won by Raymond Van Arsdale ’23 in the broad jump at the 1923 NCAA Track & Field Championships at Stagg Field in Chicago.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Van Arsdales are living embodiments of Hoosier Hysteria. The duo led Indianapolis Manual\u00a0 High School to a second-place finish in the 1961 state tournament, shared both the Trester Award and Mr. Basketball honors as high school seniors, and went on to earn all-Big Ten, All-America, and Academic All-America honors for Indiana University before graduating in 1965.<\/p>\n

They enjoyed stellar NBA careers, each playing 12 seasons, each making three All-Star Game appearances, and combining to score more than 29,000 professional points. In fact, Dick was the first-ever draft choice of the Phoenix Suns.<\/p>\n

As they wandered through the halls of the Allen Center on a chilly winter morning, you could tell they were happy to be here, basking in the glow of their father\u2019s greatness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does mean a lot to us. We didn\u2019t care too much about it when we were young,\u201d Dick said before Tom picked up the thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very excited to do this now for Dad. He would be very happy about this. As we get older, it means more to us. We appreciate these moments so much more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Paige — A medal earned, some tough love, and a connection through sports brought Indiana basketball legends Tom and Dick Van Arsdale to campus to celebrate the accomplishments of a Wabash […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/02\/IMG_2194_2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2762"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2768,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762\/revisions\/2768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}