Former Northwestern stand-out coaches Butler women's basketball team

Eighteen men have been named to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame’s 2025 Silver Anniversary Team, based on outstanding accomplishments as a senior basketball player 25 years ago. Northwestern’s Austin Parkinson is among the honorees.

The team includes 11 members named to the 2000 Indiana All-Star squad. Seven other all-state players are included to recognize the top of Indiana’s high school class of 2000.

2000 Indiana All-Stars include Mr. Basketball Jared Jeffries, Michael Bennett, Brett Buscher, Steve Drabyn Jr., John Hamilton Jr., Andre Owens, Austin Parkinson, Shane Power, Zach Randolph, John Standeford, and Aaron Thomas.

The remaining seven, named to various all-state teams are Braden Bushman, Ron Dokes, Mark Drake, Adam Mark, Mickey McGill, Bryant Northern, and Corey Seegers.

2025 Men’s Silver Anniversary Team members will be honored at the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame’s 63rd Men’s Awards Banquet on Wednesday, March 19, 2025.

A midday reception, free and open to the public, will be held at the Hall of Fame Museum in New Castle. The evening banquet will take place at the Primo Banquet Hall, which is located on the south side of Indianapolis.

Parkinson averaged 20.4 points, 4.9 rebounds, 8.5 assists and 3.6 steals as a senior in keying Northwestern to a 16-6 record. Over four seasons, he totaled 1,667 points (17.3), 431 rebounds (4.6), a school-record 678 assists (7.2) and a school-record 371 steals (3.9) as the Tigers went 77-17 with one Mid-Indiana Conference championship, two sectional crowns, one regional title, and three Howard County Tournament trophies. Parkinson had a career-high 32 points against Hamilton Heights on March 2, 2000, and he also holds school records for assists in a game (16 vs. Oak Hill on Jan. 24, 1998) and assists in a season (189 as a sophomore).

A 2000 Indiana All-Star, Parkinson was a McDonald’s All-America nominee, AP third-team All-State, IBCA second-team All-State, Louisville Courier-Journal second-team All-State, IBCA honorable mention Academic All-State and won his school’s Outstanding Academic Achievement Award as a senior. The 1999 Junior All-Star also was 1999 Louisville Courier-Journal honorable mention All-State, 1998 AP high honorable mention All-State, two-time IBCA first-team Underclass All-State, four-time Kokomo Tribune first-team All-Area, four-time Mid-Indiana Conference Player of the Year, four-time all-Howard County, four-time all-sectional, four-time team MVP and a four-time NIAAA Scholar-Athlete Award winner.

The 6-0 guard went on to Purdue, where he tallied 258 points (2.2), 203 rebounds (1.7) and 386 assists (3.2) while helping the Boilermakers to a 66-58 record for coach Gene Keady. Parkinson led the team in assists as a sophomore (140) and senior (119) and posted a career-high 12 assists (with no turnovers) against Penn State on Feb. 4, 2004. He stands 14th on Purdue’s career assist list and was the winner of the 2002 Purdue Doc Combs Play Hard Award, the 2003 Purdue Courage Award and a 2004 Purdue Red Mackey Award. He was named Academic All-Big Ten in 2004 and played for teams that qualified for the 2003 NCAA Tournament, won the 2003 Great Alaska Shootout and were selected for the 2001 and 2004 National Invitation Tournaments.

Parkinson earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in organizational leadership from Purdue in 2004 and 2006. He has been in coaching since 2004, first as a men’s graduate assistant at Purdue, then a men’s assistant at Indianapolis, Purdue-Fort Wayne and IUPUI. He then served as IUPUI women’s head coach from 2010-22, compiling a 224-141 record with two Horizon League regular-season titles, two HL Tournament titles, six Women’s NIT berths and two NCAA Tournament spots (but the 2020 event did not get played) in 12 seasons with the Jaguars.

In 2022, he became the Butler University women’s coach and entered 2024-25 with a two-year ledger of 26-36 with the Bulldogs. His overall head coaching mark entering 2024-25 is 250-177 with conference Coach of the Year accolades in 2013, 2018 and 2020.

He enjoys traveling as well as playing golf and pickleball. He was inducted into the Howard County Sports Hall of Fame in 2014.