Purdue Hall of Famer Bruce Parkinson will be there tonight in spirit

Hall of Fame Purdue men’s basketball point guard Bruce Parkinson picked a lousy time to be out of town.

A season ticket holder at Mackey Arena, regularly making the 75-minute trek from his home in Noblesville, Ind., will have to watch his 48-year-old assists record be broken from a distance.

But that doesn’t diminish Parkinson’s pride in his fellow point guard’s accomplishment.

“I hate to miss it because I am so proud of Braden,” Parkinson said. “My mom and some of her friends will be there, and Austin and his oldest child, Wren (she is a second grader, and Austin is the head women’s coach at Butler) will be there. So they will be representing the family. And I’ve already talked to Dustin and Ginny, Braden’s mom and dad.”

Watch the entire interview with Parkinson on Gold and Black LIVE Friday at 2 p.m.

This isn’t just your basic passing of the torch for Parkinson, who played for coach Fred Schaus from 1972-77. After all, it is hard to argue that Parkinson is the most responsible for getting Smith on Purdue’s radar. Parkinson’s son Austin, a Boilermaker point guard who played for Coach Gene Keady from 2001-04 and is the current women’s basketball coach at Butler, played in the same Northwestern High School team as Dustin Smith. The elder Parkinson coached his son and Dustin Smith when they were in grade school teaming up with Braden’s grandfather Dick Smith.

“I first saw Braden in AAU type-games that his dad was coaching. And he was really little. I mean, he was really little,” Parkinson said. “And then I probably saw 30 games in high school, and it was incredible to watch him get better each and every year. And he has continued that trend on college.”

It took some legwork in a challenging time to get Braden on the Boilermaker recruiting log.

“(Coach) Matt (Painter) has told the story about how evaluating Braden was a challenge due to the Covid period and that is what caused me to finally call and say, ‘you guys need to make an offer to this guy’. Braden had just been down for for an unpaid visit to an IU game and (former IU coach) Archie (Miller) rolled out the red carpet though they had not offered him (a scholarship) I remember talking to the family for an hour after the game and it was clear that they favored Purdue, but that Braden was just looking for someone to believe in him. I communicated the family history to the Purdue coaches and I remember telling Matt (tongue in cheek) ‘he might be smarter about basketball than any of your assistant coaches.’ It is how he is committed to work on his game and how is about basketball intellectually and his desire to make others better that make him so special”

Parkinson said Smith has been used to carrying the load for his team and has experienced bouts of losing as the Boilermakers are dealing with now.. Early in his high school career, Westfield struggled to some extent, and in his senior year Parkinson saw Smith play three games on a broken foot and he witnessed “the three best games I have ever seen by a high school player in my history.”

Parkinson, who often has a halftime conversation with Dustin in the hallways of Mackey, says the Smith dinner table has to be a very special place.

“I was saying something to somebody the other day that I can’t imagine what the basketball conversation at the dinner table at the Smith household is like,” said Parkinson as Dustin remains involved with AAU coaching and Ginny is the head girls coach at Westfield. “And now with Maddox, a seventh grader coming up, it has to be something. I have seen Maddox play a couple of times this year. He’s the real deal, too.”

Parkinson finds it especially meaningful that Smith will shatter his Purdue assists record in fewer games than the 112 games the Yorktown, Indiana native toiled in the 1970s. He wouldn’t be surprised if Smith gets the triple-double that eluded Parkinson with one rebound during his playing days.

“You can’t get an assists records unless you play with great players, and Braden always acknowledges that, Parkinson said. “I played with some great scorers like (John) Garrett, (Frank) Kendrick, (Jerry) Nichols, (Eugene) Parker, (Jerry) Sichting, (Walter) Jordan and (Tom) Scheffler to name just a few. I was very fortunate.”

Smith had two-time national player of the year Zach Edey to target for a couple of years, but Parkinson believes that Smith’s ability to take over games will continue to flourish.

“He is a compete player; he passed, he rebounds and he scores,” said Parkinson, who marvels how similar, at least for now, his carer points per game, rebounds and assists number are to Smith. “When Braden came to Purdue, I thought, this is the guy I want to break my record. I am so honored it is him.

“He is the greatest point guard in Purdue history.”