MOUNT PLEASANT -- Midway through his first semester at the University of Toledo, Jeff Tropf realized he had made a mistake.
So he hopped in his car and drove to Mount Pleasant.
Unannounced he walked into the Central Michigan University basketball office and asked to see coach Dick Parfitt -- the same coach who just a couple years earlier had tried to recruit the 6-foot-8 center/forward out of Holt High School.
Tropf, who now lives in Leelanau County, told Parfitt he was thinking about transferring to Central Michigan, but he needed to know if the Chippewa coach was still interested in him.
"If I were to come here," he said, "would you give me a tryout to see if I can play on your basketball team?"
Parfitt, Tropf recalled, started laughing.
The rest is history.
Tropf will be one of six athletes inducted into Central Michigan's Athletics Hall of Fame on Oct. 17. He'll be joined by Ralph Darin (baseball, 1969-72), Laura (Farrell) Page (field hockey, 1988-91), Harry Richards (wrestling, 1984-87), Billy Smith (football, 1988-91) and Karen Wongstrom (softball, 1984-87).
Tropf, who played 2 1/2 seasons for the Chippewas, was a first-team all-Mid American Conference (MAC) selection in 1978, finishing second in the Player of the Year voting. He averaged 17.3 points -- shooting 60 percent from the field -- and a MAC-high 11.1 rebounds per game that season.
Tropf played on two MAC championship teams at CMU and held the school career field goal percentage record at .549. He was picked in the seventh-round of the 1979 NBA draft by the Portland Trail Blazers.
"I'm shocked and flabbergasted that my name came up (for induction)," said Tropf, a biology teacher in Suttons Bay and the boys basketball coach at Northport.
Shocked, he said, for a couple reasons -- he didn't have gaudy statistics and he didn't attend CMU "right out of the chute."
An All-State player at Holt, Tropf originally signed with Michigan State. During Tropf's freshman season, however, his teammates walked out prior to a game against top-ranked Indiana because coach Gus Ganakas was planning to start him. Tropf, the only white player on the team, finished the season at Michigan State, then transferred to Toledo.
He realized early, though, that Toledo wasn't the right fit, so that's when he made his trip to see Parfitt. Still, he wasn't certain, given what had transpired over the last year and a half, if Parfitt wanted the "distraction."
But Parfitt had no reservations.
"I played really hard for him because he gave me that second chance," Tropf said.
Tropf said it's ironic that when Parfitt was recruiting him out of his high school he stressed the importance of team. He told Tropf that in 30 years he would not so much remember his stats, or the games, but he would remember the people he played with -- and that was important.
"He was absolutely right," Tropf said. "I had a chance to play with some great players, some great people."
He found that out early.
Over Christmas break, as he made the move from Toledo, Tropf opened the door to his new apartment and was surprised to see his future teammates waiting inside for him.
"They were there to help me move in," he said.
Now he will join some of those teammates in CMU's Hall of Fame.
Print this story
E-mail this story
