Over $38K tapped to help local youth in Hall of Famer’s name
By RICHIE HALL
sports@readthereporter.com
NOBLESVILLE – Tony Etchison’s motto was “Love everyone, be kind, make a difference.”
It should not be a surprise, then, that the first-ever Tony Etchison Memorial Foundation Golf Outing, which took place Monday at Fox Prairie Golf Club in Noblesville, definitely made a difference. It also showed that there is still quite a bit of love for Etchison in the Hamilton County community, and there will always be.
The tournament was sold out, raised a significant amount of money for the Foundation and paid tribute to a well-respected, much-loved man who impacted his community in many different ways. Etchison, who died in 2019, was a star basketball player for Noblesville High School, from which he graduated in 1991, then went on to play college basketball at Mercer University.
Etchison was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022. He married his high school sweetheart Toby, fathered three sons and was a prominent farmer, insurance professional, coach and mentor for young people in Hamilton County.
Toby Etchison, Tony’s wife of 22 years, spoke to
the golfers before they headed out on to the Fox Prairie course. (Richie Hall)
“We started the foundation in 2019 after Tony’s tragic death,” said Jody Roudebush, a member of the Foundation’s board and a “dear friend” of Etchison. “COVID came and we’ve been hard-pressed to find the right sort of fundraisers, other than just natural giving. We’ve always wanted to do a golf tournament, and now that we’re a couple years into COVID, we decided we’re going to go ahead and do it. And we’ll make this an annual event to raise money for the foundation to be able to take care of the youth in our communities.”
The golf outing raised nearly $48,000 and will net nearly $38,000 for the Foundation, according to a Monday night post on the Foundation’s Facebook page. Roudebush said on Monday morning that the money “will go straight to the foundation for grants for our youth assistance programs here in the county and take care of the children that need it most.”
The Foundation made the first announcement about the golf outing in February at the Noblesville-Hamilton Heights boys basketball game. All three of Etchison’s sons are Huskies: J.P. and Gus both graduated from Heights and Tillman will be a junior this year.
Roudebush said the announcement was made “just to start the conversation, and then we really opened it up in April for entries. Here we are today.”
Tony Etchison Memorial Foundation board
member Jody Roudebush (left) and Matt Heimonen prepare to tee off at the golf outing. (Richie Hall)
Noblesville High School graduate Meghan Potee was one of the participants. Potee was a
state champion in golf and diving for the Millers, played golf at the University of Kansas and now has
her own dental practice in Noblesville. (Richie Hall)
A total of 144 golfers participated in the outing, which broke down to 36 foursomes that played in a scramble format. There was also a poker run, and a putting contest that was supervised by Toby Etchison and her sons. After the golf was finishes, a dinner took place at Fox Prairie, catered by Big Dog’s Smokehouse BBQ of Cicero.
Noblesville’s Brian Doak (left) and former Indianapolis Colts player Jack Doyle kept their eyes on the ball at the putting contest. (Richie Hall)
Buddy Baker, the president of the Foundation, called the tournament’s success incredible, and that “everyone’s here to pay tribute to a great guy.”
“We hope we get some momentum and make it an annual tradition,” said Baker. “Obviously, just coming off COVID, we weren’t able to do it. It was something that we talked about at the inception of the foundation, and hopefully we continue to do this as well as other events.”
“We’ll try to have an outing every summer going forward, and I hope to have the same or even better response year after year,” said Roudebush.