By RICHIE HALL
Drew Tower has already had quite a bit of success in his life.
From high school basketball state champion to administrator of the year, Tower has become an example of what opportunities Indiana high school athletics can offer to young people. Tower has begun writing the next chapter of his story, as he joined Hamilton Southeastern High School as a co-athletic director this month.
“Greg Habegger retired after an amazing career at Hamilton Southeastern,” said Tower. “And Jim Self and I and Greg have had a great relationship. It was a good fit for a lot of reasons.”
Those reasons are both professional and personal. Tower spoke of the “incredible culture that’s here in the athletic department,” which has not only produced great athletes, but great people as well. Meanwhile, the personal reason is that Tower is closer to family, as his wife Abby’s family lives in Pendleton.
“We have a place to drop off our kids now,” said Drew Tower. He and Abby have two sons, Hank and Beau.
Tower
Drew Tower called his first few weeks at Southeastern a “great transition period. It’s an opportunity to listen and learn and observe.” He spent the first week connecting with the Royals’ head coaches “and getting to know them, figuring out the lay of the lands.”
“(Co-athletic director) Jim Self and (administrative assistant) Kami Laux have been a tremendous support in the transition process as well,” said Tower.
“Jim is a great friend,” said Tower. When Tower was starting out as a young athletic director, he said Self “was always one of my first phone calls if I had a question or wanted advice on something.
“I’m excited to continue to learn from him,” said Tower. “He has an impact on the culture and the entire community. To be in the office just day to day with him is an amazing opportunity.”
There should be no problem for Tower fitting into the culture at Southeastern, since he has already compiled a solid resumé dating back to high school. Tower graduated from New Castle in 2007; he was a member of the Trojans’ Class 3A state championship in 2006, his junior year.
“Great team,” said Tower. “We had a really good run our junior and senior year.”
Tower attended Taylor University, graduating with a degree in biology in 2011. He also played basketball under Hall of Fame coach Paul Patterson and was inspired to go into coaching. Tower was an assistant coach for the Trojans from 2011 to 2013.
“I got into coaching, just fell in love with it, got an education from there,” said Tower, who continued his education by getting a master’s degree in educational leadership from Ball State University in 2018.
In 2013, Tower went to Brownsburg, where he was an academic coach and assistant boys basketball coach. He got his first administrative experience by becoming the athletic director at Brownsburg West Middle School before taking over as athletic director at Brownsburg High School in 2018.
Tower said Brownsburg “has an amazing community, they have the same passion for athletics.” Tower said everything at Brownsburg is “at a really high level. The academic standards speak for themselves.”
Tower set some standards while at Brownsburg. This past March, Tower was one of three Indiana athletic directors to be named Administrator of the Year by the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association. Tower won the Award for District 2.
Now that he’s at the home of the Royals, Tower said that as athletes and athletics continue to evolve, he wants to help the HSE athletic department evolve with those changes.
“The modern athlete has more going on in their life than I surely had and our coaches had,” said Tower. He wants “to help remove some of the unnecessary barriers in their way, not just as athletes but as people. That’s something we were doing with our SALT group, just continue to do that through a larger lens.”
SALT stands for Student Athlete Leadership Team, which the Brownsburg Athletic department developed to bring out leadership capabilities from its student-athletes.
“If we develop them as people, we’ll develop them as better students, better athletes, better collegiate athletes and better Royals,” said Tower.
During Tower’s tenure at Brownsburg, the Bulldogs won three state championships: Unified flag football in 2022, boys track and field in 2023 and boys wrestling in 2024. Brownsburg and Southeastern have been members of the Hoosier Crossroads Conference since it began in 2000, so the schools are familiar with each other. The Royals had a ton of success this past school year, with an unbeaten state champion girls volleyball team in the fall, then state champion boys lacrosse and softball teams in the spring.
“It just speaks to the consistency of leadership in the athletic department, and it starts with Greg and Jim,” said Tower. “There’s incredible kids and families and talent here, but only with a strong, consistent culture are you able to have a successful and sustainable program. I think it’s admired across the state, but I think it’s a byproduct of the culture that’s been built there.”