Austin Croshere Is The Man

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YES! YES! YES!! AUSTIN YOU ARE THE BEST! WE'RE ALL SO GLAD YOU'RE STAYING WITH US! WE LOOK FORWARD TO CHEERING OUR HEARTS OUT AND WATCHING YOU PLAY FOR THE PACERS OVER THE NEXT 7 YEARS!!! YA HOO!!!
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Hi, my name is Kari and this is a web page dedicated to #44 Austin Croshere, forward for the Indiana Pacers NBA team NOW coached by Isiah Thomas. I am a huge fan of the Pacers and (if it's not already obvious) of Austin Croshere! I have lived in Indiana all my life (23 whole years) and have been a Pacer fan for as long as I can remember. I hope you enjoy my site!

I have been watching Austin play for quite a while now and he is by far my all time favorite basketball player. For the longest time I was partial to Antonio Davis, until the Raptors nabbed him! Thank goodness the Raptors didn't get My Austin this year! Why is it that the Raptors always try to steal the players I like?

FACTS ABOUT CROSHERE:
Full Name - Austin Nathan Croshere
Birthdate - 5/1/75 Born in Los Angeles, CA
Height - 6'9"
Weight - 235 lbs (ALL MUSCLES!!)

MORE CROSHERE FACTS: ----------------------------------------

Austin played ball for Providence, and in his senior year there he scored 645 points ranking him the 8th best single-season mark in the history of Providence witha a total of 1,523 points (NBA.com). He was then grabbed up by the Indiana Pacers in the NBA's first round draft pick in 1997 and he was the 12th pick overall.
He was outstanding player then, and an even better player now. His free throw average at Providence was a whopping .888 percent. His free throw percentage is still remarkable at .829 percent since playing for Indiana.
Austin's NBA debut was on 11/20/97 against the Milwaukee Bucks and he played a whole 8 minutes!! WOO HOO!!
Although Croshere kept the bench warm a lot during his first 2 seasons with the Pacers, he is spending quite a bit of time out on the court grabbing rebounds, racking up the points, and hitting those free throws!

As if his basketball abilities aren't enough, he is also and extreme HOTTIE!! Here is some personal info that I've found on him with the help of the links listed at the bottom of my page:

** 2 of Austin's favorite movie's are "The Natural" and "Hoosiers"
** His favorite actress is Ashley Judd and favorite singer is Sting
** He eats pasta with chicken and shrimp before every game - although,
recently a source told me that he has become a vegetarian.. hummm.
** He loves seafood
** Family is the most important thing to him
** Growing up, he idolized Magic Johnson
** First dunk was in 9th grade at age 14!!

I don't know Austin personally, and in fact have yet to meet him, but in the more things I find out about him the more I like him. He seems to be a very well rounded individual and someone who you'd be proud to have as a friend! He comes across as being very modest, dedicated, and sincere. I would just love to acutally meet him one day!
The Pacers came so close to winning it all last year, I'm sure they'll do just as good, if not better this year, especially since Austin is BACK!!
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HOLY COW!!!!! WELL, MY WISH FINALLY CAME TRUE! I MET AUSTIN CROSHERE FOR THE FIRST TIME HERE IN INDY! I BUMPED INTO HIM AT A CLUB! HE LOOKED SO GOOD, AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF, HE IS EVEN SWEETER IN PERSON. I INTRODUCED MYSELF AND TOLD HIM ABOUT THIS SITE AND GUESS WHAT, HE HAD ALREADY SEEN IT! WE DIDN'T TALK TOO MUCH, I DIDN'T WANT TO BOTHER HIM, BUT HE WAS VERY NICE AND POLITE! SO NOT ONLY IS HE A GREAT BALL PLAYER, HE IS A GREAT PERSON FROM WHAT I SAW! I'LL KEEP YOU ALL POSTED IF I SEE HIM AGAIN!
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If anyone sees any corrections that need to be made to this site, or if you just want to email me and comment on it... feel free to do so!
And Austin, if you ever stop by here and see this site, PLEASE EMAIL ME!!

Your # 1 fan,
Kari

THANKS FOR CHECKING OUT MY PAGE!!!

GO PACERS!!GO PACERS!!GO PACERS!!GO PACERS!!GO PACERS!!GO PACERS!!GO PACERS!!
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As I promised to Mr. James Cavallaro from Providence, a few tidbits from a letter he wrote me in response to my webpage!

"I had many classes with Austin. He was a nice guy, had a good sense of humor, smart too. In math class he was very sharp, he could have taught me a thing or two. I helped him out in Western Civilization, which wasn't his best subject. In return I got tickets from him to the Civic Center."
James also believes that Austin got the sideburn idea from him. James had (and still does have) sideburns since he was 14 and Austin didn't have sideburns when he started at PC, but look at Mr. Croshere now. So, Austin.. the question remains... DID you steal the sideburn look from Mr. Cavallaro?

(THIS QUESTION WAS ONE OF MANY, THAT IN THE SHOCK OF MEETING AUSTIN, I FORGOT TO ASK HIM!)
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Article Compliments of www.pacers.com

Pacers Keep Croshere

INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 2 — Austin Croshere, one of the NBA's top sixth men, was re-signed to a contract with the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday.
Per club policy, no terms of the contract were released. Croshere, a three-year veteran who was a free agent, played in 81 games last season and averaged 10.3 points per game (fourth on the team) and 6.4 rebounds (second on the team), both career highs. In the NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers, the 6-9, 242-pound Croshere averaged 15.2 points (.545 shooting percentage) and 6.0 rebounds per game.
We're very happy to have Austin back in the fold," said Pacers President Donnie Walsh. "He got an opportunity last year to play and proved himself, both in the regular season and the NBA Playoffs. We know Austin is a very hard worker and will continue to improve his game. He's a fine young player."

"I'm extremely excited about returning to the Pacers," said Croshere. "Other teams, such as the Houston Rockets and Toronto Raptors, made this decision very difficult, but in the end, playing for new coach Isiah Thomas, and the opportunity to win an NBA championship for the great city of Indianapolis, were far too difficult to pass on. The process went very smoothly from the beginning."
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Special Note to Tina (a.k.a AUStina): Thanks for pointing out this great article to me!!
This article compliments of HOOPSTV.COM

Austin Towers
By Brin Hill

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It’s 9am, Sunday morning, at the beach. The waves are breaking and the sun is blazing. It’s the summer before your freshman year of college, but you’ve got no time to enjoy the outdoors love; there’s work to be done. You’re getting ready to travel back east to play small-time hoops at the next level. Gotta get some shots in, so you head to the gym. As you approach the door, you hear the sound you love - the solitary bouncing of the rock in an empty gym. Jimmy Hines, the old part-time rebounder now full-time janitor at Santa Monica City College, sits on an overturned trashcan by the gym entrance and slyly smiles at you as he sips dark coffee.
"He beat you here," Jimmy says.
Dang. You’re suppose to be the hardest-worker this side of town, a gym rat beyond all gym rats, and someone beat you here!?! You crack the door. Sure enough, the skinniest, palest, scrawniest white kid you’ve ever seen is moving through a complex workout, already drenched to the bone in sweat. This ninth-grader should be sleeping, getting ready for the beach; doesn’t he know he’s a Cali-guy?
"Guys might be able to run faster than me, jumper higher than me, be better athletes, but no one is going to outwork me," Indiana Pacer forward Austin Croshere says years later.
You look into his eyes and can’t believe this chiseled NBA player who’s dunked on Vince and Alonzo is the same pasty ninth grader you used to punish in that empty Santa Monica gym.

"He looks like Charlie Sheen, but he’ll take it to you," says teammate Jalen Rose. "I’ve seen him throw on some of the best."
You think back to that summer; he was terrible. There’s no way he was a potential NBA stud. But then you scan through his resume. All along his journey, he was doubted. The mysterious basketball powers that be consistently wrote him off. Austin never made blue-chip lists or had profiles written about him in schoolboy rating services. As a 6’9" high-school junior, his own coach went on record saying he’d be a nice, mid-level Division II center. Austin heard that, and felt it, too. So he worked harder. Jimmy Hines started finding him waiting at the gym door at 7am on weekends. In AAU games, Croshere went out and destroyed the "elite" recruits in California. He broke down Richard Mandeville so bad it’s a wonder how Bobby Knight could take the kid. He obliterated prize recruit Michael Stewart. Yet, the cream of the crop in his own backyard, UCLA and Cal didn’t think he could play at their level? The PAC-10?!? Michael Stewart can play there.
At that point, Austin was still doubted. Still underestimated. The rest of us might have been discouraged, listened to the raters, the coaches, the guys at Santa Monica’s pick-up Mecca, Memorial Park, who said "big man’s not that good, he’s no D-1 player." But not that scrawny ninth-grader who molded himself into something of a player. He was at the gym every morning. He was lifting, running sprints in soft sand at the same beach where his peers are hollering at girls and catching rays. Plain and simple, he was forming himself into a baller.

"I’m a blue-collar player who’s played in blue-collar towns and the fans appreciate the time I’ve put in to make myself a pro," Austin says recently after being mobbed on the way into an Indianapolis restaurant by a working-class family that wants to take a photo with him. (People have always recognized his work ethic, but in the same breath, they have also undervalued it.)

Jim Calhoun’s a blue-collar coach if there’s ever been one. He recognizes hard work. He reveres dedication. He loves kids who make themselves into players. Calhoun fell in love with Austin and recruited him to UCONN. A major D-1 school wanted that little white boy from the beach, and Croshere jumped at the chance to play in the conference that defines cutthroat basketball. People had said Austin was soft. He’d show them. He was headed straight to the trenches in the premiere league for bangers. That was, until, Calhoun gave his scholarship away.
Austin won’t talk about it now, but it obviously hurt him. The validation he was going to throw back in the faces of naysayers was suddenly stripped from him. It was more fuel for the fire. Maybe those old guys at the park were right, "big-man wasn’t no good."
Not too many schools came calling. Notre Dame wanted him to play another year of prep-school basketball to develop some more. Develop? Croshere had busted the butts of all comers, winning at the high school level on a team that didn’t feature him as the first or second option, destroying the "rated" kids at camps and AAU tourneys, and he needed another year? Tell that to the centers whose foreheads featured a Spalding print like it was Croshere’s personal calling card. He was ready. Rick Barnes agreed and brought Austin to Providence. Was it mere irony that AC would be playing Calhoun’s squad twice, maybe three times a year in the Big East? Knowing Austin, probably not. Just another doubter to prove wrong.

"You gotta go east if you want to be a baller." AC says when talking about his decision to play for Barnes. "You gotta’ prove yourself there."
He may be right, but Providence seems to be merely a nice stopover on the way to a decent career in Europe or a job on Wall Street. Haters didn’t even give him that. "After a year, he’ll be home playing in the West Coast Conference," locals at Memorial spouted.
But then, in his sophomore year, Austin took over the Big-East tournament, single-handedly sending Syracuse and John Wallace into conniptions. A star was born. All that hard work amounted to something. "Lucky game," Memorial locals mumble between sips of malt liquor. But, that’s your man, getting it done like he always had.
Austin turned the Big east out. And with success came harder work. He no longer waited for Providence’s version of Jimmy Hines to unlock doors; Croshere was now literally breaking into the gym at night to work on his game. He developed himself into a skilled three-point shooter who could kill in the post. Inside, outside, he’d get them either way. Those naysayers were always wearing the enemy’s jersey and Austin played like he had something to prove. He took on all comers and ended up eighth on the school’s all-time scorer’s list. Pretty good for a mid-level Division II player.
"I’ve never been so glad to see one player have success and move on to the next level because now we don’t have to play him anymore," said John Thompson.

And how fitting is it that Austin, a kid without much natural talent, who worked and willed himself into the NBA, is picked by the team in basketball’s unofficial capital? Not only that, but he was the inaugural pick of one of the greatest legends of all time, Larry Bird. The boys at Memorial Park scoffed at Indiana’s choice, "Austin’s no lottery pick, he’s a twelfth-man somewhere, a nice practice player."
There were even internal complaints on the Pacers. "Wasted pick." "Indiana wanted a great white hope." "He ain’t gonna’ be nothing." Again, everyone underestimated this kid’s heart. For two years, the naysayers seemed to finally be right. Austin toiled through unlucky injuries and bench life. He dreamed of showing the haters up, but this time he was buried deep on the pine. There was no opportunity to shine without checking into the game. Then came the trade of Antonio Davis for the future - Jonathan Bender. Who would take the open spot? Austin saw an angle and forced the Pacers’ card. He gained twenty pounds of muscle and moved to power forward. He went to a summer league in Boston and won the unofficial MVP - leading scorer, leading rebounder. He went to camp and killed in the exhibition games. Players on the team took notice. Austin played his way into the rotation and earned their trust, their respect.

"When you’re around Austin everyday, you’re not surprised by what he’s accomplished this year because he’s been doing it in practice for two years," smiles mentor Chris Mullin.
This season, Austin has gone bananas. During the regular season, he was the Pacers’ fourth leading scorer and second leading rebounder. Hubie Brown picked him as his sixth man of the year at the mid-point of the season. Some are mentioning him as the most improved player in the league.
"It’s nice to be thought of, but I’m not interested in those things. I have other, higher, team-oriented goals," Austin, always the humble soldier, mumbles at dinner. A flock of girls approach the table and gush at the sight of the Charlie Sheen look alike.
Austin sure has come a long way. Just listen to the loudmouths up at Memorial Park. "AC be ballin’ this year, puttin’ it down," they say. What happened to all the hate? It turned into forced love. Austin finally shut these fools up.
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