Recently, after deboarding an airplane in North Carolina, l was asked by the polite lady behind the rental car counter where home was for me. Upon the presentation of my driver’s license to her, she saw that Indianapolis was my hometown.
She smiled and stated, ‘Oh, basketball and corn,’ and proceeded to tell me she was from Fort Wayne, where her grandfather had been a hoops coach in various schools in Allen County and the surrounding area.
As I thanked her for the keys, it dawned on me as I walked away that she was simply citing what millions of people have been proclaiming for decades in terms of the vast importance that basketball represents to the citizens in the state of Indiana.
Apparently, the kind lady hasn’t been following the current developments in her former home state with both the Indianapolis Colts and the Indiana University football team, and it made me think even more about the significance of it all.
After all, Indianapolis is where l learned about Oscar Robertson and watched George McGinnis in their tremendous careers and witnessed the Bob Knight era as well in Bloomington, Indiana.
Basketball was sacred to the vast numbers of people who attended packed gymnasiums.
However, with the Colts finding their way to the Super Bowl twice and the NFL becoming the nine-million-pound gorilla in the room, the landscape began to shift a bit and they began the process of supplanting the Pacers as the most prominent game in town.
While IU Football has been the butt of some rather brutal jokes over the last 50-plus years, their recent rise to prominence, under the tutelage of recently hired Head Coach Curt Cignetti, has given their fan base a shot of both adrenaline and hope that has them believing they’ve not only arrived, but can contend for a National Championship, too.
How could this once proud hoops state be following football more intently than the very girl known as basketball who has taken them to the prom forever?
That’s a simple question to answer as everyone loves a winner, and the combination of professional and college football has collectively become a trillion-dollar monster that will continue to dominate the TV ratings.
While the sanctity of basketball will always have a special place in the hearts of throngs of people in this state, it’s clear that the game of football is the most important and will continue to distance itself from my beloved preference for a three-pointer and a ferocious slam dunk.
It’s even harder to maintain success once you’ve initially achieved it, and both the Colts and IU will learn the sword that they’ve used to slay dragons cuts both ways.
They’ll have to continue their stellar efforts to keep all the new bandwagon hoppers aboard and that’s not always easy to do, but it’s nothing that a deep playoff run won’t cure and keep them squarely ahead of basketball.
Danny Bridges, who never thought he’d see the day when football was the big game on campus in Bloomington, can be reached at (317) 370-8447 or at bridgeshd@aol.com
Danny Bridges is an award-winning journalist and a longtime sports columnist for the Indianapolis Recorder. He covers college, professional sports and especially all things IndyCar racing. He can be reached at 317-370-8447 or at bridgeshd@aol.com.
