Seven years ago I was a freshman student at IU Southeast (story for another day) sitting in the school’s food court in a gap between classes engaging in my usual routine:
Food court Papa John’s pizza and 2018 Indiana Hoosiers football highlights. The pizza? Meh. The football? Also meh. My heart? Taken.
Of all the athletic teams at Indiana University, the college I’d been dreaming of attending since the days of crawling around my house in a trident onesie, the football team captured my love unlike any other. The men’s basketball program caught all the attention and the women’s was on the rise under Teri Moren, but football was… different.
I did not grow up in a wealthy household. I’d never once attended a sporting event larger than a few hundred, maybe a thousand people and each instance came in marching or pep band at my high school. My family had neither the time nor money to attend, but we had the love. Some of my fondest memories of watching football are with my grandmother. Her son, Christopher, had been the star tailback at his local Detroit-area high school and I’d grown up hearing the stories of how he’d bring the entire student body to his feet with his speed with the ball in his hands.
He’s no longer with us. I never got to meet him. The “C” in L.C. is for him. Football is close to my heart. Sure, I had the Peyton Manning Colts to grow up with, that’s incredible. but they didn’t capture my attention the way the Hoosiers did.
So there I was, longing to be in Bloomington and doing my best impression watching the Hoosiers go 5-7 a hundred miles south of Memorial Stadium.
When I got into IU Bloomington, my thoughts turned immediately to the journalism degree I coveted (duh), but the second thought I had was “I will be able to afford season tickets for a sport for the first time in my life.” Buying those 2019 Indiana football student tickets was priority No. 2 after registering for the actual classes.
And I went. Every one of those 2019 home games. I got up early and got to the front of the student section as quickly as I could, staying from kickoff to the final play. Some of those games went well! Others didn’t, including my first exposure to in-person Ohio State, a 56-10 home loss.
But I stayed. Loud and proud. All of 19 years old with nowhere else I’d rather be than front and center for the Hoosiers. When the pandemic hit and 2020’s magic came about I did the same, from a distance. I was working the cash register at the Indiana Memorial Union’s gift shop with my phone propped up against the counter when Michael Penix Jr. dove for the pylon, resulting in the most interesting customer service interaction of my career.
Eventually that passion manifested in writing (believe it or not) and I set out to cover the team for the Indiana Daily Student, the perennial award-winning campus paper that you really oughta subscribe to by the way. With a few stops as sports editor and editor-in-chief, I finally got the position as one of two football beat writers after submitting what is surely the longest, most overly detailed application in the history of the paper. And I got to do so with two of my good friends.
I count those two as among my very best friends now, and I’m incredibly lucky to be able to call them that. Indiana was set for a great season coming off of 2020. We all packed into my buddy’s car after waking up before the crack of dawn to make the trip to Iowa City an-
Oh.
Oh no.
You know what happened. 2-10. Writing pretty much the same “they lost, it was bad, everything’s bad,” story after every game. Sure, fine.
My friends and I finished out that season together, but we went on afterward. They’ve gone onto bigger things as writers, while I’m still writing about Indiana Hoosiers football. Albeit for a different (dumber) outlet.
That’s led me here. Seven years later.
I’ve traded the IU Southeast student center cafeteria for the Lucas Oil Stadium press room, just off to the side around the tunnel, where I’m writing this. I’ve gone from watching highlights to sitting watching in-person in stadium press boxes around the Midwest.
Indiana’s gone from 5-7 and 8-5 to 13-0 and Big Ten champions. From 56-10 to 13-10.
For the most part, everything’s better. I’m living out a dream and so are the Hoosiers.
But I’ve still got this mid-ass pizza.
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