More than just a quarterback

(This column ran in the Oct. 19, 2013 edition of the Vincennes Sun-Commercial newspaper. I chose to post it here so I would be able to keep some personal record of it, but also because I have friends that do not have the newspaper readily available to them.)


I'll never forget the first copy of ESPN the Magazine that I bought. The cover was graced with half of Peyton Manning's face and half of Ryan Leaf's face, the two quarterbacks that were vying to be the top pick in the 1998 NFL Draft. I bought the issue specifically because the Colts held the No. 1 pick, and one of these two would, presumably, be the face of my team for the next decade plus. I don't remember any specific details, but I remember reading the cover story and thinking that Peyton Manning was a lock to be the first choice. 

I never thought I'd be rooting against Peyton.

That's why I don’t know how I’m going to feel when I walk into Lucas Oil Stadium Sunday. My family and I have had Colts season tickets for over 10 years now, and I’ve been to more than my fair share of big games. I’ve seen classic quarterback duels, come-from-behind victories and playoff games, but nothing comes close to comparing to what I’ll witness tonight.

I’ve been thinking about this game for over a year now, ever since the moment I heard Denver would be playing in Indianapolis. Peyton's coming back to the Circle City to play against the franchise he helped build into a perennial contender for over a decade (That's how it is to be a Colts fan, more specifically a season ticket holder, by the way. We've had such a intimate relationship with our quarterback for so long that we're on a first-name basis with him.). Clearly I have some bias, but to me this matchup is unprecedented.

Sure, many athletes have left the franchises with which they were once synonymous and later came back to play against those teams, especially quarterbacks.

The closest example of a future Hall of Fame quarterback playing against his former team was in 1994 when Joe Montana, then with the Kansas City Chiefs, took on his former teammates from San Francisco. Like the Colts, the 49ers had a young stud (Steve Young,  a future Hall of Famer) ready to take control, so it was easy to let Montana leave. However, that game took place in Kansas City. There was no homecoming for Montana.

The next example that jumps to mind is when Brett Favre left the Packers in 2008 and ended up with division rival Minnesota after a mediocre season in New York.  But that situation doesn’t even compare, in my opinion, for two main reasons. The first is that Favre left Green Bay on pretty bad terms.

Favre left his team in limbo while trying to decide whether or not to continue his career or head for retirement. The Packers, much like the 49ers, had a credible back up quarterback in Aaron Rodgers who was ready to become the face of the franchise, and ultimately Green Bay decided to cut the chord. While many fans were initially upset with the decision, the prevailing sentiment was that Favre was being selfish with his indecisive waffling.

But the biggest difference between the two situations is that Packers franchise was already one of the flagship franchises of the NFL. Before Favre, the Packers had 11 NFL championships (Super Bowls I and II, and nine pre-Super Bowl titles). Aside from a few quality years from Eric Dickerson and a brief, loveable underdog run with "Captain Comeback" Jim Harbaugh, the Indianapolis Colts were a perennial loser.
Peyton put Indianapolis on the football map.

While the Colts have a considerable amount of history, the vast majority of that history took place in Baltimore. Considering owner Robert Irsay left a bad taste in the mouths of many NFL fans when he snuck the team out of Baltimore in the middle of the night in late March of 1984, it’s no wonder many people didn’t believe Indianapolis to be a true football city.

Peyton changed all of that.

Several years ago in this space I mentioned a conversation I had with some college friends in the Fall of 2003 where I argued that Indianapolis was not a football town. For starters, I argued, the Colts had little to no history in the city. At the time, Peyton had had some success, but his first four seasons included a 32-32 regular season record and two disappointing playoff losses. 

The other argument I made was that Indiana was a basketball state. Despite Reggie Miller being in the twilight of his career, the Pacers owned the city, and basketball seemed destined to be the king sport forever.

Fourteen months after that debate, the Pacers gave the NBA (along with several unsuspecting fans in Detroit) a black eye, and all but a few diehards turned away from what was once Indianapolis's premier sports team. Where would they turn? Who would be the face of the city, and essentially the state?

Peyton made things pretty easy. Even though the Colts suffered two infamous playoff losses in New England, Peyton gave every sports fan a reason to believe. While members of the media and non-Colts fans questioned Peyton's clutch status, we Colts fans were content knowing that our team would put up at least 10 wins (it ended up being seven straight seasons of at least 12 wins) and be in contention every season.

Say what you want about Peyton's lack of success in the postseason —and if you've paid any attention to the news this weak, you know Colts owner Jim Irsay has— but speaking from experience, it's pretty fun to know that your team is going to be in the playoffs every year.

I could go on and on about Peyton's accomplishments in Indianapolis, but much of that wouldn't be anything you couldn't find by doing a quick Google search. What you may not find is that perhaps his greatest accomplishment is capturing the hearts of fans everywhere, and that's not limited to the state of Indiana. 

Five years ago I visited some friends in Houston who happened to be youth ministers. In their youth group was an 8-year-old boy who just so happened be a Colts fan. Why? Because of Peyton Manning. Last year, I went to Kansas City to watch the Colts take on the then-lowly Chiefs. I talked to about 20 other Colts fans who happened to be in attendance, and not one of them was from the state of Indiana.

The point is that the Indianapolis Colts matter, not just to a small fan base in the midwest like they did 15 years ago, but across the sports world. We have Peyton to thank for that.

So who wins Sunday's game? Perhaps the better question is, who will the fans be rooting for? For me, it's a no-brainer. I'm a firm believer that a sports fan picks his or her team and sticks with it. But while there's a part of me that will undoubtedly get the urge to scoff at every orange No. 18 jersey I see walking around downtown tonight, I understand. I'm extremely grateful for everything Peyton has done, and given everything I've just written, it's not surprising, nor is it wrong that some fans will choose to root for him this evening.

No matter what the outcome, the majority of fans will likely head home happy this evening. Either the young upstart Andrew Luck (Yes, there are two quarterbacks playing tonight) knocks of the old dog, or Peyton continues his torrid pace and gets some bragging rights. 

Regardless, the fans of Indianapolis deserve to see Peyton play one last time, and if there were ever a time where the player was more important than the team, this is it. That is what makes this game, and ultimately Peyton Manning's relationship with this franchise, so special.

Indiana Football and My Fading Optimism

As the Indiana Hoosiers begin another football season this evening, a season that is sure to be mediocre at best, I find it hard to be optimistic. 

I'm a Hoosier through and through, and I will ALWAYS support the Cream and Crimson. I always joked that Indiana basketball was 70% of the reason I opted to go to school there (20% partying, the other 10% for an education, if you must know), and truthfully that assessment wasn't that far off. I grew up an IU basketball fan, and since I got my degree from there, that fandom has definitely grown. It's surely grown by how much I care about IU basketball, but it's also grown in every other sport.

Any time Indiana has success in a sport, I feel I have reason to cheer. Soccer was great last year, and I can't wait to see if the baseball team can build off this past season's historic run. Football is no exception, despite there often being very little to cheer about. Hell some of my fondest memories of being a student are because of football. Most of them are from tailgating before (and sometimes after) the games, but regardless, I LOVE Indiana football. I will always root for them, regardless of whether or not the success ever comes.

I've always tried to be optimistic with this team, but but let's be honest. When looking at the IU schedule this year, it seems highly improbable that it will win a road game (Michigan St., Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio St.), which means the Hoosiers must go at least 7-1 at "The Rock" this season in order to assure themselves a bowl bid. While this is far from unlikely, I've been let down by this team too many times to even remember over the past 10 seasons, so putting it nicely, I'll say I'm skeptical, at best,  that this will happen.

Say what you will about me letting myself even get sucked in in the first place, but that's what we do as sports fans. We're hopeless romantics who keep thinking that things will turn around. Talk to any Cubs fan, and I imagine you'll hear a similar tune. I talked myself into potential bowl appearances every year I was in college, and the Hoosiers only made it one of those years... and even THAT took a fourth-quarter field goal to get there.... and we promptly got blasted by Oklahoma St. once we made it (at least I witnessed the greatest IU football moment —video below— in the past 25 years... maybe ever. RIP Coach Hep). I even bought into the hiring of Kevin Wilson... and he's won five games in two seasons. Rooting for IU football is a constant kick in the groin.

That's why I'm keeping my guard up this year. I'll watch every game, and I'll root for the Hoosiers, but I'd be content with a 6-6 season. If 6-6 sounds optimistic, please consider that IU has home games against fellow bottom tier conference teams Illinois, Minnesota and Purdue, not to mention a non-conference slate with home games against Indiana St., Ball St. and Navy. Anything less than 6-6 could mean a new head coach for the Hoosiers in 2014

But please, don't feel sorry for me. I've got the Cardinals, who seemed primed for another postseason run and are only two years removed from a championship. I've got the Colts, who should have a decade of Andrew Luck at the helms. And I've got the Thunder, who should be contenders as long as Durant and Westbrook are together. I think I'll be OK.

Still, it's never easy to root for a perennial loser. At some point the Hoosiers have to turn it around... right? I just don't think this is the year.

The Long Road Back

Cody Zeller made two free throws. Victor Oladipo hit a 3-pointer. Yogi Ferrell buried one from deep, then another. Oladipo added two more, Christian Watford tallied the Hoosiers fourth jumper from beyond the arc and Zeller got another easy two. Just like that Indiana jumped out to a 18-7 lead against No. 1 Michigan last Saturday night. At that moment, what I had suspected and hoped to be true for over a year was finally (in my mind) confirmed. Indiana University basketball was back.

You might be thinking that I’m a little late to the party on making this statement, and based on T-shirt sales, there’s no question you’d be right. I’m not sure whether it was when Zeller announced he’d attend IU several years ago, if it was at the beginning of last season, or when Watford made Hoosier Nation flood McCracken Court last December. Whenever it was, some wise man in Bloomington decided it was a great idea to start printing shirts that said, “We’re Back,” and now a quick Google search will show you there are at least five different variations of this shirt.

 

Seeing those shirts nearly everywhere (it’s still nearly impossible to watch a game without seeing at least one in the crowd) got me to thinking about what “We’re back” means and what exactly have we been coming back from? For me, those questions are trickier than you might think. On the surface, I’m sure most people think “We’re back” means that the dark years, plagued by the lingering shadows of Kelvin Sampson’s tenure, are over. While this is partially true, I’d like to go back even further.

On September 10, 2000 I walked out of the RCA Dome after a tough Colts loss to hear even worse news: Indiana had fired Bobby Knight. Before Sampson came along, this was probably the darkest day in IU basketball history. Still, while Coach Knight is a living legend in the Hoosier state, his last six seasons in his classic crimson sweater are pretty forgettable. While the Hoosiers reached 19+ wins in all of those seasons, they exited the tournament in the first round four times and were one-and-done in the other two seasons. So, are the Hoosiers “back” to where they were before Knight got fired? I’d still go back even further.

Twenty years ago Indiana went 31-4, and though the Hoosiers bowed out to Kansas just before reaching the Final Four, it was still a pretty successful season. That season the Hoosiers won their seventh Big Ten title in 14 seasons, they were the top-ranked team in the nation heading into the tournament and they were only six seasons removed from winning a National Championship. 

That was also the last time the Indiana basketball program really, truly mattered on a national level. And to me, that’s what “we’re back” from: irrelevancy.

It’s a bitter (and humbling) pill to swallow, but I have to admit it. Indiana didn’t matter to the rest of the country for nearly 20 years. Sure there were some hiccups of relevance during that time. Hell, I lived a lot of it.

I’ll never forget in 2001 when the Hoosiers knocked off No. 1 Michigan State at Assembly Hall. I remember because I slept through most of the game (although I can’t remember why), but woke up just in time to see Kirk Haston drain a 3-pointer to give Indiana the win. That win gave me the confidence to proclaim that with Haston in his fourth season and Jared Jeffries in his second, the Hoosiers could win it all in 2002 (Seriously, I did). Despite Haston unexpectedly, and foolishly, leaving for the NBA, the Hoosiers nearly made my premonition come true.  With the unforgettable play of guys like Tom Coverdale, Dane Fife,  Kyle Hornsby, A.J. Moye, Jeff Newton,  and even, to a lesser extent, Jared Odle and George Leach, Jeffries got the Hoosiers to the championship game before faltering against Maryland. No IU fan will ever forget beating No. 1 Duke on Kentucky’s home floor during that run.  Still, I couldn’t help but get the impression that the rest of the country was thinking, “Aww, how cute. Indiana thinks they can play with the big boys.” It’s actually pretty similar to what many thought of Notre Dame’s run to the national title game this past football season, but I digress.

Coach Mike Davis followed that run with a second-round tournament dismissal and two literal tournament no-shows. 

(Quick tangent: Am I the only one that thinks “What if” every time I see the Atlanta Hawks’ Josh Smith play on TV? Few people seem to remember that Smith, who would have been a freshman in the 04-05 season, was Davis’ top recruit before he declared for the draft. While many expected him to opt for the pros instead of making an appearance in Bloomington, I can’t help but wonder how Davis, and thus the subsequent hire of Sampson, would have played out. Would Smith’s talent have given Davis another 20-win season or two? Probably. Does this buy him another two or three plus years in Bloomington? I’d think so, but then what? I feel like this is one of the biggest “What ifs” regarding IU basketball in the past 20 years that no one seems to talk about.)

Me, Lyndsey, J, and Steve-o at the IU/Duke game.

Davis’ last season in Bloomington started with some promise, highlighted by a near-upset of top-ranked Duke in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, before the team fizzled in conference play and Davis graciously resigned before IU had the option to fire him. I remember this season specifically because I was a student at IU, and I was lucky enough to sit 10 rows from the court for the Duke game. I’ll never forget Marco Killingsworth throwing down a game-tying dunk just before the eight-minute timeout. Unfortunately for Killingsworth, and Hoosier Nation, his career was all downhill from that moment on. I'll also remember that season for this music video.

On March 29, 2006, I was sitting in Doc Sailes’  “Sports and the African-American Experience” class in Woodburn Hall with my buddy Steve-o when I got a text saying Kelvin Sampson would be the next Indiana coach. It sounds so stupid now, but I was excited. I knew IU wasn’t the high-profile job that most fans thought it should be, but I was naïve enough to believe that Sampson was a highly credible guy. At that point, it seemed like we were on our way back.

Look, it’s easy to say now how much of a scum bag Sampson is/was, but no Hoosier fan can tell me they weren’t excited when they heard the news that Eric Gordon was coming to Bloomington. Unfortunately I let that one bright spot convince me that Sampson could do know wrong. I turned a blind eye to the accusations that came out before the season started, and I sat back and enjoyed the ride as it seemed like this was finally the time when we were getting back to national relevancy. I mean, we did have the best freshman (Gordon) and the best big man (D.J. White) in the conference. It really seemed that a deep tournament run was on the way.

Then, naturally the week that College Gameday was coming to Bloomington, the shit hit the fan. I got to Assembly Hall at 7:30 a.m. to wait in line for Gameday, and was appalled when they spent the first 10 minutes of the show talking about Sampson’s violations. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t appalled because I thought the allegations were false. By this time, I had pretty much expected the season to end badly. I was appalled because, before the season started, this game, on the national stage, was supposed to be our moment to announce that “We’re back.”

You know what happened next, so I’ll skip ahead to the day Tom Crean was hired. I really don’t have any specific memories of this, because even though Crean said and did all the right things, my heart was broken by the Sampson-era. I felt like such an idiot for getting sucked in by Sampson, it was difficult to trust anyone who followed him. I was still an IU fan, but I had to keep my guard up.

Coach Crean's autograph

Those three down years are all kind of a blur. Crean’s first season was my last as a student. I remember going to Hoosier Hysteria and getting my “Crean & Crimson” shirt signed by Coach Crean. I remember Daniel Moore playing WAY too much, and being optimistic seeing the team improve while he played less. I remember Verdell Jones III being “The Man” and taking all the big shots when everyone else was scared to take them. I remember my first game as a non-student when we upset Michigan at Assembly Hall, and I remember a two weeks later when Crean got his first win over a ranked opponent, No. 20 Illinois.

The rest of the story has been written a thousand times by this point. Cody Zeller commits. Other top recruits follow. Watford hits the shot. Indiana beats No. 1 Kentucky. “We’re back.”

I’ve been meaning to write some or most of this for about four months, and have never really been motivated until now. Everything clicked Saturday night. The spotlight was shining bright on Bloomington, and the Hoosiers answered the call. It was the first time I truly believed we could win a National Championship this season. Having that belief, not only by a team's fans, but by college basketball fans across the country, year in and year out is what dictates national relevance to me. Duke gets that every year. Kentucky and Kansas have it. Though down this year, you'd be foolish not to expect North Carolina back near the top next season. Michigan State, and now probably Michigan, is on that level too. So are the Hoosiers.

I should actually rephrase my previous statement. I had previously thought we could win it all, but was under the impression that we’d have to catch some lucky breaks on the way there. Now, I’m confident that if we play our best game, we can and should beat anybody. Why can’t we? I mean, we’re back, right?