One fateful day

I’ll never forget Dec. 17, 2004.\nTerry Hoeppner, the new face of Hoosier football, arrived on the IU campus back on that wintry Indiana day and the first hurricane in Bloomington history pummeled the town. Billboards and posters, T-shirts and endless amounts of IU football merchandise popped up around campus. “Coach Hep” had arrived, and he brought with him a clear agenda for his new football team. \nThe funny thing was nobody really knew how to react. Was this merely an expensive marketing ploy for a mediocre coach that we should simply ignore? Or was this a sign of good things to come, signifying a new and better beginning for a perennial Big Ten bottom-feeder? The answer soon became clear.\nSuddenly, football recruiting took on a new sense of importance, ticket sales began to skyrocket and there was enthusiasm – true, unadulterated enthusiasm – surrounding IU football. Coach Terry Hoeppner quickly became just “Hep,” a nickname that when spoken made everyone feel as though they’d known him for years. We hung on his every word and eagerly awaited the great things to come.\nCoach even went so far as to tell me that he expected the Hoosiers to be in the Rose Bowl by 2009, but that he wasn’t sure he would still be IU’s coach.\n“If I’m not still coaching, I’m not going to retire to Florida. I’ll retire to Elkhart or Fort Wayne,” he said in a Dec. 12, 2005, interview. “I’ll be coming back to watch the 2009 Rose Bowl Champion Indiana Hoosiers. Or I could be like Joe Paterno and still be marching the sidelines. Who knows?”\nUnfortunately, now we know all too well: We won’t get to see Hep step off that bus at the start of “The Walk” and wave to the masses of people in the Woodlawn Fields. We won’t get to hear his words of encouragement and enthusiasm or see the expression on his face after a big IU victory.\nBut everywhere you look around the IU campus and Memorial Stadium, Coach Hep will be there.\nThe football team will continue to complete “The Walk” before every home game. The Hoosiers will march out onto the field with their arms interlocked and touch “The Rock” right before kickoff. Then they’ll join the student section after a home win and conduct the band. Most importantly, the team and fans alike will be able to enjoy a bigger and better Memorial Stadium soon, too.\nAnd it will all be because of Terry Hoeppner. Everything the Hoosiers do next season, and the season after that, and the season after that – and 20 seasons from now – will be because of Terry Hoeppner. He left an indelible mark on IU and on the lives of so many people, myself included. \nThanks for the memories, Coach Hep. I’ll never forget the day you left us, and I’ll certainly never forget Dec. 17, 2004 – that one fateful day.