Restoring pride

The windows had been boarded up for weeks. The paint, once a vibrant crimson, had now faded and was chipping away on the exterior. The roof, deteriorated. The walls inside of the building were in equally bad shape, a combination of neglect and lack of maintenance.

The supports were about to give out. Too many corners had been cut in the last remodeling. The slimy contractor wasn’t worried about rules and regulations; all he cared about was the image of the final product.

But the image the contractor had settled on was hideous. The tenants were now embarrassed to live in the house. Slowly, the demolition crew cranked the wrecking ball into the air, preparing to demolish the building. The insides of the house shook with fear, bracing for the blow.

But before the ugly, miserable building was demolished, someone said a few last words. Words of hope. Words that would hopefully inspire not just the next contractor, but also the tenants. The ones who had lived there and the ones who would one day live there. The man speaking was Dan Dakich.

“This needs to be built,” he said.

Filling in for the contractor – who had cut so many corners he was shown the door – Dakich spoke from the heart. He’d just seen the program he loved, the program he once played for, lose to Arkansas in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, 86-72.

His team had just lost four of their last five, and he could tell the crimson shine had faded. He could see the wrecking ball in the distance, preparing to demolish what had become of the IU men’s basketball program.

“This needs to be built back with a foundation of discipline and accountability,” he declared. “This needs to be built back to where there is a real pride among the people that know everything that’s going on in the basketball program, where there are former players that come here and have pride in what is happening here in the program.”

Dakich hoped to be the man to rebuild the house. He wanted to fix the cracks in the foundation, scrub the floors until they shined. But more than anything, it seemed Dakich wanted the program’s pride restored.

He said the “Indiana people, Indiana fans, the Indiana nation wants it done right, where there’s no embarrassment, there’s nothing but pride in all areas.

“And that’s something that has to happen at IU. It doesn’t have to happen everywhere, but it has to happen at Indiana University. That’s how Indiana University conducts its business,” said the interim coach who had once seen the team at its proudest.

“Especially in the basketball program.”

Since arriving on campus in April, IU coach Tom Crean has done all he can to restore pride and tradition in the program he had long admired.

He hated to see the program in the shape it was. How had it come to this? Crean has said he received countless letters from concerned Hoosiers when he first took the IU job. This isn’t Indiana basketball, the letters read. This isn’t how the program is supposed to be run. This isn’t Indiana.

So Crean set about making the program what it once was.

He reached out to former students, coaches and managers, holding an enormous team reunion in West Baden, Ind., which attracted more than 180 former players.

He set guidelines the program would follow, promising the players would go to class, do things the right way and make Hoosier fans proud of the program once again.

The old building would be demolished. Crean and IU Athletics would build the new one on the same lot.

In an address to the IU student body earlier this fall, Crean said the program is “in a process right now.” IU men’s basketball would not be rebuilt in a day.

He purged last year’s roster, filled with what he deemed undesirables, and recruited an entirely new team with the exceptions of senior forward Kyle Taber and sophomore guard Brett Finkelmeier. Thirty points. That’s all that would return from last year’s team. Nothing else.

Crean has warned fans he doesn’t know what to expect this season. How can you when you’re trying out kids from the baseball team a week before the season-opener? But Crean and his 14 new players have promised Hoosier fans one thing: They will try their darnedest to restore pride.

“As a coach, you’re judged by wins and losses, but the bottom line is this process that forms ... as you’re watching Indiana basketball go through this process, it’s going to shape memories. That’s what I’m excited about,” Crean said.

The excitement became contagious. Students, faculty and staff began to have hope. Hope that the new program would resemble the old one. Not the one built by the slimy contractor, but the one built by the guy who wore that red sweater. The one who brought them three national championships. The one who made them proud.

Fred Glass remembered those days.

He was an undergraduate on Bloomington’s campus during the glory period. He remembered seasons when you could only get tickets to half the men’s basketball home games because of the demand. He remembered partying with former IU basketball star Randy Wittman. He remembered the pride.

He had just been named the school’s next athletics director. A big part of his job was to oversee the rebuilding of the men’s basketball program. The team had its leader in Crean, but it still needed someone to direct the construction. Someone who understood.

He said the damage done to the basketball program was “immeasurable.” He knew people’s hearts were broken.

“You know, its hard to say, but I think people and alumni in other parts of the country don’t like to wear their IU stuff and have people make a comment about the challenges that went on,” he said. “I think it’s been bad and I don’t think we should underestimate how bad it’s been. We’re almost over the long national nightmares, almost over – I hope.”

A lawyer by trade, Glass will officially become IU’s athletics director in January. Just hours after being introduced in a press conference, Glass outlined the three characteristics the program would need to restore pride.

“I want us to not only follow the rules but be known for following the rules. I want us to be about academic achievement. I want this to be a place where moms and dads want to send their kids knowing they are going to go to class and graduate. And finally, after those two pillars are in place, then I want to excel athletically,” he said.
In that order?

“Yes, absolutely.

“I think that it is especially important to IU, I suppose,” Glass said of compliance. “Because following the rules is something everybody always took a lot of pride in. It was a hallmark of the school, and we took a real hit on that with the situation that occurred.”

The situation that occurred was an ugly one. One week, players were suspended. The next, rumors circled the campus that another had been arrested. The coach had been caught cheating in recruiting, and had been caught once again. The program was a running joke in Big Ten circles.

But here we are a little more than seven months after Crean was hired, and the students that once obsessed over the team are beginning to regain some of that pride.
Student season ticket sales are at an unprecedented low this season, and the team is picked to finish in the bottom of the conference by most projections, but that doesn’t mean IU students don’t have something to be proud about.

“I think it’s still Indiana basketball,” said IU Student Athletic Board President Michael Melwid. “Students still have a lot of pride in their program and their school.”

Melwid, a Bloomington native, has seen the program take a lot of turns over the past two decades. Now a senior, Melwid said he thinks Crean has done “a tremendous job” in helping the faded program restore its glimmer.

After attending two games early this season, Melwid said he sees the team and the coaching staff working hard to earn fans’ trust and support again. And while ticket sales might be down for the time being, Melwid thinks that’s just a blip on the radar.

“The students that go to the games will fully support this team and be just as crazy ... Something that was really cool was when Tom Crean came over after the exhibition game the other night and thanked all of the students for coming,” he said. “That will go a long way with the students.”

Sophomores David Sutter and Ryan Lueken agree. The two roommates are both Indiana natives and fondly remember the better days. Lueken said he loved the 2002 team coached by Mike Davis that went to the Final Four, describing them as “good guys who played as a team.”

Despite the struggles the program has faced, the two bought season tickets this year, and are optimistic, because of Crean and a heralded incoming recruiting class, that things will turn around quickly.

“I think by the end of the year, students will get behind this team,” Sutter said. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm.”

The two said their pride was hurt, but never lost, for IU basketball. But past success has left them hungry for future glory, much like Dakich. Lueken said he takes pride in “those banners hanging up in Assembly Hall and the tradition” and thinks Crean is the right man to guide the Hoosiers.

Crean has his work cut out for him. Earlier this year, the program was in shambles. The paint faded, the supports weakening, the structure crumbling.

But now he’s trying to “build this thing back up” and give Hoosier fans that feeling they had in IU basketball.

Pride.