Bill Benner

C H I C AG O – Almost a year ago in this space, I wrote about IU’s then-new athletic director, Rick Greenspan, observing that his arrival coincided with the beginning of football season, which would allow him to be immediately confronted with the Athletic Department’s most pressing and obvious problem. Under Gerry DiNardo, an uninspired choice to begin with, Hoosier football was continuing its mired-in-the-muck ways, hopelessly spinning its wheels. Horrible as a game coach and even worse in…

It is Oct. 20, 1971. I am standing near Market and Alabama streets, where the groundbreaking has taken place for a venue to be called Market Square Arena. The price tag is a salty $23 million, and the project has attracted critics and naysayers who wonder about the city’s priorities, especially since our mayor, Richard Lugar, is using federal revenuesharing funds to help pay for the arena. Plus, Lugar has this wacky idea about using the arena as a catalyst…

– Luke 12:48 In light of the above Scripture, many would agree that among the most blessed creatures on this Earth are professional athletes. As has been noted often, they receive handsome compensation to play games, and it doesn’t really get much better than that, does it? Along with the fortune, however, comes celebrity, and from celebrity comes attention. That means there are no non-public public moments. The spotlight illuminates both the good and the bad. These thoughts come to…

The Indianapolis 500 is back, so we are told and at least we should hope. While television ratings didn’t blow through the roof, they at least climbed out of the basement by posting a 40-percent increase and putting in the rear-view mirrors that evil NASCAR event later in the day. Officials proclaimed with pride that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was “almost a sellout” for the big race, which, not that many years ago, would have been an indictment, not a…

I find it semi-amusing that Mike Davis has to be publicly reminded that there are higher expectations for Indiana University basketball than seconddivision Big Ten finishes or NIT bids, that “We’re No. 4” is not an acceptable rallying cry, that the fans are demanding, that the boosters tend to be cranky and that, gee, a third mediocre season in a row might cost him his $800,000-a-year job. Well, yeah. So? Nonetheless, now the basketball literally is in Davis’ court. Which…

He describes the experience as gutwrenching, intense, agonizing and exhausting. But also, some kind of fun. “It’s like going off to basketball junkies camp for a week,” said Jon LeCrone, commissioner of the Indianapolis-based Horizon League. “Camp” convenes this Wednesday, when LeCrone joins nine other members of the NCAA’s Division I men’s basketball committee to select, seed and bracket the 65 invitees to the tournament, aka the Big Dance. To be sure, it’s not Camp Granada, with rustic cabins, bunk…

After spending much of his adult life with a stopwatch, Duke Babb knows something about time. In this case, it’s his. Having just turned 70, he says it is time to get off this “great ride” through football he’s been on the past 50 years. Time to let someone else tend to this behemoth he’s created, which is popularly known as the NFL scouting combine. Time to still have the energy to “kick the dog a little bit.” That’s figurative…