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…
If ever there were a team in need of a break-lucky, all-star, rest or otherwise-that team would be the Indiana Pacers. At risk of stating the obvious, in all the years I’ve followed that franchise or other sports organizations in general, I cannot recall a more star-crossed season. It began with preseason injuries, spiked the moment that beer cup landed on Ron Artest’s noggin, and since has been a steady drip-drip-drip of injuries and illnesses sprinkled on top of the…
Nine years of hunting for sponsors, recruiting and trying to retain drivers, and managing costs that had nearly doubled in recent years had taken its toll. The founder of locally based Kelley Racing shuttered his Indy Racing League team at the close of last season. And with the close of Kelley Racing, a new era for the Indy Racing League opened. Founded in 1996 as an alternative to CART, the open-wheel racing series stepped into what IRL founder Tony George…
Next month will bring new meaning to “March Madness” in Indianapolis. In a 36-day span starting March 1 and culminating April 5 with the crowning of the women’s NCAA basketball champion, the city will play host to 35 high-profile games in 36 days. The Hoosier state’s love affair with the sport has endured for decades. But next month will truly be “Hoops Hysteria” here. While the city has welcomed basketball tournaments before, it never has offered so many games at…
Lance Armstrong beating cancer, the Tour de France field and the French press. The Red Sox, down 0-3, over the Yankees. Never say never. “And down the stretch they come!” at the Kentucky Derby. “Gentlemen, start your engines,” at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The alpenglow on the San Gabriels above the Rose Bowl late in the third quarter. A three-pointer to win at the buzzer … unless it’s against the Pacers. Hinkle Fieldhouse, anytime. Amen Corner on an April Sunday…
The city’s hospitality industry might want to adopt the weathered “no pain, no gain” expression as its mantra until the proposed expansion of the Indiana Convention Center is completed, presumably in 2010. Construction of the 275,000-square-foot addition to the center should begin in 2008, pending legislative approval of a $500 million stadium financing deal for the Colts. The Convention Center expansion is expected to cost $250 million, and its financing and location hinge on the stadium deal. Work on the…
Though he’s only 45, Chris Paulsen is a grizzled veteran in racing circles. The storied mechanic has already been invited to take part in old-timer events at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But industry sources say Paulsen’s future is as wide open and promising as that of a schoolboy with a fresh diploma. The innovations that made him a household name in open-wheel have earned a following among NASCAR’s elite, and the insightful entrepreneur even talks of starting his own race…
SUSAN WILLIAMS Commentary Don’t overlook Benjamin Harrison Home Here’s a thought: Celebrate President’s Day (Feb. 21) at the President Benjamin Harrison Home. Let re-enactors take you back to the era of the only president elected from Indiana. Benjamin Harrison built his three-story Italianate Victorian home at 1230 N. Delaware St. in 1875 and lived there until his death in 1901, with a four-year interruption when he moved to Washington, D.C., to serve as the 23rd president of the United States….
The leaders of the NCAA, including President Myles Brand, have a grand vision. They want to see student-athletes who arrive on campus prepared for the rigors of higher academia and who depart in a timely manner with meaningful degrees. They want to see quality coaching and success on the field of play, including the opportunity for those student-athletes to compete on a national level. They want to see the athletic department guided by the academic mission of the institution and…
TO: Elected officials in Boone, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Johnson, Madison, Morgan and Shelby counties FROM: Bruce Hetrick, Marion County Center Township peon Years ago, I wrote an advertisement for my boss. Under the headline “A different drummer,” it began: “One way to lead is to find a parade and step before it. A better way is to start the parade and keep it going.” Well, my friends, as stewards of central Indiana’s suburban communities, you face an unprecedented opportunity to…
Numbers may well tell the story about the need for a larger convention center and new stadium in Indianapolis, but the question remains: Is it fact or fiction? Even as proponents work to sell lawmakers on a plan to expand the Indiana Convention Center and replace the RCA Dome, some skeptics aren’t sold on all the information used to make the case. “There are a lot of questions [decision makers] ought to be asking,” said Rick Eckstein, a Villanova University…
MIAMI-As individuals, we are a psychiatrist, a dentist, a college fund-raiser, a couple of small-businessmen, a couple of distributors of adult beverages, and one old and mostly broken-down sportswriter. But, collectively, we are a basketball team, wearing the uniforms of the Indiana Pacers, our names sewn on the backs; receiving first-class coaching and instruction; practicing on the floor of Conseco Fieldhouse; road-tripping to Miami; staying in premium digs; having team meals; getting pregame inspiration from none other than Pacers coaching…
Oh, the agony, the anger, the apoplexy and the “Apocalypse Now” reaction to the Indianapolis Colts’ sorry defeat at New England. It called into mind a quote from Mike Tice, the embattled coach of the Minnesota Vikings, following his team’s playoffs demise. “The NFL is so sudden,” he said. Is it ever. Suddenly, it seemed, the Colts were everybody’s darlings. Suddenly, the Colts were everybody’s dogs. All in the time and space of a snowy, late January afternoon in Massachusetts….
The $20 million economic impact forecasted for this year’s NCAA women’s basketball Final Four is about $10 million below the men’s event. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an important opportunity for Indianapolis, which will host the event for the first time in April. “This is an important audience for Indianapolis to be in front of,” said Susan Williams, Indiana Sports Corp. board member and co-chairwoman of the local organizing committee for the women’s Final Four. “It’s a different audience than…
Dr. Pierre Tran, a former neuroscience researcher at Eli Lilly and Co., was lured from Indianapolis to a suburb of San Francisco recently by a small biotech firm and its ability to develop new drugs more quickly than pharmaceutical giants like Lilly. The region’s diversity and “food culture” also played a role, Tran told the San Francisco Business Times in a story about where the Bay Area finds all the brainpower it needs to fuel its tech culture. Tran went…
I had a terrific lunch-time conversation with someone involved in college athletics, a person whose perspectives I admire because I know he hasn’t come to them easily. The jumping-off point for our discussion was the recent formation of the College Basketball Partnership, or CBP. It is a collection of coaches, administrators, broadcasters and NCAA staff, convened at the urging of NCAA President Myles Brand. Its task is to “address the challenges and opportunities” facing college basketball, especially at the Division…
The city’s only National Public Radio affiliate is launching a local news department for the first time in its almost 20 years of operation, and has signed a deal that could gain it thousands of listeners south of the city’s center. WFYI-FM 90.1 hired veteran TV newscaster Scott Hoke in late November as local host of NPR’s “Morning Edition” and will hire a reporter within six weeks. The radio station plans to soon after launch a weekly sports show featuring…
At least until mid-December, we thought we had a tentative handle on the General Assembly’s focus for the 2005 session. We knew the new governor and the new Republican House majority would team up on economic development initiatives, improving governmental efficiency and restructuring state agencies. The biggest task would be crafting a realistic state budget in the face of adversity and uncertainty. The regular “stuff of government” would also be squeezed in and some thorny telecommunications issues would be raised,…
My family and I spent Christmas week on a boat, in the ocean, with hundreds of people from Indonesia. And because they were comforting us, not vice versa, it seemed all wrong. The day after Christmas, Pam, Austin, Zach and I awoke at 3 a.m. We showered, dressed and lugged our suitcases downstairs. At 4 a.m., the limousine pulled up in our snowy driveway. The chauffeur loaded our luggage into the Cadillac’s trunk, helped us aboard and drove through icy…
Joanna Taft isn’t content helping to develop emerging artists. She also wants to help develop art patrons-and the historic neighborhood around what will soon be the former home of IUPUI’s Herron School of Art at Pennsylvania and 16th streets. So Taft, executive director at the nearby Harrison Center for the Arts, is working on plans for a charter high school to occupy a portion of the space IUPUI will vacate when it moves the art school to the campus proper…
