Coach Mike Woodson at Huber’s Orchard and Winery!
For Southern Indiana Hoosiers, the annual IU Varsity Club event held at Joe Huber’s Orchard and Winery not only satisfies the appetite with some down home cookin’, but also the offseason appetite for Indiana athletics. It’s a bridge of anticipation to the fall football and basketball seasons and helps us feel those are just a little bit closer in reach. Minus the two Covid years, this event has been running for 30+ years now going back to the Bob Knight era of basketball. It was great to see the event come back to the beautiful rolling farmlands of Southern Indiana last night, where I’m sure a record crowd of at least 1,000 hysterical fans were in attendance.
Highlights of the night last night:
Scott Dolson announced that IU will be doing some special things this season to commemorate the legacy and career of the “voice of the Hoosiers”, none other than the Fisch — Don Fischer. This year will mark 50 years behind the mike…incredible, considering the guy looks like he started doing this out of the womb. I asked him as such, and it’s crazy that he started the gig when he was 26. I hope we all can be that fortunate as we age!
Dolson also shared a great story about one of the early years of the event. Coach Knight was up on stage and old man Huber decided to light up a stogie in the front row. Smoke started wafting up to the podium where Coach was speaking, and in true general fashion, he proceeded to tell Mr. Huber that if he didn’t cut that out, he was going to stick that cigar where the sun didn’t shine.
Tom Allen talked about this year’s word for the team — “build”. Everything that went wrong went wrong last year, but I know that he’s the right guy for this job and will get things turned around.
Woody shared the story of beginning his journey as head coach of the Hoosiers, in a slightly different way that I’ve heard it before. As he recollected, he called a meeting to talk to the team and gave what he considered to be an ‘all-star speech’. At the end of the speech, he asked the team who was with him and he said ‘shit, only 2 or 3 walk-ons raised their hand.’ After the laughter subdued, he then talked about how he decided he needed to start at the top and began working on Trayce Jackson-Davis. From there, the chips fell into place upon convincing him to return.
I know he spoke about this in Fort Wayne recently, but I applaud Coach Woodson for openly discussing his position with NIL. Personally, I don’t have any problems with a kid earning money in this capitalistic society, but I don’t want to see it ruin a game that many of us love and cherish. Money is far too often the driving factor in so many things in life and we miss what’s really important because of it. More or less, Woody said if a kid only cares about getting paid and how much he can earn via NIL, then Indiana University isn’t the right place for them to wear a uniform. AMEN! Education is first and representing Indiana as a student-athlete of high character is high on that list. IU appears to be going about this the right way, as one would expect from this fine institution, helping their student-athletes by educating them on NIL, how they can maximize the benefits of it, and forming collectives that balances the support of the athlete and our communities in a positive way. On the flip side, I don’t want to see the parity of college basketball go down the drain simply because schools with deeper pockets can now pay-for-play more legally than ever before, making it difficult for others to compete. The Cinderella story is one of the amazing parts of this game — it’s not like the damn Yankees (no offense to any fans out there!) in baseball that buy their way into the playoffs and championships. Keep setting the bar and leading the way, IU.
Aside from the speeches, I had the pleasure of meeting Coach Woodson briefly for an autograph — finally completing my 2021-22 team ball pictured in this post! He was kind enough to take a quick photo with my family, as well. Super-nice guy and I can see why he resonates with the players. I also had him sign a micro-sized ball — I have every coach from Bob Knight forward (except Kelvin) on one of those mini-mini-balls and will be making a nice display for them soon. I’ll post some pictures as soon as that happens!
Can’t wait for the basketball season to start…Go IU!