Ain’t that America

Lately, the headlines have hurt. So let’s close out the week with a brief respite and focus instead on a story that hurts so good. It’s hard to explain to the non college football fan just how unlikely it is that Indiana would find itself as the undefeated favorite to win a national championship on Monday night against Miami. Before Curt Cignetti showed up at his first press conference as the new football coach at a basketball school in December of 2023, where he famously proclaimed, “I win. Google me,” things were bleak. “In 1976, then-coach Lee Corso called timeout in the second quarter to snap a photo of the scoreboard with Indiana leading Ohio State 7-6. They lost 47-7. In the 1990s and 2000s, some tailgaters never made it inside the stadium, which prompted coaches to rally students to show up.” No one needs any rallying to show up now. But Indiana’s unexpected rise to the top echelon of college football isn’t the only unusual part of this story. So is the identity of their number one, longtime backer. “The program that opened the season as the losingest team in Division I football history now stands one game away from its first championship—and it hasn’t gotten there via the pursestrings of one of the world’s richest people. In fact, the Hoosiers’ most prominent booster isn’t a tech genius or hedge fund titan. It’s the guy who wrote ‘Jack & Diane.'” These lyrics, Little ditty ’bout Jack and Diane, two American kids growin’ up in the heartland. Jacky gon’ be a football star, Diane’s debutante backseat of Jacky’s car are about the only association the average person (or even some pretty good AI) can make between John Mellencamp and the gridiron. But it turns out that Mellencamp is a major backer of Indiana football. How major? Well, the team’s practice facility is named the John Mellencamp Sports Pavilion. WSJ (Gift Article): The Chain-Smoking Rock Star Who Made Indiana Football Hurt So Good (backup link). “In recent years, the school gifted the Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer a wooden shack affixed to the top of the stadium. There, Mellencamp—a self-described ‘anti-social guy’ —could take in a game exactly the way he wanted to. ‘I set up there, nobody bothers me,’ Mellencamp said. ‘And I can smoke.'” Win or lose, Hoosiers and underdogs everywhere should enjoy these moments while they can. After all, life goes on, long after the thrill of livin’ is gone…