USRT Indiana - Day 1
Welcome to Hoosier Country!
We have arrived in Indianapolis, and are looking out right onto Victory Circle and beyond from our 19th floor room at the Sheraton. It is 82 degrees here, and the streets are alive with traffic and activity. Good to be here!
Our day began down in Bloomington, about 50 miles to the south, where the Indiana Hoosiers were facing their Big Ten rival, the Iowa Hawkeyes. This is our 8th venue in this conference, and we’ve gotta say that Hoosier football is not exactly the electric storied experience that you’ll find in places like Penn State or Ohio State.
The campus here is not replete with ivy covered, bucolic buildings. Many of the dorms look like something designed for a Warsaw Pact capital at the height of the Cold War. As for Memorial Stadium, dubbed “The Rock”, it is an ordinary stadium, currently undergoing a big reconstruction in one end zone, to accommodate club lounges, offices, training facilities and a signature marquee entrance.
With IU’s football season down the crapper, it wasn’t exactly a full house on hand here. The stadium was about half full, and the hometown fans were disappointed early as visiting Iowa dominated play from both sides of the line of scrimmage, and Indiana just could not make any plays work for them. They finally put together a nifty drive just as the half was winding down, but a missed extra point left them behinf 17-9 at the half.
In the second half it was ALL Iowa, the Hawkeyes banged out four touchdowns and won going away… final score 45-9, and by the fourth quarter the entire student section and a good number of red clad fans had bailed.
We checked out Assembly Hall, one of college basketball’s storied venues and located right next door to the stadium. The lobbies and corridors there are replete with photos, trophies and memorabilia and are worth checking out, plus there’s a pretty big team store in the basement, and a bargain table to boot. Pete will have more on this in a separate post.
So here it is… Saturday night in the big city. We’re heading out to a cool sports bar right near Conseco Fieldhouse to enjoy a nice dinner and watch the ALCS, and we’re going to check out the nightlife scene as well. As I said, good to be here!
We’ll have some photos from Day 1 up later, and will check in with another update soon.
Out from beautiful Indianapolis!!!
-aak
