‘The Spirit of Indiana: 24 Sports, One Team’

The definition of IU Athletics hides from no one.

It wraps itself around the wrist of IU Athletics Director Fred Glass. It sits on a circular, purple-red desk in the office of IU women’s tennis coach Lin Loring. It embeds itself on the back of the new scoreboard in the South End Zone of Memorial Stadium.

It makes itself known on the shirts of Hoosier athletes, hangs from the tongues of Hoosier coaches and comes from what administrators define as “Hoosier values.” It has been called “corny,” “groundbreaking” and “the greatest thing since ice cream.” It is a declaration of what IU Athletics is, a depiction of what IU Athletics wants to be and a description of how IU Athletics will get there.

It is more than a slogan. It is a way of life.

It is “The Spirit of Indiana: 24 Sports, One Team.”

The pride in his tears
For Mark Deal, IU’s assistant athletic director for football operations and a former Hoosier football player himself, it isn’t a struggle to show love for his alma mater.
Mark Deal is the son of Russ Deal, an All-American in football and member of IU’s 1945 Big Ten championship team.

His brother, Mike Deal, played on the Hoosier football squad that won the Big Ten championship in 1967 and went on to play in the Rose Bowl.

Next came Mark Deal’s turn. From ‘75 to ’78, he played center for then-coach Lee Corso. From his parents to his children, every member of Mark Deal’s immediate family has gone to IU for the past three generations.

As he tells people, the Deals don’t put up with “that ‘House Divided’ shit.”
He has a picture on his cell phone of the “I” his team put on the Old Oaken Bucket on Nov. 19, 1977, when they beat Purdue 21-10 at Memorial Stadium. Two days before Christmas of 1996, he took the Bucket back to his home in Hobart, Ind., for Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner.

This man does not go out of his way to show his pride — the pride goes out of its way to show itself.
“It’s not put on,” Mark Deal said. “It’s not bullshit. I cry before every game — that’s how emotional I get.”

Reprogramming the next generation
The administration of the department, led by Glass, is trying to instill the passion exemplified by Mark Deal into the current class of Hoosiers through the “24 Sports, One Team” mentality.

The movement, Glass said, is essential to filling in the gaps caused by the “highly-routinized lifestyle” seen in athletes today.

“We’re in an era where kids, especially athletes, are highly programmed,” Glass said. “All of the practices are scheduled, and the games are scheduled. ...They come here having perhaps not had as much opportunity to fail.”

Lack of experience with failure often causes young athletes to shut down the first time they fall short of their goals. That led Glass and IU’s coaches to develop the Excellence Academy — a comprehensive plan including required classes, community service, assessment of players’ attributes and reflection from the players themselves.

The process begins freshman year with each student-athlete taking assessment tests to determine his or her skill sets, character traits and interests. Included in these evaluations are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, tools often used by psychologists and educators.

This system, Glass said, is one-of-a-kind.

“I don’t think anybody else in the country is doing this,” he said. “I think it will really distinguish us dramatically from our
competition.”

Because IU is the most underfunded athletics department among public universities in the Big Ten, Glass believes such a product is necessary to gain
an edge.

“This is how we beat people,” he said. “It’s creative, it’s a product of hard work, it’s not expensive and it distinguishes us from our competition.”

Loring, who has coached at IU for more than three decades, said the strategy, along with improvements in facilities, gives himself and the department’s other 23 coaches all they need to keep up with other schools in the
conference.

“If we can be in the middle of the Big Ten, we can compete,” he said. “We don’t have to win the arms race. We just have to be in the middle.”

Players have also responded well to the idea. Jordan Hulls, a sophomore guard on the IU men’s basketball team, grew up in Bloomington. He was Indiana’s Mr. Basketball during his senior year of high school and led the Bloomington High School South Panthers to an undefeated season. He “got” the Spirit of IU.

Or at least he thought he did. When he set foot on campus in fall 2009, he discovered how different the Indiana culture is.

“When you get here, you definitely see the family that we build here,” Hulls said. “All these different people from across the country come here, and they all love IU. Whether you’re from Alabama or you’re from Bloomington, everybody came here for a reason — because they know the rich tradition that IU has to offer.”

More than ‘hollow words’
There is only one thing that Mark Deal does to help make sure football players “get it” when they arrive on campus to begin summer workouts.

He teaches them how to sing the fight song the way he knows best — the football way.

The team goes through the song three times.

The first time, the players sing the song just as they would along with the fans and the band.

For the next go-around, they sing it softly, barely above a whisper, and snap their fingers along with the lyrics.

In the final refrain, the Hoosiers belt the lyrics, shouting as loudly as possible and clapping with feverish vigor.

This, Mark Deal said, is their time.

“They get indoctrinated in it right then,” he said. “Then, hopefully, they see it for the next four or five years.”

It’s a step toward becoming what Mark Deal calls an “Indiana man” — a step toward understanding the IU culture, and a step toward understanding the Spirit of IU and identifying with the “24 Sports, One Team” mentality. It’s a mentality Mark Deal said is as genuine as his feelings for the University.

“That’s not a motto,” he said. “That is Indiana.”