I can still remember Christmas in 1971, when I was a first grader and unwrapping the greatest gift imaginable: a brand-new Voit basketball and my own 8-foot basketball hoop soon to be installed in our driveway. The moment the paper came off, I suddenly had a reason to spend every spare minute outside — dribbling, shooting, imagining game-winners, and little by little getting good enough to enjoy every league and season that followed.
I kept practicing by myself, with my dad, friends from school, and the neighborhood kids. At first, I could barely get the ball to the basket. But it didn’t matter. I had my ball, I had my hoop, and I had just discovered Indiana basketball.
And like a lot of kids in those days, I found my first favorite player not because he was the best, but because he felt like someone I could be. For me, it was 5-foot-8 guard Bootsie White from Hammond — short, quick, and with a name I loved to mimic when pretending to hit the game-winner in the driveway. I spent hours out there yelling “Bootsie for the win!” as I heaved the ball toward that orange rim.
Those were simpler times. And one memory from that era has stayed with me more than almost any other.
Meeting the New Coach — Because Why Not?
There was a new basketball coach in town — a young, little-known former Army coach named Bob Knight. And my mom, being the kind of person who believed you should welcome new people to the community — especially if they coached basketball — decided one day that we should go meet him.
So we did. No appointment. No layers of security. No online form to fill out.
Just a mom and her first-grade son walking into the brand-new Assembly Hall, climbing the ramps to the basketball offices, and asking if Coach Knight had a minute.
And he did.
I remember him and assistant coach Dave Bliss greeting us warmly, and Knight handing me a signed card that said:
“Best Wishes — We Need Good Fans!”
That card became a treasure. But the moment itself became something more: the beginning of my lifelong endeavor to be a good IU fan — a lesson my parents lived more than they ever taught.
The Rise of the Hoosiers — and the Rise of a Community
Knight’s first team went 17–8 and 9–5 in the Big Ten — nothing flashy, but different. You could feel it. There was movement, purpose, discipline. Even kids like me could sense it: this was basketball being played the right way.
The very next season, behind the unforgettable Steve Downing, IU surprised the college basketball world with a Final Four run. Downing outplayed Bill Walton of mighty UCLA in a near upset, and Hoosier fans — my parents, our neighbors, my friends — became true believers.
By then, Indiana wasn’t just watching the team. We were following something — a style, a standard, an identity. We didn’t know it yet, but we were witnessing the beginning of one of the greatest eras in college basketball.
Just three seasons later, Knight’s 1976 Hoosiers completed the last undefeated season in men’s Division I history — 32–0, national champions, immortality sealed. We all knew they would have had two straight unbeaten seasons if Scott May hadn’t broken his arm late in the game in a 2-point loss to Kentucky in the Mideast Regional Final the year before.
And I have one more memory from the spring of ‘76 that ties everything together.
Bedlam in Bloomington — Through the Eyes of an 11-Year-Old
After the championship, word spread of the undefeated Hoosiers arrival time at the little Bloomington airport. My parents packed my sister and me into the car, and we drove out to meet the team. I was eleven — old enough to grasp that something special was happening.
A crowd had gathered — Hoosiers of all ages, bundled in coats, buzzing with the kind of excitement only perfection can create. When the players stepped off the plane, strangers hugged. People cried. Someone started a cheer that rolled through the crowd like a wave.
Newspaper reports called the aftermath “bedlam in Bloomington,” and they weren’t wrong. The celebration lasted a month. But for me, that night at the airport cemented something I’d first felt on a cold December morning in my driveway.
IU basketball wasn’t a hobby. It wasn’t just entertainment. It was a community.
It was something we lived together — in our homes, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, and yes, even in airport parking lots.
What I Want for Christmas Now
I’m older now. And with age, I’ve learned a simple truth:
The best gifts aren’t things. They’re experiences.
The first basketball in the driveway mattered — but not because of the ball. It mattered because of who I pretended to be, who was watching from the kitchen window, and who I talked about the game with afterward.
And now, all these years later, what I want for Christmas is simple:
I want Indiana basketball to feel like that again.
I want the joy. The effort. The pride. The style. The community.
The shared experience of being a Hoosier — on the court, in the stands, at home, and in the conversations we have with neighbors and coworkers the next morning.
I want us to feel connected again — like we did when a crowd of strangers gathered to welcome home an undefeated team, or when a little boy in a driveway yelled “Bootsie!” into the winter air.
And maybe — just maybe — if this team keeps building what it’s building — that feeling is on its way back.
Because some gifts don’t fit under a tree. Some gifts are lived. Shared. Remembered. Passed down.
Some gifts bounce on a driveway, echo through Assembly Hall, and bind a community together.
And those are the gifts I’m hoping for this Christmas.
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