Visiting Bloomington

Written By Justin Albers who was inspired by
Edward Gangloff, Marcia Albers, Terry Hutchens
Pacing back and forth and alternating between looking out the window and typing on the computer. I could hear the clock ticking in my ear, and I could feel the anxiety building up as I waited for Indianapolis Star writer Terry Hutchens to pick me up. I couldn’t wait to get on the road and on my way to Bloomington for the Hoosiers opening game of the football season. For Terry, this was just an ordinary day, but for me it was an experience I hoped would become routine for me as well someday. When Mr. Hutchens arrived at my house, I could feel the excitement ready to come out. This would be my second trip to Bloomington for an IU football game, but my first in the press box. I walked out to greet Terry, but then I ran right back in the house when he told me I could not wear anything IU. The reason for that was people in the press box are not allowed to do any cheering for either team. Once I was back out of the house, I gathered up all of my notes for the game and hopped in the car. Mr. Hutchens gave me some interesting information about things that had happened that morning. I sat beside him listening intently, and learning some things that I found very intriguing. I took a glance at Terry’s XM Radio and became humored by the fact that Purdue only had a slight halftime lead against Division IAA Indiana State. As we continued our journey toward Bloomington, Terry handed me a phonebook and asked me to look up the cell phone number of Van Coleman. Coleman is a writer for a magazine that ranks high school recruits. Mr. Hutchens told Van about the call he had received earlier that morning from an assistant coach in Richmond, California. The coach had told Terry that one of his players, Elijah Houlman (a 6-10, 225 pound senior) had decided to commit to Indiana. Van told Terry that he had Houlman ranked at #108 in the ‘o7 class, but he could easily be a top 100 player.
"The difference between #84 and #150 [in the ‘07 class] is minute."
After talking to Van, Hutchens made note of the quote given to him, which he would later put in his article. As we neared Bloomington, it was easy to tell that it was going to be the spot of a game later that day. People were listening to music, munching on some snack food, and just getting pumped up for the big game. Everybody was anticipating "the walk" from the Hoosier football team in which they are dropped off in a parking lot on one end of the campus, and walk through a tunnel of fans on their way to the field. It was 3:45 at this time, meaning kickoff was just over 2 hours away.
Next on our agenda was to get a look at Eric Gordon and Derrek Rose with the Hoosier basketball team in Assembly Hall. Gordon and Rose are two recruits IU hopes they can somehow get their hands on as they are #2 and 3 in the ‘07 class respectively. Before we entered Assembly Hall’s West Pavilion, we were greeted by an Indiana assistant coach who told us they were closing the workout. That was definately not what the Hoosier fans wanted to hear. Some people had driven to Bloomington just to see this workout, and people became angry. Terry was not in a good position himself because he had reported it "open" earlier in the day. "Dude, you said it was open" and "Why the heck are they closing the gym?" were just a couple of comments that he heard from the IU Nation. Mr. Hutchens tried to tell as many people as he could what was going on, and he didn’t let the negative comments affect him.
After walking back out of Assembly Hall, Terry and I began a long walk around Memorial Stadium where the press box was located. On our way, we walked through a big tailgate area where I got to meet some of the IU staff. Mr. Hutchens pointed one way and showed me Coach Hoeppner’s family. Then once we continued walking, my heart almost skipped a beat because of who we saw next. We saw IU’s new basketball coach, Kelvin Sampson, and his family. Terry introduced me and told Sampson that I was his point guard on his CYO team. Sampson responded with "That’s good, you gotta take care of your point guard."
Kelvin, his daughter, and his wife were all very nice people, and I dearly enjoyed talking to them. When Terry congratulated Coach Sampson on grabbing Eli Houlman, Sampson said "We feel he is a top 100 guy right now, and after a year of working with him he might be a top 50." Mr. Hutchens and I stayed there talking to the Sampson family for about 40 minutes, and then we headed toward the press box at about 5. Coach Sampson left me with these words of advice "If the mailman stopped at every barking dog, then he would never get the mail delivered." Once I thought about that comment for a while, and figured out what it meant, I realized that those were indeed great words of advice, and I thank Coach Sampson for them.
Our next stop was the press box elevator that would take us up to level 5. I showed the man at the elevator my pass and stepped into the elevator. Within another second, Terry’s hand was receiving more action, as once again he was shaking hands. This time it was with a WISH TV 8 cameraman, and with him was a new news reporter. It was the first time in the day that somebody didn’t know who Terry was, and like me, he was meeting her for the first time. Mr. Hutchens had told me that this was the slowest elevator in the world, and he wasn’t kidding. When we finally reached our level, we stepped out of the elevator, and into a world of intense preparation. All the people around were busy typing and getting ready for the game, which was now only 40 minutes away. Terry led me down a steep flight of 9 steps, and over to my seat. We were surrounded by TV’s that were showing the game highlights from earlier that day. As Terry plugged in his computer, I caught a glance of some of the scores. I didn’t really care about any of the games that had already been completed, I was more interested in the game to come that night. My team has always been Notre Dame, and they had a big matchup with Georgia Tech on ABC coming up at 8:00. The guy sitting on my left had a small TV, which would come in handy when all the other TV’s were turned off later. I got out my legal pad and got it ready for stats, then I wrote an article about the IU basketball situation. Terry then informed me of a couple of things. He first told me that he would not be sitting next to me during the game because he had to help with stats for the IU radio broadcast. The second thing he informed me of was that I better get some food soon because it was going fast. I decided that he was probably right, so I gathered myself and headed up to the food table. On one table there were two bowls containing a mixture of nuts and goldfish, a bowl of Tostitos, and a bowl with salsa. On another table there were some deli sandwiches ranging from ham to turkey. On a third table there were some peanut butter cookies, but by the time I got there, those were gone. I grabbed a turkey sandwich and some goldfish, then headed over to the drink cooler. I pulled out a Diet Coke and then returned to my seat. I ate a couple of bites, said goodbye to Terry, then got ready for the game.
From the opening kickoff, till the last play of the game, I had an awesome time. Keeping stats kept me into a game that went by so fast I could barely keep up. With the new clock rules, the game was over in 3 hours and 2 minutes, 45 minutes shorter than most games last year. When halftime came around, Terry came back to type up a lead he thought he might have on the game. He was there for about 10 minutes, then it was back to the radio booth. I grabbed another drink, and sat back down to make a phone call. I called my aunt with whom I had stayed during the summer. I told her where I was and what I was doing, and she couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t talk for long though because the game was back underway. I continued my stats during the second half, and watched IU run its way into a 39-20 win. After the game was over, I tried to start totaling up all my stats, but there was not time for that. Terry told me that it was time to go to the post game press conferences. This statement got me all excited inside because I never knew that I would get to do this. We decided that the elevator was too slow, so we took the stairs down to the field level. We were out of breath when we finally made it, but we had time to recover as we took our seats. About 30 media people were seated around a table, a table that Terry Hoeppner sat at when he walked in. All the media people put their voice recorders on the table, so I followed suit. As the press conference moved along, I became a little nervous because Terry was asking nearly every question, and I was sitting right next to him. That is the kind of reporter I want to be someday. The kind that is not afraid to ask the questions they need answered in order to write their articles. Hoeppner talked for about 6 or 7 minutes, then it was time for us to interview the players. I walked with Mr. Hutchens to each of the various players, and held my voice recorder out whenever the players were talking. It was interesting to hear what the players had to say, and when we were finished with all of the players, we headed back up to level 5. My coach chose to take the elevator, while I opted for the stairs. We reached the top at about the same time, the only difference was that I was dead tired. I sat back down at my seat and began t owrite my article. Terry was sitting right next to me, and he was in quite a hurry. It was already about 9:40, and Mr. Hutchens only had 45 minutes to get his first article into the paper. It took me about 40 minutes to finish my article, but Terry was still working when I was done. He had another article due at about 11:00, and the notebook for that article due at 11:30. While Mr. Hutchens worked diligently, I tuned into the intense Notre Dame game. Notre Dame had a 14-10 lead with just a few minutes remaining in the game. They picked up a couple of first downs on the final drive to secure the victory.
After Terry finished his articles, we said goodbye to the few remaining people and took the elevator out of the stadium. On our walk back to the car, Mr. Hutchens and I talked about sports. It was such an enjoyable experience for me to talk about sports with him because he has a passion for the same thing I do. When we reached the car, we turned on the XM Radio once again, and tuned into ESPN Radio. We were able to catch up on all the scores of the day, and also chat a little more. We stopped at a Steak n Shake that was buzzing, especially since it was 12:00 a.m. After warming my bones with a little vegetable soup, I got really tired. I never quite fell asleep, but I dozed off a couple of times during the last hour of our trip. When we reached my house at 1:30 a.m., I thanked Mr. Hutchens for a wonderful time and headed inside. Nobody was awake in my house so I went straight to bed.
Saturday September 2nd, 2006 is a day that I will never forget. Mr. Hutchens was kind enough to show me the ropes of a profession I would really like to pursue in my life. I can honestly say that it was one, if not the best day of my entire life. Visiting Bloomington was a blast, and I thank Terry and the Indianapolis Star for the opportunity.
Quotes from Terry:
1. "The first rule of journalism is that you have to be non-partial. In the press box we are not allowed to do any cheering.
2. "You must always strengthen relationships [with staff] whenever you can because being a beat writer, you rely on their information."