Home | CONTACT US

Originally published in the Indianapolis Star on 2/1/12

Downtown is the most important neighborhood in any city because it is everybody’s neighborhood.  It’s also the front door to visitors such as the celebrities and global clientele filling Indianapolis’ urban core during this week’s Super Bowl.

Pacers Sports and Entertainment CEO and longtime Indianapolis civic leader Jim Morris recently shared this wisdom with me while reflecting on his beloved city’s journey from obscurity to the world media’s temporary epicenter.  The transformation was fueled by sports, aimed at community revitalization and started in the one square mile surrounding Monument Circle in the early 1970s.

Back then, Downtown was home to 9-5 office buildings and little else.  Morris, serving as chief of staff to the nation’s youngest mayor, Dick Lugar, became point person for the turnaround.  Suburban flight was in full swing and the city streets were darkening as the businesses pulled out.

To reverse the flow, the Mayor needed an anchor tenant in the city’s center and it came in the form of Market Square Arena.  The Pacers soon filled the arena’s hoops with the ABA’s trademark red-white-and-blue basketballs and suburbanites filled the stands to cheer them on to three championships.

It would be easy to draw a line from the success of Market Square Arena to the remarkable mayors who succeeded Lugar and the sports strategy that yielded the RCA Dome-inspired arrival of the Colts, the relocation of NCAA headquarters and no less than 400 national and international sporting events.  That story is indeed inspiring but it is also insufficient.

The wider angle view looks not just to City Hall but also to the corporate board rooms surrounding it.  Here’s where Indianapolis’ revitalization story is not only remarkable in outcome but method.  The men and women who built the 21^st century city were not assigned the task.  They were private actors in the public interest who simply, albeit powerfully, contributed vision, talent and dollars to the idea that Indianapolis could be a world-class city.

These leaders often assembled informally and sometimes adopted names such as the City Committee or the Commission for Downtown.  Many of these citizen-leaders occupied the corner office in Indianapolis bank or insurance headquarters with authority to invest their profits in a new economic landscape.  Others were attorneys and other professionals using their analytical skills to design strategies turning vision into concrete results. 

The vision was unjustifiably bold.  They looked at the IU medical school perched on the White River and pictured a world-class university in place of the 2,500 dilapidated homes between the school and downtown.  IUPUI’s gleaming campus now stands there.  Then they looked south to the meat-packing plant and grain mill scattered amid rough hewn land and dreamed of a green space resembling Tivoli’s park and gardens.  Today that area is known as White River State Park.

A French philosopher named Alexis de Toqueville visited America in 1831-32 to investigate the world’s grand experiment in self-government.  His writings are filled with awestruck references to common citizens looking to each other rather than the government to solve their problems.  As modern America developed in the last century, such notions seemed quaint.  Yet in Indianapolis, which can fairly be considered the nation’s largest small town, the ethic of mutual responsibility has remained vibrant.  Absent mountains and ocean vistas, it’s the people who matter.

Sagamore Institute, an Indianapolis’ think tank, has partnered with the Super Bowl Host Committee to tell Indianapolis’ renewal story in a special edition of its journal, American Outlook (www.americanoutlook.org).  Articles range from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as Indianapolis’ first sports initiative created to help launch the automotive industry to the significance of sports on the silver screen (Hoosiers and Rudy).

Also included is the story of Blaine Bishop.  Thirty years ago, several miles from Downtown, Bishop’s Little League football game suddenly ended when a man ran through the field dodging gunfire.  Bishop ran home to his mother who decided that a mentor was needed to help him escape the neighborhood’s dangers.

Bishop’s loving mother and faithful mentor helped him succeed in school and the football field.  After retiring from the Tennessee Titans as a three-time All Pro and veteran of Super Bowl XXXIV, he has maintained his commitment to mentoring the next generation.  Former Colts punter Hunter Smith refers to this community service as “the jersey effect.”

Thanks to civic pioneers such as Jim Morris and stories of hope such as Blaine Bishop, it’s clear that sports is more than a game.  In Indianapolis, it’s all about community.

Jay Hein is president of Sagamore Institute