so how did it get back into fashion

yeah that's a that's a great question i'm gonna give you the shortest answer i can because it's it was it's a funny story but i'll give the short answer was around in 1967 rose bowl bill could tell you and the from what i understand i was only one year old and one years old and one year old in 1967 so i wasn't a part of that I've been here a long time, but not back then.

But actually, they ended up, because the costume was hot and whatever, they kind of boxed it up.

And it went away, I want to say, in 68 or 69.

But the student body, the student government had voted at that point in 1967 that it was the official mascot of IU.

It was a state animal.

Fred Glass actually tried to bring the bison back probably three times.

the moment, were you thinking about those IU stars who never had that sort of success on the field?

What stood out in terms of the priorities for you?

It definitely was a combination of art and science.

So the science part would be the blueprint that we put together.

So we wanted an existing head coach who had obviously won, who had consistency in staff.

We wanted someone who was offensive-minded who developed quarterbacks.

We wanted someone who'd been a recruiting coordinator.

So we had this entire list, and he checked every box.

Yeah.

How did you decide to hire this guy from JMU, who says a lot of stuff, unafraid to say whatever he's feeling? What was his pitch? What was his plan? And why did you pick him?

You know, it's a great question.

We have talked about it.

It is interesting.

I love this story.

I want to hear it again.

It's fun to talk about because, again, there's a lot of people that get a lot of credit, you know, starting with our president and then really going through our staff.

Yes, I mean, he is... every day every day is I think that's important now speaking of coming out to practice I feel like every time we're out there we see you at some point you know you like to be around the athletes so what do you see out of them like what's what is new about athletes in this era what's the same about them and what's unique about the group of athletes you have here at Indiana.

That doesn't make sense.

So certainly the market is what the market is, and it costs a lot of money.

But we earn that money.

We make it through our revenue streams.

And at the same time, people understand if we can get football going, the impact and the consequences for the rest of university are, are significant.

You can have all the marketing meetings you want and changing logos and uniforms, but winning games is what's gonna do it.

Absolutely.

And I've joked before, if I'd have known that winning consistently, uh, would, would have that impact, we should've tried that a long time ago.