BARNBURNER: A hot game. This phrase has been adopted by sports announcers nationwide, especially ABC’s Keith Jackson, but it originated in Indiana, where early high school basketball contests were played in barns.
THE CROSSROADS OF AMERICA: Indiana’s motto. Mayer Richard J. Daley was attempting to borrow this phrase when he called O’Hare airport “the crossroads of America.”
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THE GENERAL: Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight. Knight was given this nickname by ESPN commentator Dick Vitale because he started his coaching career at West Point and loves military history.
HOOSIER: A name applied to everything Indianan. IU’s sports teams are the Hoosiers, and the Indianapolis Colts play in Hoosier Dome. As an essay distributed by the Indiana Historic Bureau points out, “It is one of the oldest nicknames and has had a wider acceptance than most. True there are the Buckeyes of Ohio, the Suckers of Illinois and the Tarheels of North Carolina–but none of these has had the popular usage accorded Hoosier.” The word dates back to the 1830s, but no one is certain how it originated. One theory says it’s because Indiana settlers answered their doors “Who’s yere?” Another says it’s because Indiana rivermen always succeeded in “hushing” their opponents in fighting, so they became known as “husher.” Poet James Whitcomb Riley, who observed the brawling spirit of Indiana, jokingly said it was because so many ears and noses were torn off in fights that people would casually point at a missing appendage on the floor and ask “Whose ear?”
THE LITTLE 500: Bicycle race held each spring at Indiana University. Made famous in the movie Breaking Away, in which a team of “townies” defeats the students.
THE REGION: The Calumet region in northwest Indiana, an area more closely allied with Chicago than with the rest of the state. Known for steelmaking and riverboat gambling. The late Steve Tesich, who also wrote the script Breaking Away, wrote an obscure but wonderful novel called Summer Crossing about three boys growing up here, in East Chicago.
–Ted Kleine
