Indianapolis Uses Hoosier Chutzpah to Build Image as Sports Capital

Some cities are blessed with seashore splendor or majestic mountains. Others have glitz and glamour. This one has something else. Call it Hoosier chutzpah.

Consider: This city built a stadium before it had pro football, a world-class swimming complex when the nearest team was 60 miles away. And it lured a rowing association, even though there’s no navigable river.

Nervy, yes.

Nutty, no.

Indianapolis’ chutzpah, its sheer audacity, has helped transform this city from a snoozy prairie town to America’s amateur sports mecca.

“We’ve woken up,” said Mayor William Hudnut. “We were called Naptown (but) we’re a city to be reckoned with now. We’re a major league city.”

No longer is this just the home of the Indianapolis 500 -- the town that writer Kurt Vonnegut, a Naptown native, once said watches the auto race one day a year and sleeps the other 364.

The city now boasts the pro football Indianapolis Colts, who in 1984 sneaked out of their Baltimore home under cover of darkness, and nine national or international sports organizations, mostly amateur.

The biggest coming attraction: the Pan Am Games in August, a multi-sport, multi-nation event second in scope only to the Olympics.

In 1989, the city will be host to the World Water Ski Championships, having beaten out seemingly unbeatable competition from West Palm Beach, Fla.

Indy is trendy. And that’s no coincidence. It results from a slick public relations effort, tens of millions of dollars spent on sports facilities, support from private foundations and establishment of the Indiana Sports Corporation, whose primary function is to attract and stage sporting events.

The sports connection is a natural. This is arguably America’s most basketball crazy state, home to Indiana University’s Bobby Knight and his NCAA champs. The Boston Celtics’ Larry Bird hails from Indiana. Even Hollywood has paid tribute, to high school basketball passions in “Hoosiers” and to Indiana cyclists in “Breaking Away.”

So when Indianapolis decided to improve its image -- Hudnut says the problem was the city had none -- it used what it had: sports, an emphasis on fitness and its central location.

“We don’t have the lakefront ... seashore ... (or) mountains,” said Bill Carr, public relations director for the Indianapolis Project, which promotes the city. “And we don’t have any illusions. We can’t very well build mountains, put in a lakefront or a seashore. We can add zest to life. We can add sports.”

Since 1974, more than $130 million has been spent to build seven sports facilities. The largest, the Hoosier Dome, a $77.5 million, 60,500-seat, fiberglass-roofed stadium, is home to the Indianapolis Colts (3-13 last season).

Other newer facilities include a track and field stadium, a velodrome for cyclists and a natatorium used by, among others, IU’s swim team, about an hour’s drive away.

Organizations based here include the Amateur Athletics Union, American College of Sports Medicine, International Institute of Sports Science and Medicine, International Baseball Association and five national amateur athletic association governing boards -- track and field, diving, gymnastics, rowing and synchronized swimming. A sixth, for canoeing and kayaking, decided this month to move here.

Four of these groups have relocated since 1983, including the United States Rowing Association, which ended more than a century-long tradition when it left Philadelphia’s scenic Schuylkill River for a city on the plains.

But in its eager-to-please attitude, Indianapolis is developing Eagle Creek reservoir into an internationally certified rowing course.

When the move was first discussed, “I thought it was one of the most ridiculous things I’d ever heard,” said Eric Stoll, the rowers’ national program director. Now, he says, he’s sold on the city.

There is another lure: money.

The association received $325,000 for relocation and other expenses from Lilly Endowment Inc., which was created by three members of the family that founded Eli Lilly and Company. The pharmaceutical firm is the only Fortune 500 company with headquarters in Indianapolis.

The endowment has been crucial to Indianapolis’ success. “People say, ‘Could you have done it without them?”’ said Hudnut, a Presbyterian minister serving an unprecedented third term. “Probably not.”

Among the endowment’s other grants: nearly $11 million for the natatorium; $400,000 to the United States Gymnastics Federation, most of it to help relocate from Texas, and $25 million for the Hoosier Dome.

Perhaps the biggest opportunity for a public relations bonanza will be the Pan Am Games -- 17 days of events featuring 4,000 athletes from 38 nations. CBS will broadcast 26 hours of competition.

“To have (CBS sportscaster) Brent Musburger here for 2 1/2 weeks will do more for Indianapolis than the Los Angeles Olympics did for L.A.” said Bill McGowan, president of the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association. “L.A. has already arrived. We’re arriving now.”

Civic leaders said sports already had increased city visibility among convention planners. McGowan said room nights booked by conventions jumped from 79,000 in 1984 to 223,000 in 1986. With the Pan Am Games, 345,000 room nights are guaranteed for 1987. Fifteen new hotels opened from 1984 to 1986.

Since 1974, about $2 billion has been been invested or committed to major projects in the heart of the city, the nation’s 14th largest with a population of 780,000.

Some critics grumble, however, that the downtown boom is hurting outlying neighborhoods.

“The downtown area is the queen of the ball,” said Carl Moldthan, a firefighter and mayoral candidate. “We have areas in this community that desperately need money. ... They’re being shortchanged.”

But even the critics allow that sports boost morale.

Although Indianapolis had been working to develop itself as a sports city for several years, Hudnut said the major turnaround came with the Colts.

“Almost overnight we became a major league city,” said Hudnut, who notes in his book “Minister Mayor” that he is jokingly introduced as the guy who stole the Colts. “You ask the average American what the major American cities are, and I bet you 95 times out of 100 they’ll say cities with NFL teams.”

The city also has a pro-basketball team, the Indiana Pacers, and it organized a group to seek a major league baseball franchise when that issue still appeared to have life.

With sports so much a part of the city, Indianapolis works “not to oversaturate these events,” said Ted Boehm, president of Indiana Sports Corporation.

The city tries not to handle more than six events a year, but the calender is filling up, he said. Already scheduled are five Olympic trials in 1988 and the NCAA Final Four basketball championships and PGA Golf Championship in 1991.

Added Boehm: “We turn down more than we take.”