HOW-TO HOOSIERS : Indianapolis, a Can-Do Place, Steps Into the Spotlight by Making a Home for the 1987 Pan American Games

It says a lot about Indianapolis that when its National Football League team, the Colts, won three straight games at the end of last season, improving its record to 3-13, there was a celebration at City Hall.

That was the city’s way of expressing its appreciation to the Colts, not because of how they play but where. Even if the Colts are not yet an honest-to-Pete Rozelle major league team, their presence in the Hoosier Dome makes the people of Indianapolis feel like they live in a major league city, something the National Basketball Assn.’s Pacers were not able to do.

Someone in, say, Chicago, where a 3-13 Bear team would be considered a pox on the city, would say Indianapolis’ just-happy-to-be-here-in-the-big-leagues attitude reveals a lack of sophistication. Actually, it says more about the innocence of a reborn city.

That youthful exuberance will be on display in abundance during the 16 days of the Pan American Games, which begin here next Saturday. This is an event no other North American city wanted, and most South American cites could not afford, but it has been taken in and cared for like an orphan child found on a doorstep, even if a lot of people in Indianapolis still cannot seem to place the Pan American Games in their memories.

It helps when they are given hints, such as Bobby Knight and Puerto Rico (1979) or steroids and Caracas (1983).

More specifically, the Pan American Games are a 27-sport competition involving about 4,400 athletes from 38 North American, South American, Central American and Caribbean countries, most of which have Spanish as their official language. Others have French, Dutch or Portuguese.

That has sent hundreds of citizens, policemen, firemen, nurses and taxi drivers in particular, back to classes at Indiana University-Purdue University of Indianapolis (IUPUI or “ooooey-poooey”), which offered “Spanish for Good Sports.” Even the mayor, William Hudnut, enrolled. Nurses have learned, “Where does it hurt?” Policemen have learned, “You have the right to remain silent.” Taxi drivers have learned the way to the velodrome in five languages.

They, of course, already knew the way to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where a crowd of between 80,000 and 100,000 is expected to see Saturday’s Walt Disney-produced opening ceremony.

It will seem natural to those watching on television from sites afar that the opening ceremony should be held there because, as far as most of the nation knows, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is Indianapolis.

“Indianapolis watches the 500 one day and sleeps for 364,” is the quote attributed to a native son, author Kurt Vonnegut. He claims now he never said anything of the sort. “It’s as if I’d said three cheers for Hitler,” he told USA Today recently.

But even if Vonnegut did not say it, there are countless numbers of others who wish they had.

While A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti may have been going around in ovals at 200 m.p.h. at the Speedway, Indianapolis was anything but a fast-lane city. It was one of those nice-place-to-live-but-you-wouldn’t-want-to-visit kind of towns. It was not that there was no there there, Gertrude Stein’s famous line about Oakland. It was worse. There was no restaurant here.

“We used to suffer from all those sportswriters’ stories they kept feeding their editors while they were here for the 500 during the month of May,” deputy mayor John Krauss said. “They would do these weird stories that said, ‘Well, I was searching for a restaurant and couldn’t find one until I finally banged on a McDonald’s window.’ ”

Guilty as charged.

Actually, there was another restaurant downtown, a first-rate steak house named St. Elmo’s with shrimp cocktail sauce so strong some people wondered if they were supposed to snort it. There was even a place to go after dinner, the Red Garter.

But now Indianapolis has filled in the blanks. It might not be apparent to all residents, many of whom still suffer from a group inferiority complex, or even to frequent visitors, who are unable to let go of their old impressions of the city, but it was to a group of reporters from cities throughout Europe who visited Indianapolis for the first time last spring during the world indoor track and field championships at the Hoosier Dome.

They came equipped with all the stories they had heard about “India-no-place” and “Naptown” but found instead a living, breathing city that has charged into the ‘80s without losing touch with its Midwestern, farm-belt touch. Some of them took home T-shirts from another gathering in town at the time, the American Pork Congress.

“People in Indiana used to go to Chicago for a good time, or they would go down to Cincinnati for a Reds game, or they would go to Louisville for the horse races,” Krauss said. “Now they’re coming to Indianapolis for a good time.”

They still find their way to St. Elmo’s, as popular as ever, but now there are several other quality restaurants to complement it. The Red Garter has been leveled to make way for another deluxe hotel, the Westin, necessary to help handle the city’s thriving convention business.

That will be the next addition to the skyline that has risen out of the plains in the last decade. Since 1974, more than $2 billion has been spent on building and rebuilding downtown Indianapolis. Most of it was accomplished through a partnership between the local government and the private sector. Eli Lilly & Co., a giant drug manufacturer, has contributed liberally in the areas of arts and education.

There is more to come, including a 250-acre, $200-million project called White River State Park, which will feature a river walk, a zoo, a performing arts center, a botanical garden, restaurants and a 1,000-foot, $15-million tower that will resemble Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa.

“If cities today are like shares of stock, and we had to look at Indianapolis 10 to 15 years ago, I’d say Indianapolis was traded on the Over The Counter market,” Krauss said. “But I say today we are part of the Dow Jones composite index of cities.”

Other cities attempting urban revitalization have taken note. “Indianapolis: A City on the Move,” said The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. “Hartford May Find Ideas in the Hoosier Success Story,” said the Hartford Courant. “Indianapolis Proves Rebirth is Possible,” said the Buffalo News.

“We can’t be all things to all people,” Krauss said. “We don’t have the natural amenities of a Denver or a San Francisco. But I was out giving a speech to the Metro North Chamber of Commerce last December in Denver. We have 140 business and governmental leaders who got up at 7:30 on a Thursday morning to be there. I said, ‘Ten years ago, how many of you people would have come to hear someone talk about Indianapolis?’ They all laughed. I said, ‘I just made my point.’ ”

What does any of this have to do with sports?

As it turns out, sports was central to Indianapolis’ plan. Once the city, the nation’s 13th largest with a population of 710,280, emerged from its slumber, it needed a way to get the word out. Sports was the trumpet.

Thus was born the Indiana Sports Corp., which was placed under the supervision of a former Pacer cheerleader turned front-office executive, Sandy Knapp, and charged with bringing athletic competitions to Indiana.

The first was the 1982 National Sports Festival, now known as the U.S. Olympic Festival, which set records for ticket sales and attendance and gave credibility to the name the city had given itself, the “Amateur Sports Capital of the United States.”

Even with the move of the Colts from Baltimore to Indianapolis in 1984, the city has continued to cater to amateur athletics. Five national governing bodies, including track and field, gymnastics and diving, are located here. When Chile and then Ecuador relinquished the 1987 Pan American Games, both for financial reasons, Indianapolis, with $136 million in athletic facilities already in place, was the natural choice.

While cities generally have six years to prepare for the Pan American Games--Caracas, Venezuela, still has not completed construction for the 1983 Games--Indianapolis had less than three.

Officials of the organizing committee, PAX-I, predict a success, even though they may go about $3 million over their $35-million budget. They might even break even if they could find a beer sponsor.

Ted Boehm, PAX-I chairman, said the Pan American Games will enhance Indianapolis’ new image as a “can-do place.”

But there is one thing the citizens have told the city it cannot do, which is spend taxpayers’ money for the Games.

“There is a lot of support here for the Pan American Games,” said Carl Moldthan, director of the Indianapolis Taxpayers Assn. and a mayoral candidate. “But when you start talking about using our money, the support turns to anger.”

The city collected 13,094 signatures in support of a $45.7-million bond issue, much of which would have been used to finance Pan American Games projects, but Moldthan led a drive to defeat it with more than 30,000 signatures.

He said, however, he believes the taxpayers still will be stuck with the bill for certain expenditures, such as the $192,000 to change the street crossing signs from “Walk” and “Don’t Walk” to stick figures so foreign-language speakers will not be confused.

Moldthan said he also is skeptical of an Indiana University economic impact study that estimated the Pan American Games will generate $175 million for Indianapolis.

“I think this event is going to have an impact,” Moldthan said. “It will show the city in a better light. It will be better for the spirit here. But when it’s all over, there’s not going to be a whole lot of dollars left behind. We have this thing with hype. We hype the city until even we get sick of it.”

Indianapolis still has some problems to solve. Many people complain that while the central city is thriving, the middle city between downtown and the suburbs has been virtually ignored. With growth also has come the same sort of nuisances found in other urban areas. People here say they never have seen the traffic so congested.

One taxi driver said that not long ago as he drove a visitor from the airport into the city, apologizing all the way for the “rush-hour traffic.” It looked like 2 a.m. on one of the Los Angeles freeways.