Tom Allen’s Hoosiers Show They’re More Than Just One Player – They’re a Team
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Image: Indiana University Athletics
Written By: Nate Comp (@NathanComp1)
One of college football’s greatest speeches of all time was delivered in 1983 by a man named Bo Schembechler, who was the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines at the time. Hours before facing their biggest rival, Ohio State, Schembechler orated words that are still repeated around the Michigan program and all of college football today:
“We want the Big Ten championship and we're gonna win it as a Team. They can throw out all those great backs, and great quarterbacks, and great defensive players, throughout the country and in this conference, but there's gonna be one Team that's gonna play solely as a Team. No man is more important than The Team. No coach is more important than The Team. The Team, The Team, The Team…”
Walk around the Michigan football facilities today and you’ll still see the moral of this speech plastered everywhere: The Team, The Team, The Team. The last words the Wolverine players see painted above them as they burst out into the roaring crowd and slap the “Go Blue” sign: The Team, The Team, The Team.
Well, this past Saturday, as Indiana traveled to Wisconsin and defeated the Badgers for the first time since 2002, the Hoosiers head coach Tom Allen had a similar moment in his locker room.
“Couldn’t be more proud of this group of football players, staff, everybody in this room right here,” started Allen. “This is a special group. It’s not about one person, it’s about this football team.”
Then, from somewhere in the sea of players crammed into the Badgers visitor’s locker room, a player called out: “Coach, say that again!”
“It’s about this football TEAM,” he said again, this time with even more emphasis on team, and with an even bigger grin on his face. Suddenly, the entire locker room was joining in with him. “It’s about this football team,” they said, over and over, each saying of ‘team’ growing louder and more prideful.
You see, this is not something that the Indiana football program has been able to say many times in its perennially poor past. Sure, there have been moments. But when you think about the Hoosiers’ greatest moments in football, rarely have these been due to the efforts of an all-around great team. Instead, you think of one-off great players.
Players like Antwaan Randle El, or James Hardy, or Tevin Coleman. Players that seem great, until you realize their teams were often struggling to just get over .500. Randle El is often fan’s all-time favorite Hoosier football player, yet even he won just a third of his games. Even when the great Anthony Thompson was leading Bill Mallory and Indiana to bowl games, it was more of the same: Thompson leading them to bowl games, not necessarily the play of the team.
So, when Michael Penix Jr. went down a couple weeks ago with a season-ending ACL injury, many thought it would be back to normal for the remainder of the season. Never could this team match the physicality or toughness of a hard-nosed program like Wisconsin, especially without its star quarterback behind center.
But this team is different. It’s just that: a team.
“Was it unfortunate circumstances? Without question. The team has to rise up and has to be able to execute as a football team,” said Allen. “When the opportunity presents itself, you step up and seize those moments. That is what great teams do. This is a football team. It is offense, defense and special teams.”
And though it’s LEO, not the team, that is plastered over the walls in Indiana’s team facilities, the idea is the same. No one player is bigger or more important than any other on this team. The players do not care about their individual success, they care about their team’s success. And it’s this mentality that has put Indiana on a path to its greatest season of all time and drawn the attention of the college football world week after week.
“Doesn’t matter the adversity or obstacle in front of them, this TEAM has answers,” tweeted ESPN College Gameday host Kirk Herbstreit. “Impossible not to love this TEAM and this coach.”
“TEAM. Love this. Inside-out. Power of a Positive Team,” echoed Jon Gordon, author and speaker on topics like leadership, culture, and teamwork.
The idea of a team becomes even more apparent when you try to determine who Indiana’s best player is. Who would be their MVP? You can make an argument for any number of players on either side of the ball.
But that doesn’t matter to them. What matters is they’re all together, all as one team, and that they love each other and have each other’s back.
Because sometimes, the message to keep pressing forward through adversity is as simple as the acrostic poem poster that everyone seemingly had hanging on the wall of their elementary school classroom.
Together.
Everyone.
Achieves.
More.
TEAM.