Indiana University Athletics
Hoosier Roots: Fan Has a Great Deal of Love of IU Sports
6/17/2021 9:00:00 AM | General
What seemed like a holiday debacle turned into the opportunity of a lifetime for long-time Hoosier fan Sandy Merritt.
The year was 1987, and Sandy was on spring break from her teaching position at Indianapolis' Ben Davis Middle School. As she'd done in past years, she steered clear of the more commercial spring break destinations and instead planned a trip to Gulfport, Miss., for some off-the-grid rest and relaxation. She invited her sister, Tresa, to come along as well.
Tresa agreed, and the sisters headed south on an 11-plus hour excursion for the Gulf Coast. One of the ways they passed the time was by scouring the AM radio waves in search of IU Basketball games. The pair had been lifelong Hoosier fans thanks to their New Unionville, Ind., roots and their IU degrees, so they were all-in as IU played in the NCAA Tournament and made its march toward a fifth national title.
"I can still remember pulling off the road and trying to get better reception to the games on the radio because it kept going in and out," Sandy said.
Ultimately the pair found IU on the radio and themselves in Gulfport. Upon their arrival they stopped at a local grocery store, and that's when the promising trip appeared on the precipice of ruin. Tresa realized she'd somehow lost her traveler's checks somewhere along the way, and there was nowhere nearby to replace them. She learned that the nearest place to accomplish that was in New Orleans, a 90-minute drive along the Gulf Coast.
That unexpected diversion, though, also created an unexpected opportunity. The Merritt sisters continued to follow IU's march through the NCAA Tournament, one that ultimately included a berth in the Final Four – in New Orleans.
The Merritt sisters decided that if they had to go to New Orleans to replace the traveler's checks, they might as well make the most of the unplanned excursion.
"We decided that we'd just go to a bar and watch the game and with a bunch of other IU fans," Sandy said.
That, at least, was the plan. After the Merritts replaced the traveler's checks, they found themselves in downtown New Orleans in search of an IU-friendly bar, and instead came across a disappointed Providence fan. Two days earlier the Friars had lost to Syracuse in the national semifinals, and the fan was looking to dump his tickets to the championship game so he could head home.
He found two very willing takers in the Merritts.
And the cost?
"They were $5 apiece," Sandy said. "It was the best $5 I ever spent in my life."
The Merritts sat two levels up at the Louisiana Superdome, in the same corner where Keith Smart hit his game-winning baseline jumper in the closing seconds, to give Coach Bob Knight's team a 74-73 win and Indiana University's fifth NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.
"We went crazy," Sandy said. "We certainly had never planned on being there to see that."
This, of course, was an era before cell phones and email, so no one back home knew of the Merritt sisters good fortune. That all came after the fact, when they were able to share the news with family and friends.
"When we told my dad, well, he absolutely loves a bargain," Sandy said. "So he was thrilled not only that IU won, but that we got tickets for $5. I think he was as excited about that as the fact IU won."
Make no mistake, though – Sandy's father was excited about IU's win. Sandy's father, Ben, was a big sports fan in his own right, and had occasionally taken his kids to the old IU Fieldhouse (now the Garrett Fieldhouse) to see Branch McCracken's teams play. He was also the reason that the family was in Bloomington in the first place to develop that affinity for IU sports.
Ben and Sandy's mother, Doris, were "salt of the earth" type of people who came to Bloomington by way of Arkansas and Kentucky, respectively. Sandy's parents first met while carpooling to work in Louisville, married in 1952, and then relocated to the Bloomington area that same year when a factory position opened for Ben at Bloomington business behemoth RCA on Rogers Street.
The Merritts raised a family of five in New Unionville, living comfortably but not extravagantly by any means. For the three kids - Sandy, Tresa and brother Larry - their free-time was spent playing in the nearby woods. On the weekends the family would walk 90 minutes to the nearest grocery store to stock up on supplies.
When they'd make that 90-minute trip to the grocery, they'd often have a transistor radio in tow, so that they could listen to IU Football on their journey along the railroad tracks. The family would regularly tune in to Channel 4 to watch IU games whenever available, and when they weren't, they'd huddle around that same transistor in the family's backyard or living room to listen to IU Football and Basketball.
"We were all avid followers of IU sports," said Sandy. "We loved those teams, and we still do."
All three Merritt children ultimately earned their IU degrees as well. Larry got his degree in SPEA, and now lives near Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Tresa's degree was in social work, and she still lives in Bloomington. Sandy, meanwhile, earned her undergraduate degree in Secondary Education, Math and English from IU, and later got her Master's in Secondary Education at IUPUI.
While the three Merritt children were the first on her mother's side of the family to ever earn a college degree, she said there was never a doubt in their household that all three would go to college, whether it was to IU or somewhere else.
She credits them attending the University High School for that accomplishment and, more importantly, that expectation. Located at 10th and the 45/46 bypass, University High School was a lab school for Indiana University's School of Education.
"The expectation from going to the lab school was you were going to college," Sandy said. "And that's what we did. My brother has often said that education saved us. We grew up in a family that was farmers and factory workers, and that was all they knew. God bless them, they're great people, but that's all they knew. But for us, growing up in Bloomington gave us an advantage and an opportunity that was right there in our back yard. And by going to University High School, the expectation was all of the kids were going to college. We were exposed to different people, different cultures. Not all families are that lucky or have that opportunity."
While the children's attending IU and becoming IU fans might fit the script based on the fact they grew up within minutes of the IU campus, there have been plenty of twists and turns to Sandy's life since she graduated from IU in 1975.
She started off by making good use of her IU degree, first teaching at Clay Junior High School in Carmel for seven years and then at Ben Davis Junior High School in Indianapolis for six more. At that point she decided to chart a new path, and spent the next 13 years working in Enrollment and Admissions at IUPUI, while also teaching math at night.
Next up was a marked professional and geographical change. When Sandy turned 50 she decided to move to Florida and tried her hand at a host of different professions.
"I became a professional golf caddy, I worked at a scuba diving shop, I did some telemarketing, I worked at a doggy daycare," Sandy said. "I felt like I had spent so much time in education, I wondered, 'can I do anything else?' So I tried a bunch of different things, and I found out I was pretty successful at whatever I tried. It was fun."
It was ultimately her family that brought her back to Bloomington in 2010. At that time her mother was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's, and Sandy returned to help her sister take care of her mother. After her mother passed away in 2012, Sandy remained in Bloomington and spent six years teaching Math at the Project School. She retired from teaching for good in 2019, and spent a year working for B-Love transportation, a medi-cab company in Bloomington. Then, in June of 2020 she moved to Colorado along with a friend and has since worked in a variety of housekeeping roles while enjoying the weather and the mountains and everything that Colorado has to offer.
While much has changed during her adult life, her love of IU has been a constant that won't be going away.
"If you look at my photo on Facebook you'll see me holding up my IU coozie wearing my IU Basketball hat," Sandy said. "I'm a big fan and have been my whole life. That's never going to change."
The year was 1987, and Sandy was on spring break from her teaching position at Indianapolis' Ben Davis Middle School. As she'd done in past years, she steered clear of the more commercial spring break destinations and instead planned a trip to Gulfport, Miss., for some off-the-grid rest and relaxation. She invited her sister, Tresa, to come along as well.
Tresa agreed, and the sisters headed south on an 11-plus hour excursion for the Gulf Coast. One of the ways they passed the time was by scouring the AM radio waves in search of IU Basketball games. The pair had been lifelong Hoosier fans thanks to their New Unionville, Ind., roots and their IU degrees, so they were all-in as IU played in the NCAA Tournament and made its march toward a fifth national title.
"I can still remember pulling off the road and trying to get better reception to the games on the radio because it kept going in and out," Sandy said.
Ultimately the pair found IU on the radio and themselves in Gulfport. Upon their arrival they stopped at a local grocery store, and that's when the promising trip appeared on the precipice of ruin. Tresa realized she'd somehow lost her traveler's checks somewhere along the way, and there was nowhere nearby to replace them. She learned that the nearest place to accomplish that was in New Orleans, a 90-minute drive along the Gulf Coast.
That unexpected diversion, though, also created an unexpected opportunity. The Merritt sisters continued to follow IU's march through the NCAA Tournament, one that ultimately included a berth in the Final Four – in New Orleans.
The Merritt sisters decided that if they had to go to New Orleans to replace the traveler's checks, they might as well make the most of the unplanned excursion.
"We decided that we'd just go to a bar and watch the game and with a bunch of other IU fans," Sandy said.
That, at least, was the plan. After the Merritts replaced the traveler's checks, they found themselves in downtown New Orleans in search of an IU-friendly bar, and instead came across a disappointed Providence fan. Two days earlier the Friars had lost to Syracuse in the national semifinals, and the fan was looking to dump his tickets to the championship game so he could head home.
He found two very willing takers in the Merritts.
And the cost?
"They were $5 apiece," Sandy said. "It was the best $5 I ever spent in my life."
The Merritts sat two levels up at the Louisiana Superdome, in the same corner where Keith Smart hit his game-winning baseline jumper in the closing seconds, to give Coach Bob Knight's team a 74-73 win and Indiana University's fifth NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.
"We went crazy," Sandy said. "We certainly had never planned on being there to see that."
This, of course, was an era before cell phones and email, so no one back home knew of the Merritt sisters good fortune. That all came after the fact, when they were able to share the news with family and friends.
"When we told my dad, well, he absolutely loves a bargain," Sandy said. "So he was thrilled not only that IU won, but that we got tickets for $5. I think he was as excited about that as the fact IU won."
Make no mistake, though – Sandy's father was excited about IU's win. Sandy's father, Ben, was a big sports fan in his own right, and had occasionally taken his kids to the old IU Fieldhouse (now the Garrett Fieldhouse) to see Branch McCracken's teams play. He was also the reason that the family was in Bloomington in the first place to develop that affinity for IU sports.
Ben and Sandy's mother, Doris, were "salt of the earth" type of people who came to Bloomington by way of Arkansas and Kentucky, respectively. Sandy's parents first met while carpooling to work in Louisville, married in 1952, and then relocated to the Bloomington area that same year when a factory position opened for Ben at Bloomington business behemoth RCA on Rogers Street.
The Merritts raised a family of five in New Unionville, living comfortably but not extravagantly by any means. For the three kids - Sandy, Tresa and brother Larry - their free-time was spent playing in the nearby woods. On the weekends the family would walk 90 minutes to the nearest grocery store to stock up on supplies.
When they'd make that 90-minute trip to the grocery, they'd often have a transistor radio in tow, so that they could listen to IU Football on their journey along the railroad tracks. The family would regularly tune in to Channel 4 to watch IU games whenever available, and when they weren't, they'd huddle around that same transistor in the family's backyard or living room to listen to IU Football and Basketball.
"We were all avid followers of IU sports," said Sandy. "We loved those teams, and we still do."
All three Merritt children ultimately earned their IU degrees as well. Larry got his degree in SPEA, and now lives near Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Tresa's degree was in social work, and she still lives in Bloomington. Sandy, meanwhile, earned her undergraduate degree in Secondary Education, Math and English from IU, and later got her Master's in Secondary Education at IUPUI.
While the three Merritt children were the first on her mother's side of the family to ever earn a college degree, she said there was never a doubt in their household that all three would go to college, whether it was to IU or somewhere else.
She credits them attending the University High School for that accomplishment and, more importantly, that expectation. Located at 10th and the 45/46 bypass, University High School was a lab school for Indiana University's School of Education.
"The expectation from going to the lab school was you were going to college," Sandy said. "And that's what we did. My brother has often said that education saved us. We grew up in a family that was farmers and factory workers, and that was all they knew. God bless them, they're great people, but that's all they knew. But for us, growing up in Bloomington gave us an advantage and an opportunity that was right there in our back yard. And by going to University High School, the expectation was all of the kids were going to college. We were exposed to different people, different cultures. Not all families are that lucky or have that opportunity."
While the children's attending IU and becoming IU fans might fit the script based on the fact they grew up within minutes of the IU campus, there have been plenty of twists and turns to Sandy's life since she graduated from IU in 1975.
She started off by making good use of her IU degree, first teaching at Clay Junior High School in Carmel for seven years and then at Ben Davis Junior High School in Indianapolis for six more. At that point she decided to chart a new path, and spent the next 13 years working in Enrollment and Admissions at IUPUI, while also teaching math at night.
Next up was a marked professional and geographical change. When Sandy turned 50 she decided to move to Florida and tried her hand at a host of different professions.
"I became a professional golf caddy, I worked at a scuba diving shop, I did some telemarketing, I worked at a doggy daycare," Sandy said. "I felt like I had spent so much time in education, I wondered, 'can I do anything else?' So I tried a bunch of different things, and I found out I was pretty successful at whatever I tried. It was fun."
It was ultimately her family that brought her back to Bloomington in 2010. At that time her mother was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's, and Sandy returned to help her sister take care of her mother. After her mother passed away in 2012, Sandy remained in Bloomington and spent six years teaching Math at the Project School. She retired from teaching for good in 2019, and spent a year working for B-Love transportation, a medi-cab company in Bloomington. Then, in June of 2020 she moved to Colorado along with a friend and has since worked in a variety of housekeeping roles while enjoying the weather and the mountains and everything that Colorado has to offer.
While much has changed during her adult life, her love of IU has been a constant that won't be going away.
"If you look at my photo on Facebook you'll see me holding up my IU coozie wearing my IU Basketball hat," Sandy said. "I'm a big fan and have been my whole life. That's never going to change."
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