You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. All right, folks, welcome back
to Crimson Cats got here with you.
I'm joined as always by Galen and we have a very special guest
if we're watching on video, you know, if you're listening, you
won't know for a couple more minutes, but very excited about
this one. This one's going to be awesome.
Galen How you doing, my man? Doing.
Great, You know, still recovering from that Pacers game
in person last night. That was wild.
It was a great day in Indiana sports history as we get an all
time game out of Tyrese Halliburton and we get the re
establishment of an iconic figure within the IU or the
Indiana sports landscape. So it's good day all the way
around. It was I I had the moment at the
game where I'm looking down like I'm like, that looks like Jelly
roll. And it's like, no, that is Jelly
roll. It's like it's one of those
where like if that was a normal regular season game against the
Kings, like that's not, it's just a guy with face tattoos.
But you get to the Eastern Conference finals and it's like,
Oh, no, that's actually who I think it is.
Yeah, He was he was popular, $0.50 was there.
It was it was big times. Yeah.
But before we get going, let's let's reach out to our sponsors,
Home Field Apparel, who has been a proud sponsor of Crimson Cast
and the Back Home Network for years.
You can catch out all their great stuff.
Even though the race is over, they still have tons of great
racing gear you can pull up. And, you know, it all started
for for us. Our Home Field Apparel journey
started when Galen and I went to a Pacers game and Galen was
wearing this hoodie, this Bison hoodie which will come in a
little bit in our discussion today.
And he's like, this is the most comfortable hoodie I've ever
owned. And I was like OK and it also
looks good, but it's comfort is great.
So I bought one it's awesome and that's where it all started.
Unfortunately we didn't have the promo code home 23 at the time,
but you do for your first purchase.
You can get 15% off your first purchase using the promo code
home 23. They have tons of great stuff
and probably like your your best.
Stop for the Bison hoodie I would say.
Absolutely. Also don't forget we are on
YouTube. What were we at 8000 subscribers
now? 85. 100 your project 8000 by the
end of June, so let's make it happen.
Let's keep going, people. If you tell a friend and have
them tell a friend and have them tell their parents and get them
to subscribe to YouTube. We're also on sub stack,
substack.crimsoncast.com where you get VIP videos, but also
just get a nice little e-mail reminder every time something
Crimson Cast is posting. I think I think that's it.
So I did my job. Good job.
Thank you very much. Well, we are excited to have on
again Jeremy Gray, the Indiana senior associate athletic
director. That's a mouthful.
It's a long business card, but it's nice.
We had Jeremy on earlier in the year in October where he and I
talked about the, the history of the, the rally towels that we're
going on at Memorial Stadium, which is fun.
And so I got to ask the question.
Now you have something, some great stuff coming out.
But I'll, I'll start with this, Jeremy, are we going to get a
Bison rally towel for the, the upcoming season this year?
You know, we have not designed the towels for next year, but I
find it an impossibility that one of the seven will not be a
bison themed towel. We are leaning into it and I can
just tell you that that would be fast track approved by Coach
Signetti. He is.
He is Team Bison all the way. So we wanted to have you like
this is something Galen has been talking about for years, bring
back the Bison. But if you don't know, you know
what kind of spurred this? This podcast is there was just
an absolutely awesome video just released by IU Athletics kind of
letting us know that the Bison is coming back with some great
aerial shots of IU student government.
But I thought we'd start here, Jeremy, if you could give us a
little bit of the history of like the Bison and Indiana
University athletics. It's not just I would love to
say it's just Galen started this and just started saying bring
back the Bison. It it's not there is a longer
history of Bison and IU connections.
Yeah, it there are several tracks to this.
So one, it goes all the way back to the founding of the
university where, you know, it's, it's part of the state
seal. There are things like, you know,
our ROTC regiment, that's the Bison Battalion.
They're the Bison Battalion cadets.
You will find imagery of the Bison in obscure places located
around campus. And then there's been athletics
involvement in it. Most famously, from 1965 to 69,
the Bison was a mascot here at IU.
It failed for a couple of reasons.
One, the suit was especially cumbersome.
The head was gigantic, it was difficult to see out of, and it
was just poorly executed. And a cheerleader had to
actually walk that bison onto the field with a leash so it
wouldn't trip and fall over itself.
And if you if. You take the Rose.
Bowl out of it, which is a massive moment, of course, in
the history of IUIU athletics. Actually, the mid to late 60s
were a pretty rough time for Indiana athletically.
You know, there, there there were some things that were going
on coming off of probation. Basketball at that point in time
had waned a little bit. Yes, there was the Rose Bowl
year and the great dock Councilman teams.
But there there was a lot of faltering otherwise.
And so with all of that, it just kind of disappeared in 1969.
But it remained as a staple of the branding of, you know,
Nick's English Hut. It remained on various T-shirts
that have been produced over the over the years.
And it was something that just remained a low hum for a long,
long time. And then about 10-15 years ago.
Fred Glass, go ahead. Real quick, so you said just
want to go back one second. So in the 60's, the the mascot,
the person wearing the costume had to be like a leash.
It wasn't a live bison. It was like an actual person had
to be walked around with a leash.
Yes, and they had it had a giant head, it could not see out of it
and so it literally had to have a cheerleader.
Like all the photos you see of it, there's a cheerleader with a
rope and the cheerleader standing no further than 3
inches away from it at all times because it might trip and fall
at any time. So it's just poorly executed.
And it and it died. And then they they tried Mr.
Hoosier Pride, which failed kind of every test of mascot hood
possible. It had terrible eyes, so it
terrified children. It did not accentuate the brand
of the school and actually harmed it in some ways.
It was totally associated with losing.
So it went away as well and then?
Galen, When Galen and I were going to school, they had like
the inflatable. Just people, just like an
inflatable guy who was an IU fan.
That was a late 90s thing that will have that will always be
difficult to explain to people in future generations.
It'll be up there with Zuba's pants and the appeal of MC
Hammer, but. I feel like, I feel like the
further we get away from the 90's the harder they are to
explain to anybody, like they make no sense.
Yeah, no question. Yeah, like that, that the baggy
corduroy pants, like all of it was just totally impractical.
But it went away there and then Fred Glass.
And I think he deserves more credit than than what he is
going to get through this process.
Fred Glass like the idea of having a mascot and there were
some videos that preceded IU football games about 10-15 years
ago that included some bison imagery.
They were computer generated animation and they've actually
kind of endured in the memory of the fan base and I think some
key ways. And then and you have one of the
central characters in the drama Co hosting with you here today.
But there is the bring back the Bison campaign on campus and
we'll we'll get to their involvement actually in one of
the five videos in a bit. And while we all love Galen, I
think doctor Gautier is is really kind of the George
Washington of that enterprise and and fought the good fight in
a lot of ways, really summoning up energy behind the idea,
creating things that actually got cease and desist letters,
you know, over time. But that kind of kind of spurred
it on for a bit. And then various student groups
over the last three or four years have really picked up
momentum behind the idea. And then all of the stars really
aligned in the last 12 months or so to to to make it possible.
Yeah, That was a long answer, no.
No, that's great. I'll, I'll chip a couple other
things in there. First of all, that hoodie you're
wearing that you mentioned in the intro, I was texting with
Connor Hitchcock from home Field and he reminded me, 'cause I
asked him, I was like, when did that come out?
And he said it was 2017 and it was actually before home field
became home field, it was still a company called Hoosier Proud,
which if you listen to assembly call, you know, the Hoosier
Proud banner moment. That's where that comes from.
But I, I'll always credit that hoodie kind of on the heels of
the, the Pat Kraft LED Bison video that popped up in whatever
that was 2010. I think that I think put the
bison back in the minds of a lot of people.
And I know for me, you know, we've had talks on and off
about, oh, you know, the bison that used to be the mascot, but
I don't feel it got serious. I would agree that that I think
was really kind of a Seminole moment.
And it's interesting, like what's happened since then
'cause that was only 8 years ago, but an idea that was kind
of DOA across multiple presidents.
And, you know, always seem to get a lot of resistance from
certain segments of the, the, the, the university branding
team and, and certain pockets of alumni.
Suddenly there started to be a lot more momentum that picked up
across the board on it. Do you think it's just merch?
Like what do you think changed? Because for, like you said, for
years, there was kind of a, you know, we don't need a mascot or
even like almost pride in that. We don't have a mascot.
We don't need that. We're, we're, you know, we are
who we are. And, and as a fan too, just a
fan as a podcaster, I definitely felt the change over the last
couple years. What what do you think kind of
helped make that movement, you know, go forward?
I think, I think a couple of things and I think we, we have
to look at this with a certain degree of humility too, that
the, the pinstripes work for the New York Yankees because they're
the New York Yankees and they can hold on to kind of this
never changing thing. I, I would say there's a desire
a little bit for a fresh start, because a lot of things that
have been attempted over the last 25 years as a, as a
pertains to the basketball program have kind of gone
through fits and starts. So I think the appetite for
trying something new as a department is greater than it's
been ever in my in my time here. I think you couple that with a
year of great latitude and experimentation in football,
where almost all of the gambles paid off and then it was backed
up by a highly successful season.
I think those things LED people to to be willing to give this a
chance. I do think the hoodie that
you're wearing is part of the story.
People, you know, buy their relatives Nick's English Hut
glass mugs for Christmas. They like that image.
And then I think technology has helped where people were able to
make their own AI generated graphics and they were
ridiculous, You know, a chain smoking bison disembowelling a
Spartan or whatever, you know, But like people were able to
make that and people really kind of rallied behind that to a
certain degree. And then I think students look
for moments and this was really student LED in a lot of ways.
And I do think having Lee Corso back here for college game day
and him picking IU to win. And this is no disrespect to the
baseball cap that he wore. It felt like it was this great
coronation of the program, the school, the reuniting of this
iconic figure in college football with the school that
kind of helped make them. And we put on a baseball hat
instead of instead of something that really kind of established,
established the brand. I think all of those elements
played into people really wanting to, really wanting to do
this. So the, the other piece that as
a fan that I'll throw in there that I thought was a moment as
well as I, I do think that year 2015, 2016, whenever the
football team released like 9 different jerseys for one year
was just like, whoa, this is what like as a fan, like this is
the athletic department just doing something totally
different, including the Chrome striped helmet, which, you know,
at least from my perspective, seemed to get a very positive
fan reaction. It felt like that was also a
moment where it's like, hey, we can we can monkey with uniforms
a little bit and really have something cool here.
I agree. I think I, the other part about
it is, you know, I'm a, I'm almost 50 years old.
More of my beard is Gray than it is brown at this point.
So I'm technically one of the old guys now.
And I, I, I do think these things change.
So people, you know, there's always kind of a fear of certain
segments of the fan base. Well, you know, I'm 50 years old
and I, I, I grew up with hip hop music and liking mascots.
And so I I think maybe the demographics of the fan base
have changed some. Yeah.
I mean, I think it's interesting because you mentioned that
desire for a new start across the board.
It's something that with football, you're almost asking
for a start period, because it never really felt like football
ever got its own thing. I mean, at its most successful
points, as you mentioned, like the late 60s, that season came
out of nowhere and then was gone just as quickly.
So there was never really a chance to build on that
momentum. And even in the Mallory era, it
was overshadowed throughout that entire time period by Bob Knight
and IU men's basketball, which had their own very staid
traditions that essentially enveloped the entire athletic
department. I mean, the one time football
tried something different, it resulted in the Oval, which is
still probably, Jeremy. Would you say the single most
divisive thing that's ever been associated with IU athletics?
It's up there. I mean, like, I can tell you
it'll be the next person who has my job, who brings it back.
I'm scared of it. Yeah.
What would be? What would be easier for you to
do, bring back a new mascot or just bring back the ovals a full
time uniform? But but I mean, you know, now
especially and you know, it's, it's weird how this all synced
up. And Jeremy, this is maybe where
I'd love to hear you talk about the timing and the sequencing of
all of this because, you know, as recently as a a couple of
years ago, I'm having, you know, a chat with Paul Goutyar, who's
giving me bison merch to pass out guerrilla warfare style to
people on campus, you know, which I dutifully did.
I've still got a box like half filled with that merch in my
office. But you know, all the way up to
the top of the university. The idea is, well, we're never
going to have a mascot. Like it's not what we do.
And then it, you know, it almost felt like little things happened
along the way. I'll give Trent McGee some
credit, who's no longer no longer with IU, but was at the
time, you know, at IUSF, at the Student Foundation, they bring a
kind of a junior version bison mascot to the little 500 races
in 2024, I think it was. And I think Ryder is the name of
that mascot. It ends up riding around with
President Whitten in a car and there's like pictures and
everything, but it was like the the ice melted and then the dam
broke. So like, what has this process
been like over the last 18 months as the momentum's picked
up on this? Yeah.
And I think I, before I go into that, I do think for very
understandable reasons and I, and I hope that this doesn't
sound like judgment of frankly decisions that I had a part in
before and what people I worked with before made for very
understandable reasons. After about 1998 until about two
years ago, this is a risk averse athletic department.
There were very controversial things that had happened, the
firing of the most iconic coach of all time, the probation
hyping up football teams that then immediately underwhelmed
and, you know, scared of saying win today.
So it was a risk averse athletic department in a in a lot of ways
and for understandable reasons. And frankly, Kurt Cignetti threw
that all out the window. And I will give my boss a lot of
credit. I got this kind of marketing
fell into my area responsibility really this time last year.
And he said do whatever you want, like you can figure out
what you want to do with this football program.
Whatever we've been doing hadn't worked.
And so we changed a lot of things and a lot of them ended
up working out because we ended up winning as well.
Like those two things worked in concert together.
So I think we are finally through a 20 year period where
everybody was scared of how other people would react because
of how angry they were about different situations.
So getting rid of that or getting through that, I think
changed a lot of the appetite for this.
But you mentioned the IUSF, Trent McGee, the little 500 part
of this, the guerrilla warfare of Bring Back the Vice and
passing out little foam bison out in the parking lot of
football games and seeing koozies appear out of nowhere,
crazy hats, all of that kind of stuff.
I do think that made the release of this much, much better.
I would have been happy when we started this process process and
when we determined we were going to do it if we got a 6040
reaction. I that's what we expected.
We looked at what happened when the Cubs introduced Clark and
other new mascot reveals. It's like a lot of people are
going to hate it at first. I think it's 95.5 because the
ice melted some of it. We did little video board
graphics, the schedule cards with horns on it, leaning into
it a little bit. Some of it are home filled
sweatshirts. Some of it are the AI generated
graphics by fans. You know, some of it is seeing
IUSF adopt it and giving the plush toys to the wing riders of
the little 500. I think all of that made the
reveal of it much more palatable to the to to the to the fan
base. But I think winning in football,
a series of meetings with everyone from student athletic
board to the Board of Aeons to the student body president made
people feel that the students really, really wanted this.
Seeing what we could have done with football had we had a
mascot, but we're unable to do so.
Kind of what the appetite of maybe some people who were
initially reluctant to the idea. And then December 16th, 2024,
when the student government officially passed that
resolution to bring back the bison, I think everybody at that
point in time was on board of we got to do this.
And then we just waited for the suit to be created.
And we realized once we got the suit.
More than three people can't keep a secret, so we got them.
We got to reveal this thing. And so that's how the videos
came to pass. I, I will say I, I did notice
the little bread crumbs and I, I think it was important, but I
think it was, it was almost, I felt like the athletic
department winking at us, not, not us, you know, the fans
because you obviously I, I knew Galen was talking about I, I, I
knew kind of some of the swag going around.
But then, like this year at football games, you know, in
between plays, there was kind of a, a red backdrop of little
logos all over the place, like I the state of Indiana.
And like there was this logo as part or a bison type logo in
there. And it's like, oh, that they're
aware, like they, they know people are talking about like
threw it in there. So.
So I like that. We actually did that to see if
people would complain. Oh, OK.
It was it was one of the IT was like a trial balloon.
Like we met with some students. There's momentum behind this
idea. We're going to put this up there
and if people complain and actually we got the opposite
where it's why didn't you make the whole video that which was a
great leading indicator for us. I do I I respect you have to
like take all complaints into there, but it's like if
somebody's like goes to a game, it's like I it was a great
experience, but during one of the video replays, there is an
image with five images up there. One of those I I disagree with
like that would be an insane insane.
I'm going to say you'd. Be amazed at what comes your
e-mail. OK, fair, very fair, but.
I I I do. I don't want to get too wonky or
in the weeds, but I am curious like, so I use student
government passes a resolution like bring back the bison.
You know, I'm just, I'm curious, what are the next steps?
Like who has votes in that process?
Because it's not as simple as, hey, the student government said
it like, OK, we're put in a mascot.
Like it's going to be, you know, because they can just be like,
we want marshmallows. Our mascot like, you know, there
has to be like, you know, does does Witten get involved?
Like I'm just, I'm curious kind of from a just procedural point
of view. Once it's like this is something
I think we're actually going to go down, you know, as much as
you can talk about like who, where, what are the next steps?
Who has the next steps, who has the votes, who's in the room and
like, who has the vote to actually veto it if they wanted
to? Yeah, so that's a great
question. And I want to make sure I keep
this vague enough that I'm I'm right enough about this.
But let's just say in September, I convinced Scott that it was a
good idea. Not me, yes.
Mark Skirvin has always been for this idea.
We gave kind of the rationale of why we think it's important and
we'll talk about maybe that a little bit later.
I think the president really got excited about it when she heard
how excited the students were about it.
She has positioned herself as a student focused president.
It's been something that she's declared in every communication
since she became president. And once the student government
decided that this is something that that they really wanted.
And you couple that with the justification that Scott brought
to her of how it can increase revenue, it can increase fan
loyalty, especially amongst young people, How we do need to
try some new things to, to, to modernize, you know, the
presentation of some of our programs.
She, she then she then was all in.
So that that was kind of the process of it.
I'll, I'll also note, I mean, it's been palpable the
excitement students have had about this.
And it kind of feeds into something that you were talking
about earlier, which is for this generation of students, many of
them grew up as IU fans, I think it's important for them to feel
like they've got something that's their own, that that
feels like it's from their era. And I mean, whatever you want to
say about IU athletics, and you mentioned like it's been kind of
a a rough 25 years in terms of like overall successes.
A lot of it it's that has left a void.
And it's not too different from what occurred during that exact
same period that you were talking about from like the mid
1950s until really when Bob Knight got on campus.
And that that period right there led to a bunch of established
traditions and norms that carried through Handy.
Stripes the under 8 timeout Martha's intro of basketball the
script Indiana the block eye like yes.
That's what we're all new at one point.
Yeah, we we've just been playing the hits for a long time and you
know, a new album would be nice. Well.
I think this is where a lot of not, this is not just an IU
thing. This happens with a lot of
athletic departments, a lot of institutions.
And, and you mentioned like being kind of getting to that
age where you're one of the old people.
Like I'm in the same boat. And it's like at some point you
realize that you're allowed to create your own culture and
you're allowed to modernize the culture around what the, the
tastes and the expectations are of people at the time.
And so it's, does this happen 10 years earlier or, you know, is
this still shadows that you're living in at that point?
I think it's an open question. Yeah, I, I I do too.
And and you live history in real time.
And it's hard to actually describe to somebody who just
started working here how contentious things were 15 years
ago. Yeah, yeah.
So I'll, I'm also curious, just so all right, we, you know,
we're, we're going through the process, the, the students have
voted for it. It's gone up the chain.
I'm assuming that both both coaches are are in favor of
this. Like you said, Signetti is very
they're a fan of this as well. So like Signetti is in, you
know, President Whitney is in and Devries is in.
So now I'm curious like what the next steps, You know, you, you
can't put a bison out there. Like let's get the helmet with
the chain and go back to the 60s.
Like do you have to consult with a mascot?
You know, I know there is like I've saw like real sports, like
there's like mascot schools, there's mascot creation
consultants. You know what, what are the next
steps of like, alright, we're going to put a, you know, a
bison mascot. You know, we, we, we haven't
seen it in full. We've seen kind of, you know,
aerial shots. We know kind of what it might
look like. And that might even just be a
teaser. Maybe there's something else
coming out there. But I'm just curious, like at
that point, do you need to like, we're going to hire a mascot
consultant to take the next steps?
Yeah, so there's a couple things that we've got to do.
So one, there is going to be a coach assigned to it, somebody
to to, to run the mascot program, working in consultation
with the with the the spirit squad, the cheerleaders.
There is a mascot camp and we will send the people who will be
wearing the suit to mascot camp. We have to determine what is
this mascot going to do? Like how is it going to be
introduced? What does it perform?
I think on a more granular level, something that's really,
really important, especially to what I think and maybe, you
know, everybody, everybody tells me it's a great idea because
they feel that I participated in the idea and maybe behind my
back they say other things. But for judging from, and I,
I've looked around even at, at the negative, I, I feel like
it's about 95.5 the, the 5% often the, the objection is what
does this have to do with Indiana?
And I think on a granular level, rather than just saying state
SEAL over and over again, or we used to have it or the Bison
battalion or look at you've been to next, right?
I think we need to tie this to the state of Indiana in
fundamental ways. And so I think you'll see that
on social media, tying it to other traditions within the
state to make it feel like it's feel like it's ours.
I think is a is an important thing to do as we roll this
thing out. Yeah.
I mean, I've heard that a lot as well, this idea of like, well,
what does the Bison have to do with Indiana?
And there is a ton of historical stuff, but it's also, it feels
like to me, and I think maybe this leads into some of the the
revenue and merchandising aspects that that obviously fit
into this. If you look at college football,
it's far more important to have a mascot, something that you can
point to other than just your logo in college football.
I mean, the college football video game for years had a
mascot only game that you could play within it.
I mean, these these are things that are part of the culture of
college football. And since IU has really gone all
in on taking college football seriously there, there's a big
need there, and you want something there that can
represent the spirit of what you're doing.
And I think as Zach Osterman pointed out in that excellent
piece that he wrote, which he obviously realized on you for a
lot of interviews for what is a Hoosier, we've been asking that
since the formation of the state.
That's a hard thing to represent by itself.
And the fact that the state of Indiana's got a historical
animal that's, you know, it's, it's, it's powerful, it's regal.
It's not a lion or a tiger or, you know, anything that you'll
normally see. It's unique.
And it also does have a tie. I think all that really fits
into it quite a bit. I I only too and there's there's
a mountain of research in it. It's true for me anecdotally, in
my own personal experience, there's a ton of research out
there that says your fandom, if you choose that team prior to
the age of 6, is much deeper and much more loyal than a favorite
team you pick after the age of 6.
And my insane devotion to the Saint Louis Cardinals and the,
you know, Indiana basketball and all that kind of stuff, I think,
you know, it kind of tells that tale.
So connecting the program with children I think is really,
really important and making this a kid friendly mascot.
And so the constitution of its eyes, soft eyes, make it
approachable. All of the mascots you put out
there on like the 10 creepiest mascot list, they have bad eyes.
The vacant stare of Purdue Pete, for instance.
So having soft eyes is important.
But then you also have to understand your competition.
We're in the Big 10 conference. You've got Sparty out there, you
got the turtle out there. What whatever its name is, I
don't really care. You got the sad thing from Penn
State, the world's weakest lion. I wanted it to look like a
Marvel character, so it's got soft eyes to make it
approachable to children. But as I said in the Zach
article, tough enough to win a play fight against a turtle at
halftime, you know. What I also love, you know, I
think everything you're saying is great.
I, I do think to me, it's like, I want to turn this around and
it's less about what's the connection with the bison where
we should just look at Purdue and be like, hey, man, what's a
Boilermaker have to do? The state of Indiana, like ours
is the flag. Like what you guys really suck.
Like you just have a weird vacant stare.
Purdue guy who has like there's no connection to Indiana.
Yeah, yeah. And it's it's, you know, like a
Tar Heels, a Civil War soldier that didn't back up.
But they're symbols, a ram. It's the Crimson Tide, and
they've got an elephant. It's, this is less unusual than
I think it's being portrayed, but it's our job to explain it
and it, and people can feel about it however they want to
feel about it. But I think it's important for
us to kind of establish that connection.
And I would also go further and I'm, I'm from the state of
Indiana. I love Indiana.
I've lived all but three years of my life in Indiana.
The people have been able to represent Hoosier, that phrase
in the ways that they have chosen and not necessarily in
the way that people from Indiana would have chosen.
There are old pictures of Big 10 mascots from the late 1970s and
the other 9, back when it was a ten team league, represented
those schools the way they wanted to be represented.
And they have a shoeless person in a straw hat sitting down with
holes in their jeans as a representation of a Hoosier.
So we can maybe change the way we define ourselves a little
bit, and that might be pie in the sky and a little too
aspirational, but this is a representation of the Hoosiers
when when they're putting it in cartoon form.
I wanted to get in as we kind of, you know, wrap up here, a
little bit like the dramatic arc of the reveal.
You know, you obviously had a big hand in this and the videos
that came out really did a good job of teasing this back.
I think people kind of figured out early on where it was
headed, but it was still fun. And we see this in a lot of
these social media comments for people to ride along with that
over the four or five episodes. So like, what was the creative
process for you and for the the Cuban Center video team and
Andrew Brown and that whole group in figuring out how you
were going to do this, what the best way to reveal it was, and
then obviously like ultimately executing that?
So really it started with Scott Dolson, who got really excited
about the idea of this thing being in a coffin, rising from
the dead and the hand peeking out.
And that's how he wanted it to start.
From there we we had to look at what are our objectives.
So Objective 1, mascots are supposed to be fun, so we need
to have fun with this in some way.
Objective 2, we got to let everybody know that this is for
all of our sports and not just football.
So we needed to communicate that.
We need to make it look playful and approachable over the arc
itself. And so it ends in a much happier
place. And then a little bit of mystery
to to keep people talking, I think think was important.
And so we kind of outlined it out.
And I promise I'm not running to the front of the parade on this,
but I, I'm big into movies. Galen knows this.
I actually used to be a movie critic.
So I'm, I'm into it. So I, I love movies.
And so I started to think of tropes from some of my favorite
movies that were widely seen by people.
And so the box in the first one glows, right?
And it's got a title card. And it's clear that we're going
to tell this story out of order. So it's got the Pulp Fiction
briefcase that glows story told out of order with a bunch of
title cards. And then I always loved the
scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where he keeps telling everybody
how dangerous it is and they say, well, it's going to be
taken care of by top men. So I sent Nate and Sean, who are
the two maintenance people who are working in the video itself,
and they made the crate to look like the Raiders of the Lost Ark
crate. Plus that ends up getting open
and, you know, kills all the Nazis, you know, whatever.
And then the third part of that one was Silence of the Lambs,
the way too casual night watchman doesn't listen to what
he's told and lets Hannibal Lecter out.
Right. So I'm the idiot who opens the
the case and lets this thing out.
And then then the second one, it's Alien.
So Sydney Parrish's Ripley. She's a tough woman who sees
something and none of the none of the other people around her
believe her. And then the Doc Yagli
Montgomery McCracken is an ode to our 4 great coaches.
But really it's the Richard Attenborough character in
Jurassic Park who sees nothing but opportunity and profit in
this scientific discovery. And then the third one, which is
kind of my favorite one, we were going to have Sig do the Roy
Schneider scene from Jaws, you know, where he turns around, you
know, he's got the bucket of chum or whatever.
He's like, Nah, I'm going to say something else.
And we're like, OK, and he just, he just did his own thing and it
it was a perfect eight second. It was just totally on brand for
him. And what this is about, like
this is an approachable animal. And then in the fourth one, we
did ET, you know, ETS in the house, the toys start flying
around, the plants grow again. And so they can't figure out
what's going on in their house. So basically, ET solves our
shooting problems in assembly Hall.
You know, that's kind of that. And then the fifth one,
obviously the Star Wars Scroll, but because it's return of the
Bison, we say it's Episode 6. And then the flashback sequence
from the Usual Suspects shows like why all of this is supposed
to make sense. And that it was really the vote
of the student government that brought this creature to life,
that started all of the events that we had.
And then I'm like, all right, this thing's coming back.
What's the most what's the greatest return in the history
of the world? It's like Michael Jordan
returning to the NBA with the two word press release of I'm
back. And so we're like, let's put it
on Scott's desk that he says he's back.
And then we find him on the top of his domain, you know, peering
out over over what he's going to oversee over these next year.
So we had a good time with it. And Trevor Bowens and Will Kirby
was the guy in the suit for all the videos.
He got stuffed in a crate. That's not easy.
That's definitely in other duties as a sign on his
employment agreement. And then Andrew Brown did a
great job with the videos as well.
So we had a lot of fun. It it came through.
I mean, the, the, the, they were awesome.
The last one was great. Although all I can think of is
like alt, you know, the the internet's gonna have fun with
his like alt cuts of like other Pulp Fiction.
You know, see, if you do from that, it's like, you know, the,
the, the fight with the, the thing that, you know, stabbing
them in the chest with the, the, the shot.
And yeah, there's some wild stuff for sure.
And actually, Galen and Dr. Gautier were Marvel movies.
So Stan Lee, you know, always is ordering a slice of pizza and
Spider Man 2 or whatever. They were the fake faculty
advisors, you know, So we had to put the people we started
bringing back the bison as kind of the Stan Lee little Easter
egg in there. So it was fun to have them be a
part of it. That's awesome.
No, the the the videos were were awesome.
As a wrap up, I have a couple of kind of random questions I just
want to throw out there that people have asked me.
So I'll just put these in no particular order.
One, any plan on a real bison on the field, like kind of like
Colorado? OK.
That's a great question and it's one that we actually wrestled
with over the the course of the process there.
There are a lot of challenges to it.
And if you look at the live mascots, other than dogs, the
live mascots, the hard to train, fundamentally very dangerous
animal mascots, those have a really long legacy to find 6
people every year to run this thing on the field, to feed it,
to pay for it, all that kind of stuff.
It just feels too cumbersome. I'm not saying that there isn't
a day that that could potentially occur, but, but, but
there are no plans for it now. We have had actually a lot of
people who run bison farms have in 24 hours invited Hoosier to
come out and visit and they talk about calves that are being
bottle fed right now and would be perfect companions to the
mascot. So you never know, We'll keep
the door open on that. Nil stuff, you know, goes wild.
Like, you could have, you know, players promoting bison farms
around the state. And I would say this, this is 1
surprising element, how excited the athletes are about this and
have been from the start. They actually put some Bison
imagery in the weight room like four or five months ago as the
video started. I would get text messages from
track coaches and field hockey coaches, like when is it going
to happen? You know, when's it?
Because their athletes were asking him.
So the athletes have really responded to this.
I mean, Sydney Parish was over the moon to be a part of it.
So All right, next question. The the other, the other one
that I have is, is his mind, my mind immediately went to this
are are we going to see integration of a bison logo in
football, basketball jerseys, alternate jerseys, you know, is
that, is that something that's being thought over on the road
map? Because I just I can imagine,
you know, a helmet with bice. You know, they used to have
like, you know, the, the IU on one side and the, the state logo
on the other side was cool. You know, a bison logo.
I'm thinking of, you know, the basketball shorts, like having a
bison on there. Just I'm curious if that's been
thought of, you know, using it within uniforms and or complete
all uniforms based on the logo? Well, we're still finishing up
the process on the artwork for whatever that logo will be.
So we don't have anything in the design stages.
I would say it's it's an absolute possibility and a high
likelihood that it would occur again to the athletes excited
about it. We've had three programs already
reach out about putting the Bison on their warm up shirts.
So, so they're into it. I, I would, I would assume that
it will make its way onto apparel that the that the
players and the athletes will wear in the field of play.
That's awesome. And last one is.
A for us, our podcast Galen came up with some new imagery.
It's our it's our logo. Are we good to still use our
bison that we have on Crimson Cast or are we are we going to
see a little approval or we got the change?
Go for it. I do think you I do think you
need a new sign off Galen. I'm actually we need to workshop
this. I'm I'm a little, I bet.
I've gotten probably 80 people have reached out in the last 24
hours saying some combination of hey, Congrats and it's always
like how are you going to sign off on the podcast now?
And I have, I have 0 idea and don't open source it.
I can tell. You from experience in a very
short period of time, I've gotten 7278 recommendations on
what song we should play during the third quarter and no two are
the same from any two people. And you tangentially
participated in the naming of the Bison process and nine
people came up with 9 different names that they preferred.
So, you know, write your own sign off.
Don't open source it, make them live with it.
That gives me one more question. Can you so name is Hoosier,
right? Hoosier the bison.
Can you throw out any other names that were considered or
that didn't make the cut? And you don't need no no
attributation needed. So I.
Will say this one, we we wanted it to be unique.
So I think that was important. Two, we opted not to go the
route of someone who was once a living figure.
I do find it and I it's endearing because I mean, who
doesn't as an IU person have great deal of respect for the
Bob Knight years. I'm like, I can't think of
anything Bob Knight would want less than to.
Have a mask got named. After him.
So we opted not to do living figures also because I mean,
we've, we've seen around our own campus that history has a way of
changing things And you just don't want to be 20 years from
now and you name it after a person and something is looked
at at a different lens and you got to change the name.
So we, we steered away from living figures and then we tried
to think of truly IUE things and every alley we went down.
And Galen had a suggestion that he can offer on his own.
Every alley we went down, there were two or three people brought
up an objection. So this felt like the safest
choice, which I know is not what people want to hear.
I just don't think we had an obvious one at IU.
And redefining Hoosier seemed appealing.
And I really wanted to nail the reveal in the suit.
I'll let other people determine whether or not we did the suit
well and nailed the reveal. Well, the early return seemed
pretty good. And I think they'll, I think
they'll warm to the name. And I actually think little kids
yelling Hoosier, Hoosier, you know, to get a picture, I think
will work. I, I agree with that.
I I. Was not sure about it at 1st and
the more I thought about it I was like it actually makes sense
it it ties it a lot more closely to directly to the university
and it needed to be redefined anyway.
So I think that all the IT it ends up hitting all the marks.
No, I don't think anybody's going to complain about it.
That's the thing. No, I agree.
I I like it hearing. Your thought process makes
sense. I mean, as you were thinking, I
was like trying to think who what, you know, you go like
Herman Wells, like Wells is not a fun like, hey, Wells, it's our
mascot like that. Then you have to hold, have
another whole back story. I think that all makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah.
Excellent. Well, I'm glad you guys are
excited about it. I'm ready for the merch to come
out and I'm ready to see this thing come to events this
upcoming fall. And by the way, we have a lot of
interchangeable uniforms and outfits for it.
So it's it's going to hit the mark when it goes to a tennis
match, a field hockey game, a football game, obviously the
basketball games. I I think it's exciting and I, I
also think, you know, back to the humility.
We've got to reconnect our basketball program to our
student body. It has been broken and we've got
to to re establish that. And I think, I don't think that
this is a a cure all for that, but I think it's a step in the
right direction that we're going to try to do new things with
student engagement in in basketball.
Yeah. No, I, I think I.
You're you're doing great stuff. It's awesome.
I as again part of the old guy new the new old guy club.
I am all for it. I like it.
So Jeremy, I appreciate it and look forward to to more rally
towels. And you know, what's what's
great is, and I mean this in a very positive way, like we've
now had you on twice in six months because of really unique,
interesting, fun things at the university and the athletic
department are doing that are getting fan interest, engagement
enough so that it's like, I want to talk to Jeremy for an hour
about how did this happen, how are we doing this?
I mean, that that is awesome. And so appreciate everything
guys are doing and looking forward to a great season with
Signetti, with Devries and with Hoosier, our new mascot.
Yeah, really, really excited about it.
And last time I was on this show, I complimented your
sweatshirt and your mom. My mom got it for me for the
holidays because I said something nice about your
sweatshirt. So I made sure that I didn't
mention anything you're wearing or in the background so that I
get the gift cards that I want next year.
Well, I mean, yeah, we have. We have a.
Millennium Falcon, so you know, Mama Gray, if you want to, you
know, get Jeremy that we can look at that for for Father's
Day coming up. We have some some really cool
like gear right there. Anyway, No.
Well, Jeremy, thank you so much for joining Galen, as always.
It's awesome having you on. Want to thank everybody for
listening and for Galen for Jeremy.
This is Scott saying we brought back the bison.
Let's go along, everybody. Thank you guys, dude.
Thanks man. Awesome.