How it Works: Victory Field's Lawn
Stevenson or someone on his crew mows the field nearly every day during the season, keeping the Kentucky bluegrass right at 1 inch tall to ensure the ball rolls consistently on dirt and turf.
From the moment the green flag dropped at Bill Armstrong Stadium, the race maintained a dizzying pace. The top teams took turns at the front of the pack, riders looking over their shoulders more than at the track ahead of them. The attacks were fast and furious, stretching the field out so much so that at Lap 65, nearly half of the teams had fallen off the lead lap.
Bundled up and shivering, the racers were eager to get started. So much so that the 2013 race featured its first crash in just lap 3. Oddly, it has become a bit of an annual tradition to have a fairly scary crash in the first few laps before the bikers settle down and race cleanly. This crash left a Rainbow Cycling rider with a broken collarbone, leaving that team’s already-smaller squad with just two able-bodied riders for the remainder of the race. Remarkably, they stuck with the pack and finished the race in 14th place, earning the respect of the entire field.
Editor’s Note, Feb. 15, 2013: The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame will announce the finalists for its Class of 2013 inductees today, and Pacers broadcaster Bobby “Slick” Leonard is one of the contenders. The following originally appeared among IM’s “23 Reasons to Love the Pacers—Again!” in the November 2012 print edition.
Editor’s Note, Nov. 12, 2012: At tonight’s game, Indiana University and its men’s basketball team honor Bill Garrett, the first African-American man to play Big Ten basketball, marking the 65th anniversary of the first game in the conference in which he played. “Well, what happens now to Bill Garrett, Emerson Johnson and Marshall Murray? After […]
Since I ran the inaugural Indiana University Mini-Marathon on my 25th birthday in 2006, I have been slightly obsessed with half-marathons, and road races of all distances. I have now run three Indy Minis, as well as innumerable 5-milers and 5Ks, including the 2007 Indy Mini Day’s 5K, that just three and a half months after I was in a fairly serious car wreck.
Editor’s Note: Indiana Pacers hero Reggie Miller was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on April 2. Here, his cover story from IM‘s April 2005 issue. (See the companion Q&A piece here.) He got to start a game in high school only after another boy showed up with the wrong uniform. He got […]