James M. Redwine

James Whitcomb Riley

O.S.U. 17; I.U. 24

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Peg and Jim Redwine at a Hoosiers game

Indiana University will beat Ohio State University in football Saturday – two days after the submission of this article. Yes, I still have faith in the Hoosiers! I base my prediction of the score on I.U.’s will to win and their discipline that will keep the Cream and Crimson’s penalties low and their turnover margin in their favor high. I have been an observer, and often a chagrinned one, of I.U. football since the autumn of 1963. Believe me I have known disappointment over the last 60 years. But this team of 2024 is not one of loss; it is one of destiny. Refusal to allow defeat in the grueling fourth quarter, maintenance of their extremely high emotions when O.S.U. loses control of theirs and sound judgment coupled with alert opportunism will be the fundamental football foundation upon which Coach Curt Cignetti and his assistant coaches will guide the team to a close victory. And, it will be the hallowed I.U. legends of yore that will call forth-fourth quarter heroics from this year’s standard bearers.

The Gables Restaurant in Bloomington, Indiana was across the street from the Indiana University Law School, which I attended from June 1968 to August 1970. The water was free and that was what I could afford. Above the counter was a gigantic colored picture of the 1945 undefeated football team (9-0-1). Many times, my classmates and I would sit mesmerized by the penetrating gazes of Ted Kluszewski (yes, that Ted Kluszewski), George Taliafero (the first African-American to lead the Big Ten Conference in rushing), Bob Ravensberg (first team All-American), All-American full-back Pete Pihos and All-American end Bob Ravensberg. In 1948, receiver Mel Groomes became the first African American player to sign with the Detroit Lions. The team was coached by the legendary Bo McMillan. As I and my fellow law students, some with Viet Nam War era service, set drinking water we would sometimes note how these true heroes from the WWII battles seemed to be staring deep into our souls challenging us to carry on their dedication to America and I.U.

In 1967, Coach John Pont led Quarterback and future lawyer Harry Gonso, running back Jade Butcher and running back and punter John Eisenbarger to our only Rose Bowl where we met O.J. Simpson and acquitted ourselves very well in 1968. They were 9-2 that season losing to Minnesota and USC.

These two teams earned legendary status as our current 2024 team is performing. The victory by I.U. over Ohio State University this Saturday (23 November 2024) will become part of Indiana University folklore. Just as I correctly predicted I.U.’s victory (but not the score) over Michigan State, I boldly assert I.U. will beat O.S.U. 24 to 17. You will note, Gentle Reader, as I write this column, I.U. is 10-0 and November 23, 2024 has yet to have occurred.

 When Coach Cignetti reminds the team before the game and again at half-time that our discipline and fierce rage to win will help us avoid penalties and force O.S.U. turnovers, I am comfortable that the ghosts from 1945, 1967 and Coach Lee Corso’s 1979 Holiday Bowl conquest of previously undefeated B.Y.U. will become the magic of Hoosier myth and lead to victory number 11 in the 2024 football season.

It need not be said that win number 12 over Purdue to crown our championship season of 12-0 will forge our way to the crest of the College Football Playoffs. As Hoosier James Whitcomb Riley might have said:

“When the frost is on the football and O.S.U is numb and in the shock,
And you see the humbled wobble of the once proud Buckeye cock,
Then it’s good to be a Hoosier and a champion one turned out,
For the struttin’ once proud Brutus will go into whimperin’ rout.
When I.U. brings him to heel, he’ll tuck his tail twixt his legs,
As Ohioans rend their togs to rags, we’ll leave them suckin’ on their eggs,
Scarlet and gray will fade away and might as well be hocked,
When the frost is on the football and O.S.U. is numb and in the shock!”

As the gun sounds in Columbus, Buckeyes ’l be fodder for our fans,
Ohioans will mumble to themselves as they stumble from the stands,
’Ole U.S. Grant will rise up, draw his sword and rail at young J.D.,
Ne’er on my watch, young man, was such a loss allowed to be.
Not so fast Ulysses, as your boss in the big dust up,
I, the Hoosier rail splitter, say quit complaining, take a sip from this bitter cup,
For ne’er again will Hoosiers have to bear the Buckeyes run amock,
When the frost is on the football and O.S.U. is numb and in the shock!”

Hoosiers and Slave Auctions

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Gentle Reader, you will, of course, remember the Gavel Gamut column of December 05, 2005 where one of Posey County, Indiana’s most infamous brawlers was mentioned. One Tom Miller was fond of drink and when drinking was fond of fighting. In the years just before the Civil War old Tom would get liquored up and lick whoever had the misfortune to run into him on the streets of Mt. Vernon, Indiana. As described by John Leffel in the Western Star newspaper Miller would, “Pace the streets of Mt. Vernon with his coat off, sleeves rolled up, his shaggy breast exposed and his suspenders about his waist.” According to the editor, Tom always bellowed the same challenge, “I’m a mean man, a bad man and I orter to be whipped, I know, but whar’s the man to do it?”

Tom Miller was only one small part of our Posey County and new state of Indiana’s reputation for tumultuous living. The sobriquet, “Hoop Pool Township”, was fairly earned by Posey County brawlers who drove visiting boatmen away. And as for frontier justice in Indiana, some experts assert our Hoosier nickname came about from the proclivity of Indiana rowdies to bite off ears and spit them out onto barroom floors.

I am indebted to columnist Erik Deckers who set forth this theory of the origin of the word “Hoosier” in his article contained in the publication Here and Wow, Indianapolis! Vol.1, No. 1, 2018. At page 22 Deckers attributed this possibility to Indiana’s poet laureate James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) of When the Frost is on the Pumpkin fame who claimed that early Indiana folks would frequently gouge out eyes or bite off body parts which would litter a barroom floor and when the next day someone would kick the removed piece of fleck they’d ask, “Whose ear?”

If I had not dealt with so many cases in court where the behavior of the combatants resembled such activity I might look askance on such a theory. However, I can see some merit to Riley’s analysis.

Well, onto another topic as discussed in last week’s column. You do remember last week’s column, right? Okay, it involved military service and concentrated on my Great Great Grandfather, John Giggy who was a stone mason and farmer from La Grange, Indiana who fought all four years (1861-1865) in Company H of the famed Iron 44thIndiana Volunteer Infantry.

Before being wounded at both Shiloh and Chickamauga and before he saw his first shot fired he and his outfit witnessed a sad spectacle in Henderson, Kentucky that helped them understand one of the main reasons they went to war. Kentucky did not secede, but it did have legal slavery until 1865. In fact, one reason Tom Lincoln, Abraham’s father, moved his family from Kentucky to Indiana was to avoid competing for work with slave labor. Slavery was part of the legal and social culture of Kentucky. The young Hoosier farm boys from northern Indiana who were used to doing their own labor had not had direct knowledge of The Peculiar Institution until they personally observed a slave auction in 1861 just across the Ohio River as they were making their way south:

“It was a strange pitiful sight that of women and little children standing upon the action block to be sold as human chattles. They came wringing their hands and with tears and sobs, lamenting their cruel fate. The soldiers stood near filled with pity and indignation but restrained by law and discipline. Slavery existed at this point in its mildest form. Here were a dozen or more large tobacco factories. The blacks were required as a daily task to strip 400 pounds under penalty of the rod. Children of ten years were given this task. Work hours extended from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. In each room was an overseer whose presence was a threat. Some negroes were well dressed, others ragged. Attendance at church was allowed and many were Christians. They regarded the coming of the soldiers as the precursor of their liberty.”

As to the name Hoosier, Posey County’s most famous citizen, Major General Alvin P. Hovey, while in command at Shiloh came across a Union sentry on a dark night who asked for the password. Hovey was just getting his men to that position and had no idea what password was being used. When the sentry asked, “Who goes there?”, Hovey improvised what he hoped would be an acceptable password and responded, “Hoosiers”. The sentry said, “Welcome Hoosiers.” Apparently, we Hoosiers have been welcomed as such for a long time.