1976 Sports: Greatness On The Indiana/Ohio Border
This is part of a series of sports history articles celebrating the best in 1976 sports. This piece asks the question of which geographic fan base had the best year in ’76.
If you’re a sports fan in southern Indiana, the culture is dominated by Indiana University—especially the basketball program and especially in 1976, before the state had NFL football (the Colts moved from Baltimore prior to the 1984 season).
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I attended IU for three years (1989-92), theoretically studying political science, but in practice studying alcohol consumption. It’s for that reason there is no degree from Bloomington hanging on my wall, but rather a string of empty cans of Schaefer’s beer—four bucks for a case back in the day. But to keep on point, the time I spent there at least give me a small window into the professional sports loyalties of an area that has no natural baseball team.
A lot of people root for Chicago, with the White Sox and Cubs having their share of loyalists. Another option though, and one only a couple hours’ drive, was in Cincinnati. Therefore, it’s not unusual for a sports fan in the southern part of the Hoosier state to cheer for IU hoops and Cincinnati Reds’ baseball. And for fans as these, 1976 must have been nirvana.
The 1976 Indiana Hoosiers remain the last college basketball team to conclude both the regular season and the NCAA Tournament undefeated. As soon as the nets were being cut down in Philadelphia at the 1976 Final Four, attention could swing to baseball.
Cincinnati had already won the World Series in 1975, and had been to the Fall Classic in 1970 and 1972. The 1976 Cincinnati Reds would be the best edition yet, winning 102 games and then sweeping through the postseason with a perfect 7-0 record—something else no one has done since.
Watching the dominance of IU hoops and the Reds would have been enough for any reasonable fan, but for those who also rooted for the Cincinnati Bengals in the NFL, they were able to watch their football team go 10-4 and push the Steel Curtain dynasty in Pittsburgh to the final week of the season for a division title. The bar for the NFL playoffs was pretty high at this time, and the Bengals narrowly missed, but their performance was still a strong supporting role to the sports culture in southern Indiana.
Thus, TheSportsNotebook salutes the fandom on the southern Indiana/west Ohio border as the most successful in 1976.
Read more about the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers
Read more about the 1976 Cincinnati Reds
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