Todd’s Take: Indiana Newsmaker Of The Year? Two Choices Rise Above The Rest

Honestly? The most dominant player in any one sport was probably softball’s Taylor Minnick, an All-American who hit .484 with 18 home runs and 71 RBI.

All of those players had great seasons and did Indiana proud, but were they talked about more so than the two coaches who dominated the conversation? They were not.

Football coach Curt Cignetti and former men’s basketball coach Mike Woodson were head-and-shoulders above the rest in terms of the interest they generated from Indiana fans.

Cignetti, of course, led Indiana football to its all-time winningest season. An 11-2 record, Big Ten contention deep into November, and a College Football Playoff berth were well beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.

Even if Cignetti had been a complete drip as a personality, he’d have warranted plenty of buzz. That Cignetti did it all with a swagger that endeared him to long-suffering Indiana football fans certainly aided his popularity.

However, the substance was more important than the style. The seemingly easy culture change that Cignetti created for the Hoosiers is not all as simple as he made it appear.

Having a nucleus of former James Madison winners to impart Cignetti’s ways didn’t hurt that cause, but the organizational mind it takes to seamlessly meld imparting culture, executing culture and succeeding with culture is formidable. That, to me, is what was most impressive about Cignetti.

Cignetti’s accomplishments are all sunshine and roses. Woodson, of course, was a different story.

Woodson dominated conversation for two seasons, really. When it became apparent that he was not quickly taking the Hoosiers to Big Ten contention, or anything close, segments of Indiana’s notoriously demanding fanbase turned on Woodson.

Some of the criticism was fair, some of it wasn’t, some of it was tasteless, some of it went far beyond the scope of acceptable sports criticism and into dark corners of personal threats and racism.

As someone who’s only had a taste of being in that kind of a public fish bowl, I only have a scant idea how I’d react to that. I’d be in 20-20 hindsight territory if I were to say that Woodson’s defiant approach was a mistake, but it certainly didn’t quiet his critics. I remain convinced that the walls that Indiana puts up to keep non-affiliated storytellers from having more of a personal relationship with coaches don’t help.

Woodson also had his supporters – whether it was fans who thought Woodson deserved respect as a former great player, whether they thought he was getting a raw deal from his critics, or whether they just liked Woodson’s personality.

That clash of critics and supporters alone kept Woodson at the tips of everyone’s tongues during the season. Good as football was, it’s still men’s basketball that has the most capability to generate the most interest from fans. So the Woodson saga, negative though it may have been, was very much a ying to Cignetti’s yang as far as Indiana buzz was concerned.

So how do you break the deadlock? Woodson’s early February resignation took what would have been planet Mercury-style heat off of him at the end of the season. Even though most could have anticipated the ultimate outcome, can you imagine how those late-season basketball games would have been had Woodson’s fate not been decided?

That, plus the fact that celebrating a winner is better than stewing in someone’s misfortune, makes Cignetti the choice as the newsmaker of Indiana’s 2024-25 athletic season.