More on Hoosier Great Walt Bellamy who died this morning, a seminal member of #HoosierNation; #iubb, #Hoosiers

#HoosierNation mourns loss of seminal family member as Olympian, Hall of Famer Walt Bellamy died this morning, http://t.co/irn7BbgR7s #iubb
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 2, 2013

Hoosier Nation has lost one of its great legends today with the passing of Walt Bellamy, IU and NBA Hall of Famer. pic.twitter.com/anfdi6e6co
— Indiana University (@IUBloomington) November 2, 2013

A starter on the IU basketball team from 1959-61, Walt Bellamy was also IU's Most Valuable Player, an All-Big Ten and All-American in his junior and senior seasons of 1960 and 1961, the starting center of the Gold Medal-winning Olympic basketball team at the 1960 Rome Olympics, and remains IU's all-time IU rebound leader. He was a 1982 Inductee into the IU Athletics Hall of Fame.

Rookie of the Year Roommates: Bellamy's freshman roommate was IU football star Earl Faison. Their first year away from IU, Faison, of the San Diego Chargers, was named AFL Rookie of the year while Bellamy, with the Chicago Packers, was voted NBA Rookie of the Year. 

More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Bellamy

I must've sat in the TV room at the Indiana Memorial Union hundreds and hundreds of times with Walt Bellamy's black & white photo right next to me from 1979-1983, watching local news, sports, General Hospital, All My Children, et al when that room was packed full of IU students and festooned with Hoosier athletic memories from decades past, from floor to ceiling, basketballs to footballs, photos and trophies.

Only one of my favorite places on campus, it was also my (and many friends') unofficial hangout in that era before cell phones made communication so easy.
And with all the long hours I put in with the Student Athletic Board (SAB)and the-then IU Student Alumni Council, (SAC), as I've written here previously, I sometimes spent more time there than I did at home in my apt.

On a huge-but-beautiful campus like we were blessed to enjoy in Bloomington, with so many attractive distractions and lots of distance sometimes between classes in my case, that TV room at the enormous Student Union, with all of its memories was one of my/our Centers of the Universe, every IU team photo, medal, football, basketball like part of our family heritage that we had an obligation to live up to.

And in my sophomore year of 1980-1981, we did, winning the fourth of IU's NCAA basketball championships, with the able defensive help of one of my friends, James "Jim" Thomas, #20, Mr. Florida Basketball his senior year at Nova High School in Davie, and a member of the 1981 NCAA Tournament All-First Team for everything he did to help the Hoosiers that remarkable March to remember.
Jim was Coach Knight's first-ever recruit ever from Florida.

Filming John Mellencamp "A Ride Back Home" at IU

While looking for something in the Indy Star this morning, I came across this short behind-the-scenes video of John Mellencamp singing and shooting a video that was filmed on campus at IU's awesomely beautiful Beck Chapel.  http://www.iub.edu/tour/cmps7.shtml

This intimate chapel, which I've been in many times over the years for either ceremonies or weddings, is located just east of the main entrance to The IMU, the Indiana Memorial Union 

-"the largest student union in the world" as we were always quick and proud to remind visitors- which is in the original part of campus, complete with a very comfortable hotel, huge bookstore, and tons of offices, restaurants and lounges to eat, study or people watch, some even with fireplaces, which is especially great in the winter when your nose and eyeballs feel frozen. 

http://imu.indiana.edu/about_the_union/index.shtml

This huge building was where I spent the most majority of my time on campus in Bloomington when I wasn't in class, because the two student organizations I was most involved with had their offices located there, in The Tower: the IU Student Alumni Council, and the IU Student Athletic Board, SAB, which is the group that works intimately with IU's Athletics Dept. in many different areas.

http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/

At one of the popular apartment complexes I lived in off-campus, I twice had two female housemates, the second time being with two very cute sisters, one blonde and the other brunette, who had appeared in one of John's very first videos, which was also filmed on campus.

They never tired of telling people about it.

This was back when the geniuses at CBS Records had him recording under the name Johnny Cougar. (Because Dash Riprock was already taken on The Beverly Hillbillies, I guess.)

Ironically, the same record executive who came up with that particular name had also re-christened David Jones as David Bowie.  Well, one out of two isn't so bad!

Attending IU when I did, from 1979-'83, it was right when John -from nearby Seymour- was really starting to make a reputation for himself as someone with talent and heart who gives it his all every show.

John has literally given millions of dollars in donations to IU over the past 25 years, 

http://www.iuinfo.indiana.edu/homepages/4-21-2000/text/mellencamp.htm  and actually has a building named after him on campus, the John Mellencamp Pavillion.

 

John's nephew, also named John Mellencamp, is a starter on IU's perennial top Top Ten soccer team, which is a seven-time NCAA champion, most recently in 2004.  http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/mtt/mellencamp_john00.html

After lots of close calls, our first NCAA soccer title came in December of 1982 in a multiple overtime game win at Fort Lauderdale's Lockhart Stadium, which I was fortunate enough to attend because it coincided with IU's Christmas Break, a great bit of serendipity for me.

After the victory, after celebrate with my friends up in the stands and then down on the sidelines, we headed for the Sheraton Yankee Trader Hotel where the team was staying, where fans, players, coaches, school officials and parents and family partied long into the night.

Speaking of Hoosier soccer, since I haven't mentioned it previously, one of the great things about having the Big Ten Network on DirecTV is actually being able to watch IU soccer games, especially those at home at Armstrong Stadium, which is also home to The Little 500 Bike Race, a.k.a. "Little Five."  http://www.iub.edu/tour/cvrs4.shtml

Also making an appearance on this video is singer Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town.

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This article has a nice photo of John with his wife Elaine Irwin-Mellencamp, who is the popular face of Almay products, and whose TV ads. like her beautiful smile, are very hard to miss.

http://www.elainemellencamp.com/

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009902170378

The Indianapolis Star

Mellencamp films new video at IU's Beck Chapel

By David Lindquist

February 17, 2009

Reader comments at:http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090217/ENTERTAINMENT/902170378&s=a

and http://www.indystar.com/section/comment?&key=20090216.indystar.BG902160395.article.ENTERTAINMENT&s=a

After initially embedding the Mellencamp video here, I was running into lots of problems with the audio coming on -and staying on!- so I've chosen to replace it with a link to John's own website, where you can see it without any audio or video problems.

http://www.mellencamp.com/?module=news&news_item_id=353