Football spirit is already in the air.
Though her team doesn’t kick off for another week, Ginny Storar is already prepping for the day Indiana University football takes the field again. Friends and fans will gather around the massive TV, listening to the contest at Iowa in larger-than-life sound.
Barbecue meat, smoked mac ‘n’ cheese and myriad other tailgating foods are planned to keep hungry football fans satisfied. IU cheerleaders will be in the house to help keep the energy high, and a DVD recorded by the Indiana University Marching Hundred will make it feel like you’re in the stadium.
“We all have a good time down here. I try to make it a game-day experience down here,” Storar said.
To call her a superfan doesn’t quite do it justice. From the wallpaper to the area rugs to the furniture, and everywhere you look, Storar’s living in a crimson-and-cream dream. The longtime Indiana University fan has turned the basement of her Center Grove home into the epicenter of her fandom, hosting raucous gatherings for football and basketball games any time she’s not watching the games in Bloomington in person.
With the start of football season right around the corner, on the heels of Indiana’s best season in recent history, anticipation is running high.
“What’s exciting is that people are getting excited about IU football. It’s been a long time coming,” she said. “I’m on a countdown.”
Storar can remember the exact moment she became an IU fan. As a member of the Seymour High School Marching Owls in the 1960s, she and her bandmates competed in the annual band day event. Stepping onto the Memorial Stadium field that day, she was mesmerized by the colors, the passion of the fans and the fun that everybody seemed to be having.
“I said from that day, I was an IU fan,” she said. “Something about the atmosphere, the fun had me hooked.”
Storar has been a season ticket-holder for Hoosiers football games for more than 40 years, with her and her son, Pat, sitting in the same seats. She added basketball season tickets in 1990. After starting in the last row of the balcony in Assembly Hall, she has moved down to the sixth row, at center court.
Being an Indiana basketball fan is nothing unusual living in the Hoosier State. But there have been some miserable times rooting for the football team over the years.
She and Pat attended their first IU football game in 1978, when Pat was 11 years old. They sat in the pouring rain as they watched Nebraska defeat the Lee Corso-coached Hoosiers 69-17.
“That wasn’t much fun. But we didn’t move. We didn’t leave until the very end, and still don’t,” she said.
From that point, they were loyal fans. They’ve been to bowl games, including the Gator Bowl in 2020, when IU lost to Tennessee by a single point. Storar had made a bet with an emergency department resident and Tennessee fan that if the Hoosiers lost, she’d sing “Rocky Top” as punishment.
Another time, they drove to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee, in a terrible winter storm. The Storars drove hours out of their way, approaching Memphis from the south to avoid the worst of the weather.
When Storar can’t get to the games, her home makes for a nice stand-in to express her fandom. The IU room started coming together after Ginny and George Storar moved into their home in the Center Grove area in 2004. The collection has built up, item by item, ever since.
Figurines, stuffed animals and any trinket you can imagine are decked out in IU’s block logo. Framed posters and photographs, even newspaper clips of important games, covering the walls. Everything is covered in crimson and cream.
On an end table, she keeps a replica of the Old Oaken Bucket trophy, given to the winner of the Indiana-Purdue game each year. She shares the bucket with her brother, whose wife who is a Purdue graduate.
“We trade, and it gives me great pleasure to do that,” she said.
But Storar’s collection goes beyond simple memorabilia.
Sitting off to the side is a vintage beverage cart and cooler on wheels, emblazoned with “Indiana” in script across the side. Storar remembers seeing similar carts in Assembly Hall at basketball games during the Bob Knight years. Hers is authentic, with the placard on the side cataloging it as university equipment.
An authentic IU cheerleading megaphone is displayed prominently in the middle of the room, bearing autographs from Indiana’s cheerleading squad. Because she has such a close relationship with the program, four or five cheerleaders are often present at her season kick-off gatherings.
One cheerleader, Mitch, came three years in a row. He is immortalized with a cardboard cutout that greets visitors when they come downstairs.
“He loved it so well, and told me that the next time he came down, he wanted to see a picture of me in the IU room,” she said. “So we took his picture and had this done.”
The 2020 season was full of mixed emotions for Storar. On one hand, the Hoosiers were nationally relevant in football for the first time in ages, having been in the mix to play in the Big Ten Championship for the first time ever. But COVID-19 ensured that no fans would be in the stands at Memorial Stadium.
Still, Storar was present. She purchased a cutout of herself to represent her in the seats, and keeps that cutout behind the couch.
Now, she can’t wait to see what the Hoosiers have in them for this season.
“I’m ready,” she said. “I’m so pumped for IU football, I could be down there now.”
