IU’s fi rst athletic competition

parking lot now is.

Over the course of the century, the brawls evolved to include other forms of chaos. A popular scrap tradition was called “Flag Rush,” in which a class would hang its class fl ag on a tree and defend it from the other grade, Kellams said.

Th e violence and damage caused by these brawls didn’t go unnoticed by university administration.

IU President William Lowe Bryan worked hard to eliminate the scraps at the beginning of the 20th century. Kellams said there are a series of letters to the student body in which he told them not to meet and fi ght. Other sports were slowly introduced to the university and the scraps eventually died out at the end of the 1920s .

“It may be that the administration was successful in refocusing student’s energy by helping establish these other activities,” Kellams said. “It might be because they were working really hard to ban the scraps and any sort of hazing .”

IU ARCHIVES Students participate in class scraps in 1924. Class scraps were a form of intramurals that students took part in starting in the 1820s.

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Hep’s Rock is the soul of IU football

By Phillip Steinmetz

psteinme@umail.iu.edu | @PhillipHoosier

Located in the north end zone of Memorial Stadium, it’s tradition for IU football players and coaches to touch Hep’s Rock when taking the fi eld.

Formerly known as Th e Rock, it was discovered by former IU Coach Terry Hoeppner in 2005 on a practice fi eld when he was driving into work one morning. He had it removed and placed on a granite slab.

“It was pretty cool, because he did it with a story,” former IU quarterback Dustin Hass told the Indiana Daily Student in September 2017. “He’s talking about history and Alcatraz, and Alcatraz was on a rock. He said when people went to Alcatraz, they didn’t come back. Th ey did hard time at Alcatraz. So, he said when it came to play, you did hard time in the rock.”

Hoeppner started off strong with the Hoosiers when he took the helm in 2005. IU had a 4-1 record before losing its next six games. After the season, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He remained head coach for the 2006 season, in which IU fell just one game short of reaching a college bowl berth.

On March 2007, Hoeppner announced he had to step down due to brain cancer. He died just three months later.

Off ensive coordinator Bill Lynch took over as IU head coach the following season and led the Hoosiers to a 7-6 record and their fi rst bowl game appearance in 14 years. IU lost to Oklahoma State 49-35 in the Insight Bowl.

“He had a little showman in him, obviously, with Th e Rock, which was basically a gimmick to get people to come to the stadium,” Mark Deal, former IU player, coach and assistant director of development of the IU Varsity Club told the IDS in September 2017. “But what was a gimmick turned out to be much, much more when he got cancer. It became a symbol of his fi ght against cancer and the rock that he was.”

On Sept. 23, 2017, IU took the fi eld against Georgia Southern in special Hep’s Rock uniforms. Th e classic crimson jerseys had numbers highlighted with a limestone pattern and their gloves were stone colored as well.

Th e jerseys were used to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of Hoeppner’s death. Th ere was a moment of silence before kickoff for Hoeppner and his family. IU won the game 52-17.

FILE PHOTO BY MATTHIEU PICARD | IDS Above Hep’s Rock is located in the North End Zone of Memorial Stadium.

FILE PHOTO BY AARON BERNSTEIN | IDS Right IU head coach Terry Hoeppner celebrates with fans and players after Indiana’s 36-13 homecoming win over the Illini on August 9, 2008.

Despite his short tenure with the Hoosiers, Hoeppner’s infl uence still reigns. He brought a mentality that rejuvenated the program and helped bring it to what it is today.

IU football doesn’t have a national title and hasn’t won a conference title since 1967, but the one thing the Hoosiers can hang their hat on is the tradition of Hep’s Rock.

“My initial thought was that this was something that diff erentiated us from other college football programs,” former IU tight end Taylor Donnell told the IDS in September 2017. “A lot of teams have something very signifi cant that diff erentiates them from the other teams, and Indiana was lacking that for a very long time.”