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Gregg Doyel Columnist Indianapolis Star USA TODAY NETWORK
Keeping it real can be hard, this stinks Colts host 2,500 fans, thanks to COVID-19 We are leaning into it now, this new normal, this sci-fi moonscape where downtown Indianapolis will barely notice the start of the Colts’ 2020 NFL home schedule on Sunday. Eight times a year, more than that if the Colts are on one of their playoff benders, downtown is the place to be … or to avoid, if you’re not into NFL football. Good luck getting a room at the Holiday Inn Express or a table at Shapiro’s. And if all you’re doing is passing through the area, just don’t. Not on Sunday morning. Not anywhere near the intersection of South and Missouri, where cars roll to a stop as fans in jerseys – so many Peyton Manning No. 18’s, even now – cross the street. This is not that year. The Colts will play the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday before a crowd of 2,500 that will look feeble inside the echoing emptiness of Lucas Oil Stadium. See DOYEL, Page 5B
Vikings at Colts Kickoff: 1 p.m. Sunday TV: WXIN-59 Izaiah Steury leads the pack at a meet earlier this month at Indiana Wesleyan. COURTESY OF JACOB MUSSELMAN
LONG RUN
HAS JUST BEGUN How an orphaned Ethiopian shepherd became one of Indiana’s top distance runners
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David Woods
Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY NETWORK
ANGOLA ntil four years ago, the running he did was to chase sheep and goats in the highlands of East Africa. He threw rocks at hyenas to protect livestock belonging to his family. h He was a shepherd at age 5. h He grew up in a mud hut without electricity or telephone. He shared a bed with a goat, and in the morning he had to clean off the goat pellets. h In an odyssey of biblical proportions, he bounced among relatives and orphanages, winding up in the northeast corner of Indiana. Only then did he learn about the running legacy of his native Ethiopia. Only now is he following in those spikeprints. h Izaiah Steury, an 18-year-old junior at Angola, has emerged not only as one of Indiana’s best high school distance runners; he is among America’s top teens.
IZAIAH STEURY BY THE NUMBERS
4:14.75 Steury’s time in a mile race at an August track meet in Chicago
8:57.17 Steury’s time in a 3,200-meter race in a Nashville, Tenn., track meet during August.
14:51.1 Steury’s time in a 5,000-meter cross-country meet — No. 3 nationally among high schoolers — at Marion on Sept. 5.
Colts Insider Jim Ayello Indianapolis Star USA TODAY NETWORK
DC Eberfl us’ Cover 2 scheme isn’t failing him Before they became the “Legion of Boom,” the Seattle Seahawks were scoff ed at by critics who said you couldn’t win in the NFL playing base Cover 3. A “high school” defense they called it. Those Seahawks played in back-to-back Super Bowls. Won one of them. About fi ve years earlier, the Pittsburgh Steelers conquered the NFL with legendary defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau zone blitzing foes into oblivion. A couple years before that, the Chicago Bears decimated the NFC in historic fashion, playing a defense you may have heard of: the Tampa 2 -- a modifi ed version of the Cover 2. Those Bears -- led by Tony Dungy protege Lovie Smith and equipped with a secondary outfi tted by players Chris Ballard See COLTS, Page 2B
See STEURY, Page 8B
KEEP BALLIN’
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