Position in the spotlight: Indianapolis

I, like Steve, have spent some time in Indiana. There is no doubt about it, the state is a basketball state. Notre Dame and Purdue have been successful on the football field, bringing attention to the college game. They are not Indianapolis schools, and there are no college teams in town. There is a pro team, the Colts, that has reached some success over the past several years, thanks in large part to the arrival of Peyton Manning. Before this, the Colts were perennial bottom feeders.
On the other hand, the Indiana Pacers are the preeminent sports team in the city of Indianapolis. Obviously, right now the Pacers aren’t the team that they once were, but if you look at the effort the Pacers ownership puts into making the team relevent, it’s clear how important the franchise is. The position that receives the most emphasis, and is our Position in the Spotlight is the Indiana Pacers Head Coach. The Pacers have really only ever had one true superstar, Reggie Miller. Sure there have been plenty of good players that have passed through Conseco Fieldhouse, from Rik Smits to Detlef Schrempf to Ron Artest to Jermaine O’Neal. Only for a few years, though, did the Pacers really have the talent to put together deep playoff runs. Often, over the course of the past few years, the star of the team was the head coach.
The Pacers have had a recent run, in which the head coach is either a Hall of Famer or was met with success at another franchise previously. Starting in 1993, the Pacers have had Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown, Hall of Famer Larry Bird, future Hall of Famer Isaiah Thomas, former Pistons coach Rick Carlisle and are currently helmed by former Celtics coach Jim O’Brien. The hiring trend suggests that the Pacers realize that the position of head coach in Indianapolis is one with a lot of pressure, not one to be given to a guy with little experience.
It’s not like those guys are any slouches either. O’Brien, there since 2007, is the first head coach not to reach the playoffs with the Pacers since Dick Versace, who coached the 89-90 seasons. The coaches at the helm for the past 20 years or so have led the Pacers to a 80-72 record, not bad when you consider that they have never had the game changer like Lebron or Kobe, or the stable of studs like the Celtics do currently. Not that a record above .500 is bad anyways.
So, with that being said, you would think the Pacers coaching lineage just goes back to the early ’90s. Early in their existence, the Pacers also had Hall of Famer Dr. Jack Ramsey and 1980-81 coach of the the year Jack McKinney lead the Pacers.

Honorable Mention: Indianapolis Colts running back – Part of the problem with the Colts over time was that they focused on running back for such a long time despite not ever really having an offensive line. The passing game took off with the arrival of Peyton Manning and a pass blocking scheme, but before that… boy did they have some good runners. It started with Eric Dickerson, then Marshall Faulk, both of whom were involved with trades with the Rams (Dickerson from, Faulk to). Later, with Faulk in St. Louis, the Colts nabbed Colts rushing leader Edgerrin James. Since then, they have spent two more first round picks on running backs, Joseph Addai and Donald Brown.