At Indiana's iconic bar, the thrill of possibility, the agony of reality: 'This sucks'

BLOOMINGTON, Ind.

A football Saturday at Nicks English Hut with Indiana students on Thanksgiving break and the team playing an away game is not supposed to look like this.

It would be busy, sure, because Nicks is always busy.

Thats why its been around since 1927, when Greek immigrant Nick Hrisomalos opened it on East Kirkwood Avenue as a sandwich shop.

When Prohibition ended six years later, Hrisomalos started serving alcohol.

The Kirkwood bar scene, now among the liveliest youll find a few blocks from a college campus, was born.

The first remains the essential.

Advertisement And when students vacate, locals re-emerge.

So Saturdays noon viewing of Indiana at Ohio State would have been well attended any year at Nicks, despite the traditionally grim prospects such a matchup conveys.

The townies know when the town becomes theirs again, says Nicks general manager Kip Preslaff, describing a dynamic that was explored thoroughly in the underrated 1979 movie about the Little 500 bike race in Bloomington, Breaking Away.

But today? For arguably the biggest game in Indiana football history? Everyone is at Nicks.

Curt Cignettis 10-0, No.

5-ranked Hoosiers are chasing the programs first Big Ten championship since 1967, a College Football Playoff spot and respect.

The once-beaten, No.

2-ranked Buckeyes are peers, not half-bored tormentors, this time.

Or so Cignettis fantasy debut season suggests.

Its kind of weird, says Nicks co-owner Greg Rags Rago, standing near one of the busy entrances of a bar with a capacity of 497 and a history of blowing past it.

No one has ever cared much about Indiana football, its never really been part of the fabric here.

As a party, yes, but on the field, its always been, Wait until next year.

The refs screwed us and all that.

Indiana basketball is religion.

Indiana football is, too, for some of us, but its always been maybe like 15,000-20,000 people.

This is extremely exciting.

But of course, youre waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Rago has lived and died with the program since he was part of it, as a walk-on receiver for Lee Corso a coach he calls a great man, a great motivator, a showman who was ahead of his time in the late 1970s.

When an injury forced Rago to hang up the cleats, he started washing dishes at Nicks.

He still saw Corso plenty.

This is where IU coaches and star athletes meet, dine and drink, and it seems theres a signed photo of every single one of them for the past century on the wall.

Some more than others hello, unofficial pictorial history of Bob Knight.

Advertisement (Cignetti and his coaches prefer the quiet atmosphere of the Italian restaurant next door, Osteria Rago, that Rago and co-owner Susan Bright opened in 2018.) Nicks has family dining downstairs, right next to a long bar where the regulars convene.

Past a bustling kitchen and up steep, creaky, wooden stairs that smell as if soaked by a million Pabst Blue Ribbons, two more dining rooms with older crowds are packed.

Next to them is the gigantic Hoosier Room, a 1999 add-on that has all the audio/video amenities of a modern sports bar, and way more IU sports stuff.

Especially Knight stuff.

The Hoosier Room fills to the point of standing room only about 40 minutes before kickoff, and the standing room is going fast.

There are children eating from high tables downstairs and octogenarians playing cards upstairs.

IU students are among the 21-and-older crowd in the Hoosier Room.

Its my first time here, IU student Samantha Lemire says.

Its older but its pretty cool.

We had to come here for this.

The sound system caters to all.

Classic rock jams such as In My Life by the Beatles one minute.

I Like It by Cardi B, Bad Bunny and J Balvin the next.

Then its time to cut to the Fox broadcast.

Brady Quinn tells the people he likes the Buckeyes to roll 44-20.

Boos fill the place.

(Expletive) you, Brady! a man bellows.

Cameras cut to the Hoosiers running out of the tunnel at Ohio Stadium.

Nicks gets uncomfortably loud.

The noise cuts through the feeling of nervous anticipation in the place.

Thats exactly how Nicks felt on March 30, 1981.

Folks piled in early to start imbibing in anticipation of that nights mens basketball national championship game, Knights Isiah Thomas-led Hoosiers against Dean Smith, Al Wood, James Worthy and North Carolina .

But President Ronald Reagan was shot that afternoon in an assassination attempt, casting a pall over the celebration.

Advertisement Early that evening, reports of Reagans survival were followed by reports of NCAA officials decision to go on with the game.

The Hoosiers won.

The night was an all-timer.

The bar was left with nothing but a four-pack of Ballantine Ale by closing time.

And then I probably drank it, Rago says.

Beating Ohio State in football today, to prove to all that this team of James Madison transfers and zero-star recruits is of the highest quality, would be its own all-timer.

Indiana would be a Playoff guarantee and have a case as the No.

1 team in the country.

The worst-case result, an ugly loss, would validate the naysayers like Quinn, a growing chorus pointing out IUs cushy schedule to date.

The roars that greet Ohio States three-and-out to start the game double as an enormous exhale.

But when Indiana takes the ensuing possession 70 yards for a touchdown, including three straight runs for a first down in the red zone? No more wondering whether IU can compete.

The place is rambunctious with confidence.

A man stands up, looks at the people at his table and lifts his sweatshirt to reveal a T-shirt with a logo that looks like that of Marlboro cigarettes.

Except it reads Cignetti instead of Marlboro.

It is pressed tightly against his stomach.

He lets out a sound that can best be written as: Aaaarrrrggghhh!! Its that kind of vibe for the next several minutes, the feeling that Indiana is actually going to do this thing.

Thats how its been, increasingly, through the season, as IU fans have realized how much Cignetti has changed things.

Weve always had good crowds for football games, server Tori Wallace says.

But now theyre always in a good mood.

They sense the opportunity to seize command as Ohio State lines up for a third-and-35.

Two plays later, the Buckeyes have a first down at the Indiana 11.

Ohio State quarterback Will Howard is on fire, imploring the crowd to make more noise.

Advertisement Shut up! someone yells toward his image on the screen.

Moments later comes the loudest roar of the day, as Indianas defense stuffs Quinshon Judkins on fourth-and-1 from the Indiana 2.

Little do they know they will see no more sustained Indiana offense for the rest of the day.

Nor do they realize disastrous special teams mistakes, from a team Cignetti has coached to play pristine football, are coming.

An Indiana false start to turn a third-and-1 into a third-and-6 is the critical gaffe that paves the way.

When punter James Evans drops a perfect snap to set Ohio State up to go 14-7 at the half, hundreds of people say loudly in unison: WHAAATTTTT????!!! Still, its a game.

The Hoosiers have demonstrated they belong.

Indiana graduate Toby Stockmann sits at a table of friends during halftime playing Sink the Bismarck.

This is a Nicks tradition, along with the metal buckets behind the bar that belong to individual patrons and hold 60 ounces of beer.

Sink the Bismarck is a drinking game in which participants carefully pour drops of beer into a small floating container (the boat) inside a bucket whoever makes it sink drinks the whole thing.

Belch, rub eyes, repeat.

This is a celebration of Stockmanns 28th birthday.

And a celebration of Indiana football.

Stockmann, a grad student, was sold on Cignetti when the coach sent an email to students imploring them to show up for a certain victory against Maryland (final score: Indiana 42, Maryland 28).

That took balls, and I was all in, Stockmann says.

Like, when I was a student, wed go once a year.

This is a basketball school, obviously.

Football was just a thing you didnt talk about, like it was the dark side of the university or something.

When the sudden bane of IUs existence, the punt, comes up costly again a 79-yard Caleb Downs punt return for a touchdown to make it 21-7 it starts to get late fast at Nicks English Hut.

Advertisement The standing room gets a bit more spacious.

A barstool comes open at the bar, then another.

Folks file out in drips and drabs, including the only known Ohio State fan in the bar, wearing a gray hoodie with the Buckeyes logo on it.

Yeah, get out! someone yells at him as he approaches the stairs down to the exit, and he turns back with a smirk.

I cant stand Ohio State, Rago says.

Obnoxious sons of b-es.

The crowd thins but remains strong through the finish of Ohio States 38-15 rout.

It remains proud, too, if realistic.

Look, you take away a couple mistakes a couple of huge mistakes and this is different, says 62-year-old IU alum Adam Grant.

We just havent made those mistakes under Cignetti.

But without keeping this to two scores or less, were just not getting in.

Mistakes or no mistakes, everyone knew we cant get blown out in this game.

The nervous anticipation hasnt made way for euphoria, as it did on that night 43 years ago.

Grant was at Nicks that day, by the way, a freshman at IU.

And he was at Showalter Fountain into the wee hours of the morning with his classmates and the townsfolk, experiencing the way sports can bring people together.

The folks at Nicks English Hut are united in perspective late Saturday afternoon.

What Cignetti has done ...

Im all in on Cignetti, Grant says.

This sucks, IU student Riley Johnston says.

Now were probably not gonna make the Playoff.

But you know what? Were gonna kill Purdue next week.

(Top photo: Joe Rexrode / The Athletic ).

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