BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (BVM) — On March 30, 1987, 9-year-old Eric Pankowski and his parents were glued to their television in St. Louis as they watched Keith Smart hit “the shot” that brought a fifth national championship banner to Indiana University (IU). Little did young Pankowski know, he would get to relive that moment with Smart nearly 33 years later.

Growing up, Pankowski and his colleague, Ward Roberts, had no other choice than to be Hoosier fans.

Pankowski’s entire family attended IU and expects his kids to do the same someday.

“My three kids will one day go to IU, even if they don’t know it yet,” Pankowski said.

Meanwhile, Roberts recalls the brilliant red cardinal that perched outside his grandmother’s window in Peru, Ind., that she so fittingly named “Bobby” — a namesake of IU’s Hall of Fame men’s basketball coach, Bobby Knight.

“I had to love the Hoosiers or be disowned,” Roberts said. “Watching IU games at her house with my dad and aunt from before I can remember sealed a wonderful fate.”

Their love for IU basketball led Pankowski and Roberts to campus in the mid-1990s, where their friendship began in the theater department. They spent their college years at IU watching the reign of Knight slowly come to an end, suffering through NCAA Tournament shortcomings and high-profile transfers.

After graduating, both found themselves working in the TV industry in Los Angeles, where they continued their love of IU basketball.

However, after years of coaching changes, watching the Hoosiers struggle and seeing the IU “family” fall apart, they grew tired of venting to one another and turned their frustrations into a podcast.

“We were yelling at each other on the phone or in offensively long text chains where we argued about how good or bad IU was,” Pankowski said about his exchanges with Roberts.

“I wanted to spend less time debating Eric about all things IU basketball,” Roberts said about how the creation of the podcast came about. “My blood pressure shot up every time we had a text exchange.”

With that, the “Hoosier Hysterics” podcast was born. Since then, the Hysterics have walked fans down memory lane as they’ve produced somewhat of an oral history of IU basketball — a history that dates as far back as the 1950s with “Slick” Leonard.

The guys have also featured legends like Tom Van Arsdale, Kent Benson, and Calbert Cheaney, as well as future stars like Anthony Leal and Trey Galloway. Of course, the history wouldn’t be complete without hearing from the men who have paced the sidelines in Bloomington; Hoosier coaches like Mike Davis, Dan Dakich, and current coach Archie Miller.

In 2019, listeners heard the news that the guys were considering a live podcast in Bloomington.

“At first, we thought it would be a handful of devoted listeners, maybe 10,” the Hysterics said about the live podcast. “But as we floated the idea out there, the response was overwhelming.”

They were able to secure the famous Bluebird for the live podcast where dozens of Indiana legends showed up to rub shoulders with a crowd of approximately 1,000 Hoosier fans. Each personality took a turn on stage to relive memories of days gone by and share some behind the scenes stories.

A couple of hours into the event, rumors of another guest began to circulate. One fan stopped former guard Todd Leary to confirm the news.

“Yes,” Leary said. “Coach Knight is on his way right now.”

Knight hasn’t made many public appearances in Bloomington since his firing nearly 20 years prior, but with several of his former players gathered in one place, from his first recruit — Steve Green — to one of his last — Kyle Hornsby — this felt possible.

Then it happened. Coach Knight walked onto the stage to cheers and chants. With his players behind him, Knight told the crowd, “From my standpoint, personally, I just want you to know that I could never have found a better place to coach than here at Indiana.”

“Seeing coach on that stage surrounded by so many of his players and being part of a crowd of a thousand people chanting, ‘Thank you, coach!’ was absolutely overwhelming and humbling,” Pankowski said.

The podcast started as a walk down memory lane, yet as dozens of former players, thousands of fans and the Hysterics themselves would agree, it has become so much more than that.

“IU is a family,” Pankowski said. “And we are all a part of it.”

Pankowski and Roberts agree, one of the biggest takeaways from the podcast is meeting the person behind the player.

“Every player has a story,” Pankowski said. “And there is so much more to the story than most of us ever knew.”

“I will never stop clamoring for IU to be a perennial top-five program,” Roberts said. “But this podcast has certainly made me a more compassionate and understanding fan, realizing I can never know what anyone is going through on or off the floor until they come on the show and tell us.”

It’s funny how life works sometimes. As children, Pankowski and Roberts found themselves idolizing this crazy thing called “Hoosier Hysteria.” As adults, they find themselves as an integral component of the hysteria itself.

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