The Hoosiers’ head coach remains a program legend regardless of how his coaching tenure ends.
With Mike Woodson officially set to step down as Indiana’s head coach after this season, now comes the question of his legacy in Bloomington.
Indiana has, to some degree, found itself having to contend with two different versions of Mike Woodson.
One is the kid from Indianapolis who suited up for Bob Knight and gave it all every time he set foot on the court. That Woodson came back from injury as a senior and led the Hoosiers all the way to a Big Ten title while earning the conference’s player of the year award despite missing time.
The other is the head coach who took over upon a monumental shift in the college basketball world with NIL and the transfer portal and coached another of the greatest players in program history along the way in Trayce Jackson-Davis. This Woodson brought the Hoosiers back to the postseason and swept rival Purdue in year two before things began to fall apart in years three and four.
This all becomes a bit harder when you remember there aren’t two Mike Woodsons. There’s just one.
The kid who fulfilled a childhood dream of wearing the cream and crimson and getting a college degree and the coach patrolling the Assembly Hall sideline are one and the same. You can’t fully separate them, try as you might. Bring up one ten years from now and you’ll hear about the other.
Among the largest worries with hiring Mike Woodson four years ago was that Indiana put itself in a position to potentially have to fire Mike Woodson.
It’s never easy to part with a program legend. With just about every other coaching hire you can cut the cord and forget about them forever when they’re gone. That’s not what this is or will be though.
Woodson’s always going to be in those record books, in photos around Assembly Hall and in your parents’ or grandparents’ stories of their times at Indiana University. He’s part of the fabric of the program and why it has such a lofty pedigree to begin with.
These two versions of the one Mike Woodson, the player and the coach, each spent four years at IU with one tenure considerably more successful than the other. One way or another, he found success and deserves to be remembered for that.
But nothing’s going to erase this season or last either. Those disappointments are also written in the history. But for Woodson, that’s two years compared to six years of good to great results.
So, when you look back on Mike Woodson, the Indiana Hoosier, it’ll be fair to mention how his coaching tenure ended.
But be sure to mention the player who, upon hearing he’d been left off the All-Big Ten first team list by the league’s coaches, erupted for 48 points against Illinois. The one who led the United States to a gold medal in the 1979 Pan-American games. The one who returned from injury and lit up Iowa.
Or the coach who brought Indiana to its first postseason in years. The one who helped Trayce Jackson-Davis develop into one of the best players in the country and in program history. The one who swept one of the greatest Purdue teams of all time and gave reason to feel excited about a men’s basketball team for the first time in a while.
The one who provided Race Thompson with a welcoming environment during his injury rehab ahead of his G-League debut. The one who stopped by one of the Assembly Hall tunnels just outside of the media room to sign autographs and wish fans a Merry Christmas.
That’s Mike Woodson. The Indiana Hoosier.