Indiana’s first-ever national championship deserves a celebration that reaches every corner of Bloomington. This week, that’s exactly what’s happening. The College Football Playoff National Championship Trophy is coming home to the people who waited generations to see it, delivered in the most Indiana way imaginable.

Starting Wednesday from 4 to 7 p.m., the national championship trophy will be on display at the Kroger on South College Mall Road. This will be followed by a Thursday appearance at the Walmart on Indiana Highway 45 during the same hours.

It is the actual 26.5-inch, 35-pound trophy that was presented to Curt Cignetti after Indiana’s 27-21 victory over Miami. The trophy is 24-karat gold-plated. But to the people who’ll line up outside those stores, it’s priceless.​ The scenes that erupted across Bloomington Monday night showed just how much this championship means to Indiana faithful.

Kirkwood Avenue was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with overjoyed fans climbing light poles and dangling from rooftops. They chanted “Hoo Hoo Hoosiers” until police finally cleared the area around 1:15 a.m. 

Some fans set couches on fire in the street. Others wrecked the guttering at Nick’s English Hut, using it as a handhold to scale the building. The Empire State Building lit up in red and white to honor the Hoosiers. But Bloomington’s celebration was far more personal. 

Students who’d camped out overnight in freezing temperatures and locals who’d endured 25 years of mediocrity all converged downtown for the biggest party in Indiana football history. Assembly Hall hosted a watch party that drew thousands. Fans were waving white rally towels and screaming at referees as if their voices could carry all the way to Miami.​​

Bringing that trophy to Kroger and Walmart is a recognition that this championship belongs to every single person who believed in the impossible. Indiana became the first team in modern college football history to finish 16-0. This campaign capped a two-year turnaround that transformed the sport’s biggest laughingstock into its most unlikely champion. 

Cignetti’s famous “Google me” guarantee came true in spectacular fashion. But the fans who stuck around through 2-10 seasons and 3-8 disasters earned this moment just as much as the players did. So while other programs might showcase their hardware in climate-controlled trophy cases, Indiana’s taking it to the people.

And now, a century-old doctor who’s seen 76 seasons of heartbreak can finally see what she always knew was coming. And where the kid who froze overnight on Kirkwood can bring his grandma to witness college football’s holy grail next to the produce section.​

The value of the hardware

Nobody understands that value better than Dr. Phyllis Grant, the 100-year-old retired physician who’s been a season ticket holder for 76 years. One of the first women to graduate from IU’s School of Medicine, Grant started buying tickets in the 1950s to take her three children to games. She paid just five dollars for four season tickets back when the Hoosiers were “terrible.” She never stopped renewing, even through decades of losing seasons that would’ve broken most fans’ spirits.

“I just never did NOT renew them,” Grant said. When asked before the season about IU’s championship chances, she didn’t hesitate: “Well, of course, we are going to win it all. Not just the Big Ten, but the whole thing.”

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Now 100 years old and vindicated after three-quarters of a century, Grant represents thousands of fans who stuck with Indiana through the darkness. And they deserve to see that trophy at their local Kroger.​