25 years ago, NCAA left Kansas and moved its headquarters to Indy. Here's how it happened. (2024)

INDIANAPOLIS -- It was March 1997, and the city was putting on a splendid Final Four men's basketball tournament in the RCA Dome. The politicians and civic leaders were there beaming with pride, well aware the suits in Kansas were watching all of this very closely.

Indianapolis just so happened to be in a battle against some of the largest cities in the United States to land the headquarters of the NCAA, which at the time called Overland Park, Kansas home.

As the Arizona Wildcats clawed to win their first NCAA title against Kentucky at the dome, Indy was about to learn it had secured a victory of its own.

In what, at the time, was a surprise for a city still trying to prove it could compete with the big guys, Indy beat out a slew of major cities, including Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Phoenix, Kansas City, Orlando and San Antonio and was chosen as the location for the NCAA's new national headquarters on May 31, 1997.

"I was stunned when I learned of the NCAA's decision," Bill Benner, an IndyStar sports columnist wrote at the time. "Though I had heard through various sources that the NCAA types were extremely high on Indy's bid after the Final Four in late March."

Whatever swayed the vote, Indy was ecstatic.

"This is extraordinary," said the late Jim Morris, who at the time was chairman of the city's water company and a member of the local NCAA relocation committee. "This will go down in history of one of the most memorable days for the state of Indiana."

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Of course, there were the cynics who declared the $50 million the city had to come up with for the new headquarters was over the top, too high a price to pay for some college athletic organization's digs.

But Benner made a very public prediction in his column all those years ago.

"My belief is that it will pay for itself many times over," he wrote, "from the intangible of increased stature and credibility it gives to Indianapolis' amateur sports movement to the very real dollars it will attract."

On Tuesday, the city celebrated the 25th anniversary of the NCAA calling Indy home -- it opened its doors in the summer of 1999 -- in a ceremony held outside the original headquarters' entrance.

Mayor Joe Hogsett spoke of all the college sporting events the city has hosted since 1999 -- including eight men's Final Fours and three women's Final Fours -- and declared Aug. 13, 2024, NCAA day in Indianapolis.

"If the NCAA wasn't here," President Charlie Baker said, "it should be here."

Roots in a downtown Chicago hotel

When the NCAA was founded in 1906, it shared office space with the Big Ten Conference in a downtown Chicago hotel, which was seen by some as a bit of a bias on the part of the association which was supposed to represent all sports conferences and divisions.

"In an effort to maintain impartiality within the membership, NCAA executive director Walter Byers moved the national headquarters to his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, in 1952," the NCAA writes of its history.

The national office remained in its downtown Fairfax Building location until 1964, when it moved into the Midland Theatre.In 1973, the NCAA moved to Shawnee Mission Parkway in Mission, Kansas, and then relocated six miles away to Overland Park, Kansas, in 1990.

"As the NCAA began growing beyond the seams of its Overland Park office building," the organization says, "then-NCAA executive director Cedric Dempsey formed a task force in July 1996 to study moving its national headquarters."

The story goes that Morris was playing golf with Dempsey at the Burning Tree Club outside Washington, D.C., in 1995 when Dempsey mentioned a little tidbit of information.

“I was riding in the golf cart with him, and he said, ‘Jim, do you think Indianapolis would have any interest in being the new headquarters of theNCAA?’” Morris told the IBJ in 2021. “I damn near fell out of the golf cart and said, ‘This would be wonderful.’”

Indy it was ... and then some

In July 1999, the NCAA moved its staff of 300 to the new four-story, 140,000-square-foot building on West Washington Street, just next to the 35,000-square-foot NCAA Hall of Champions, which opened a few months later in March 2000.

In 2012, the organization outgrew its space and added a four-story building with an addition of 6,800 square feet to the original building.The expansion added about 140,000 square feet in all to the campus, according to the NCAA.

When it opened the second building, it named the original space the Dempsey Building and the new addition the Brand Building in honor of former NCAA president Myles Brand, who died in September 2009.

'A beautiful partnership'

"When the NCAA moved its headquarters to the White River State Park back in 1999, they brought a wave of prosperity along with them," Hogsett said. "This wave, of course, included a hugely positive economic impact on our city."

The NCAA has hosted more than 70 national championships in Indianapolis and brought in hundreds of millions of dollars.

But it's not just basketball and athletic events. The NCAA supports the community in innumerable ways, Hogsett said, giving back to the city through community-based programs, donations and volunteerism.

"It's a beautiful partnership," Baker said, "and I'm sure that it will be here 50 years from now, 25 years from now."

A $25K donation to celebrate

On Tuesday, the NCAA gave a $25,000 check to IPS to create 20 new workshops at seven middle schools for their athletes that will focus on social and emotional learning.

The gift will impact more than 1,000 athletes to foster a sense of belonging, enhance self-confidence, improve retention rates in both school and athletic programs, said Dr. Aleesia Johnson, superintendent of IPS.

"This will equip our students with the mental tools they need for success in sports, academics and, most importantly, life," she said. "Thank you to the NCAA for your generosity, for your commitment to our community, and for believing in the potential of our IPS student athletes in the same way that we do. Together we are building a brighter future for our students and our community."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via e-mail: dbenbow@indystar.com