James T. Morris is a key visionary in developing Indiana through his work at Indiana University, the NCAA, the United Nations Food Programme, and promoting athletics at all levels, including as vice chairman of Pacers Entertainment, Inc. He talks through his early experiences in government and his numerous other positions.
James Morris
Featured Leadership Topics
Understand Leadership
“I think leadership is about figuring out--with others--what needs to be done to make things better to move ahead, and finding ways to do it together. I talk a lot about seeing your opportunities in their largest context. ”
Description of the video:
Scarpino: Okay, so it’s another topic related to improving the city of Indianapolis in the Lugar Administration. Richard Lugar favored the creation of a university in downtown Indianapolis. He worked with community and political leaders and the presidents of Indiana University and Purdue University, and his goal was to establish a downtown university. And what ultimately happened was that IU and Purdue agreed to merge extension programs that they already had in the city. In 1969, the Trustees of IU agreed to combine the programs they had in Indianapolis, and Purdue did the same thing. As a member of the mayor’s staff, did you play any role, or play a role in the establishment of IUPUI?
Morris: Well, I don’t know. This was very important to Dick Lugar, very important to the city. He and I... maybe I kidded you about this before, but we used to say, “there’s no great city in the world without a great university.” And I don’t know whether I said it or he said it, but we gave him credit for it. And if I said it, I would have been inspired to say it because of him. IUPUI was, I think, about fourteen-hundred-fifty pieces of real estate were purchased to combine the campus, to make the campus possible. I don’t believe eminent domain was ever used. There may have been two or three, but I don’t believe so. Now, the threat was probably always there, but we had good support from the legislature. Larry Borst was very helpful, and he was chairman, and Maury Mills, they were chairmen of Budget and Finance. Larry Borst always dreamed of IUPUI being called the University of Indianapolis. And Gene Sease, he called me one morning about nine-thirty, ten o’clock, he said, “Jim, later today I’m going to rename Indiana Central University, the University of Indianapolis.” And Larry Borst to his dying day never got over that.
Scarpino: He did launch a pre-emptive strike, didn’t he, to get that name?
Morris: He did. He got it done. I’m sure I was involved in a hundred ways of helping, and sort of reflecting the mayor’s position on things. And I was a Trustee of IU for fifteen years and worked very hard to move all that forward. Still working on it today. IU, as you know, is the administrative manager of the campus right now. The Purdue faculty get an IU paycheck. But Purdue grads get a Purdue degree. The campus, I was trying to think, the campus in Fort Wayne was maybe always managed by Purdue. But, then the IU campus in Fort Wayne was an extension for a time of the IUPUI campus, as is the extension in Columbus, it’s only architecture there. In the middle of all this comes along this new model of medical education where, instead of starting another medical school somewhere, you can get your, then, first two years, and now all four years, got about six or eight places around the state – Terre Haute, Ball State, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Gary. I don’t know if Richmond and New Albany have that. Evansville now has that. That was very creative. You know, there was, I mean the politics of this... the people in Bloomington were unhappy, they felt this was going to dilute the resources coming to Bloomington. There were people here who wanted it to be completely independent right off the bat. And the notion that you could earn an IU or Purdue degree here made the degree more valuable than the University of Central Indiana or whatever. But the last forty years, two-hundred-sixty-, two-hundred-eighty-thousand degrees have been awarded. And most of those young people have stayed in the state of Indiana. IUPUI now has the largest research budget in the state, more than Notre Dame, Purdue or Bloomington, primarily because of the medical school. The Herron School was brought in. Obviously, the medical school, largest medical school in the country, largest nursing school, largest dental school in the country. There was a time when the Indianapolis law firms would never even consider interviewing a graduate of the IUPUI Law School. Now they clamor to get...
Scarpino: Stand in line...
Morris: Stand in line, exactly. There are pieces at IUPUI, the Lilly School of Philanthropy is as fine a program as there is in the country. The faculty, the liberal arts faculty is very good. The Kelley programs are very good. And, you know, Purdue has several thousand graduates each year in science, engineering, technology, so this has been a very good thing. I’m in favor of this sort of new, you know, what’s been suggested now, I think bringing more… they’re hopeful that more Purdue engineering students will come here. Purdue is not able to... the number of applicants Purdue has in engineering and science and technology has just exploded, and this will enable them to take more students. The same with Kelley. So, the potential to have really one of the great urban universities in the world is here. It’s exciting.
Scarpino: Do you think that Richard Lugar had that in mind?
Morris: Yeah, I do. I think he knew that if this was going to be a great city, we had to have a great university. I mean, if Eli Lilly and Company, which you could not overstate the importance, it touches every Hoosier every day, it has to have graduate education. You know, they speak fifteen languages at the Lilly headquarters. You’ve got students from all over the world now. There are a lot of footnotes, but he knew how important this was. Now, whether he grasped the entire magnitude of the opportunity and the need, the business community knows how important this is. I think they also don’t know exactly how to help get it there. And the politics of people that live in Seymour or living in Kentland, Indiana, they go, “well, Indianapolis gets everything.” And of course that's nonsense. You know we’re at the bottom of the distribution of highway funds, and compared to what we generate, and this is really important.
Scarpino: In 1972, Mayor Lugar used a combination of public and private money to fund the renovation of the City Market in the downtown. I understand that Eli Lilly made a substantial gift to the city to help fund the renovation. Did you play a role in the negotiations that led up to the funding and renovation of the City Market?
Morris: Yes, this is just a great story. When Dick was elected in 1967, there was a remarkable man by the name of Frank Murray. Frank Murray had been president of the Indiana Taxpayers Association. He was quite a man, quite a guy. He lived at about 3700 Pennsylvania, one of those big old square houses, and I spent a lot of time with him in 1967. He was for Lugar. But he had stopped every bond issue. He had the ability to go out and get a petition signed. So, Dick, masterful, gave him the job ‘market master.’
Scarpino: Of City Market?
Morris: And he became the head of the City Market. And he became as passionate about that as he was about stopping bond issues. He was a great, in the tradition of William Jennings Bryant, great orator, just talked. We were thinking about things to do with the magnificent catacombs under the City Market. Dealing with the tenants, stand-holders of the City Market, a very independent group, and they really would rather be left alone. And yet, if the slightest leak in the roof or whatever, they would be the first to be very unhappy. It was also the time that the train station, do we renovate that or...
Scarpino: Union Station in downtown?
Morris: Union Station, yes. Andy Jacobs had always been strongly opposed to that. So, Dick Lugar made an appointment with Mr. Lilly to go down and see him to ask for help on some of this. And Mr. Lilly had a great interest in historical landmarks, a wonderful human being. Dick had an appointment with him at nine o’clock in the morning. And Dick arrives precisely at nine o’clock. And, so I’m told, Mr. Lilly was overwhelmed, impressed, surprised that a politician would show up on time. So, Mr. Lilly, I don’t remember, I should, whether it came from the Endowment or him personally, but he gave five-million dollars to restore the City Market. On that, that moved forward, and then that became a part of the… one of the big decisions that we made was to build Market Square Arena. I remember going into the mayor’s office one morning about ten o’clock, stopping on the way to bring John Walls with me, and I said, “Dick, someday somebody’s going to build a new arena in our city. Either you’re going to do it and get it done, or somebody else will do it.” Dick Lugar loved the Indiana high school basketball tournament. When he was at Shortridge, he was a stringer for the Indianapolis Star for Bob Collins, and he was a stringer covering high school basketball games. He played on the basketball team at Oxford, at Pembroke College. So, he decided to build the Market Square Arena.
Scarpino: That was your idea, or you encouraged him to move in that direction.
Morris: I wouldn’t say... yeah, I strongly encouraged him. I don’t want the credit for it, but I strongly encouraged him. I said, “Hey, if we’re going to do this, then let’s get on with it, or we’re not.” And he said, “Okay.” But the high school basketball tournament finals had been moved to West Lafayette or Bloomington because Hinkle wasn’t big enough.
Scarpino: Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler campus.
Morris: Yes. And, so, he badly wanted the high school tournament to be played in the state capitol. He was also very interested in the Pacers. But I do believe, at the end of the day, the high school tournament was as important, if not more so, than the Pacers.
Scarpino: And they were playing in the Coliseum up at the fairgrounds, which was not a palace.
Morris: That’s correct. And it seated eight- or nine-thousand, and Market Square seated seventeen-thousand-five-hundred and was about two-hundred-seventy-five thousand square feet. Our building is eight-hundred-seventy-five-thousand square feet. So, this was paid for in large part by federal revenue-sharing. The deal was, it would be connected to the City Market, and the Gold Building on the northwest corner would be built. And then on the northeast corner there was to be a hotel. And it was sort of the precursor of tax-increment financing. The northeast corner was never built. It’s now been built, but we were able to... we owned a good bit of the land, so there was very little land cost. We bridged the street, so we didn’t have to pay for the air costs there. And then we connected into the City Market. I don’t think that was ever really effective...
Scarpino: The connection to City Market...
Morris: Yes. I could be wrong. But that brought the Pacers and all the entertainment, hundreds of events downtown. So, the Market gets improved, but the Market is a very different place than it was then. There were lots of stand-holders then. Big decision to move that downtown.
Scarpino: To move the Pacers downtown to Market Square Arena.
Morris: To build Market Square, yeah.
Scarpino: What made it a big decision?
Morris: Well, I mean, the downtown is the most important part of any community. When you go anywhere and travel, your image and impression of the city is based on what you see in the downtown.
Scarpino: Right.
Morris: And this suddenly brought many more people downtown to enjoy events. We had no restaurants to speak of, a couple. We had no hotels. And now, the last couple of years, USA Today has said that Indianapolis is the most important convention city in America. Eighty-one thousand people employed in the hotel industry and entertainment.
Scarpino: Just so we get this in here for somebody who uses this, ground was broken for Market Square in ’71. It opened in September of ’74. It cost about twenty-three million dollars.
Morris: About twenty-three million.
Scarpino: The city contributed about sixteen million of that?
Morris: And I think that came from revenue sharing, didn’t it?
Scarpino: I believe so. When Market Square opened, it was the fifth largest sports arena in the United States. You mentioned it hosted the men’s college Final Four in 1980, and then all kinds of concerts and cultural activities and circuses. I went to the rodeo there when I first moved to Indianapolis...
Define Your Vision
“Yes, I see myself as someone who has high aspirations and expectations and hopes for the things that I am a part of that I care most about. And then I thoroughly enjoy, and I’ve gotten my strength… my ability to do this has grown each year over the years.”
Description of the video:
Scarpino: Okay, so it’s another topic related to improving the city of Indianapolis in the Lugar Administration. Richard Lugar favored the creation of a university in downtown Indianapolis. He worked with community and political leaders and the presidents of Indiana University and Purdue University, and his goal was to establish a downtown university. And what ultimately happened was that IU and Purdue agreed to merge extension programs that they already had in the city. In 1969, the Trustees of IU agreed to combine the programs they had in Indianapolis, and Purdue did the same thing. As a member of the mayor’s staff, did you play any role, or play a role in the establishment of IUPUI?
Morris: Well, I don’t know. This was very important to Dick Lugar, very important to the city. He and I... maybe I kidded you about this before, but we used to say, “there’s no great city in the world without a great university.” And I don’t know whether I said it or he said it, but we gave him credit for it. And if I said it, I would have been inspired to say it because of him. IUPUI was, I think, about fourteen-hundred-fifty pieces of real estate were purchased to combine the campus, to make the campus possible. I don’t believe eminent domain was ever used. There may have been two or three, but I don’t believe so. Now, the threat was probably always there, but we had good support from the legislature. Larry Borst was very helpful, and he was chairman, and Maury Mills, they were chairmen of Budget and Finance. Larry Borst always dreamed of IUPUI being called the University of Indianapolis. And Gene Sease, he called me one morning about nine-thirty, ten o’clock, he said, “Jim, later today I’m going to rename Indiana Central University, the University of Indianapolis.” And Larry Borst to his dying day never got over that.
Scarpino: He did launch a pre-emptive strike, didn’t he, to get that name?
Morris: He did. He got it done. I’m sure I was involved in a hundred ways of helping, and sort of reflecting the mayor’s position on things. And I was a Trustee of IU for fifteen years and worked very hard to move all that forward. Still working on it today. IU, as you know, is the administrative manager of the campus right now. The Purdue faculty get an IU paycheck. But Purdue grads get a Purdue degree. The campus, I was trying to think, the campus in Fort Wayne was maybe always managed by Purdue. But, then the IU campus in Fort Wayne was an extension for a time of the IUPUI campus, as is the extension in Columbus, it’s only architecture there. In the middle of all this comes along this new model of medical education where, instead of starting another medical school somewhere, you can get your, then, first two years, and now all four years, got about six or eight places around the state – Terre Haute, Ball State, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Gary. I don’t know if Richmond and New Albany have that. Evansville now has that. That was very creative. You know, there was, I mean the politics of this... the people in Bloomington were unhappy, they felt this was going to dilute the resources coming to Bloomington. There were people here who wanted it to be completely independent right off the bat. And the notion that you could earn an IU or Purdue degree here made the degree more valuable than the University of Central Indiana or whatever. But the last forty years, two-hundred-sixty-, two-hundred-eighty-thousand degrees have been awarded. And most of those young people have stayed in the state of Indiana. IUPUI now has the largest research budget in the state, more than Notre Dame, Purdue or Bloomington, primarily because of the medical school. The Herron School was brought in. Obviously, the medical school, largest medical school in the country, largest nursing school, largest dental school in the country. There was a time when the Indianapolis law firms would never even consider interviewing a graduate of the IUPUI Law School. Now they clamor to get...
Scarpino: Stand in line...
Morris: Stand in line, exactly. There are pieces at IUPUI, the Lilly School of Philanthropy is as fine a program as there is in the country. The faculty, the liberal arts faculty is very good. The Kelley programs are very good. And, you know, Purdue has several thousand graduates each year in science, engineering, technology, so this has been a very good thing. I’m in favor of this sort of new, you know, what’s been suggested now, I think bringing more… they’re hopeful that more Purdue engineering students will come here. Purdue is not able to... the number of applicants Purdue has in engineering and science and technology has just exploded, and this will enable them to take more students. The same with Kelley. So, the potential to have really one of the great urban universities in the world is here. It’s exciting.
Scarpino: Do you think that Richard Lugar had that in mind?
Morris: Yeah, I do. I think he knew that if this was going to be a great city, we had to have a great university. I mean, if Eli Lilly and Company, which you could not overstate the importance, it touches every Hoosier every day, it has to have graduate education. You know, they speak fifteen languages at the Lilly headquarters. You’ve got students from all over the world now. There are a lot of footnotes, but he knew how important this was. Now, whether he grasped the entire magnitude of the opportunity and the need, the business community knows how important this is. I think they also don’t know exactly how to help get it there. And the politics of people that live in Seymour or living in Kentland, Indiana, they go, “well, Indianapolis gets everything.” And of course that's nonsense. You know we’re at the bottom of the distribution of highway funds, and compared to what we generate, and this is really important.
Scarpino: In 1972, Mayor Lugar used a combination of public and private money to fund the renovation of the City Market in the downtown. I understand that Eli Lilly made a substantial gift to the city to help fund the renovation. Did you play a role in the negotiations that led up to the funding and renovation of the City Market?
Morris: Yes, this is just a great story. When Dick was elected in 1967, there was a remarkable man by the name of Frank Murray. Frank Murray had been president of the Indiana Taxpayers Association. He was quite a man, quite a guy. He lived at about 3700 Pennsylvania, one of those big old square houses, and I spent a lot of time with him in 1967. He was for Lugar. But he had stopped every bond issue. He had the ability to go out and get a petition signed. So, Dick, masterful, gave him the job ‘market master.’
Scarpino: Of City Market?
Morris: And he became the head of the City Market. And he became as passionate about that as he was about stopping bond issues. He was a great, in the tradition of William Jennings Bryant, great orator, just talked. We were thinking about things to do with the magnificent catacombs under the City Market. Dealing with the tenants, stand-holders of the City Market, a very independent group, and they really would rather be left alone. And yet, if the slightest leak in the roof or whatever, they would be the first to be very unhappy. It was also the time that the train station, do we renovate that or...
Scarpino: Union Station in downtown?
Morris: Union Station, yes. Andy Jacobs had always been strongly opposed to that. So, Dick Lugar made an appointment with Mr. Lilly to go down and see him to ask for help on some of this. And Mr. Lilly had a great interest in historical landmarks, a wonderful human being. Dick had an appointment with him at nine o’clock in the morning. And Dick arrives precisely at nine o’clock. And, so I’m told, Mr. Lilly was overwhelmed, impressed, surprised that a politician would show up on time. So, Mr. Lilly, I don’t remember, I should, whether it came from the Endowment or him personally, but he gave five-million dollars to restore the City Market. On that, that moved forward, and then that became a part of the… one of the big decisions that we made was to build Market Square Arena. I remember going into the mayor’s office one morning about ten o’clock, stopping on the way to bring John Walls with me, and I said, “Dick, someday somebody’s going to build a new arena in our city. Either you’re going to do it and get it done, or somebody else will do it.” Dick Lugar loved the Indiana high school basketball tournament. When he was at Shortridge, he was a stringer for the Indianapolis Star for Bob Collins, and he was a stringer covering high school basketball games. He played on the basketball team at Oxford, at Pembroke College. So, he decided to build the Market Square Arena.
Scarpino: That was your idea, or you encouraged him to move in that direction.
Morris: I wouldn’t say... yeah, I strongly encouraged him. I don’t want the credit for it, but I strongly encouraged him. I said, “Hey, if we’re going to do this, then let’s get on with it, or we’re not.” And he said, “Okay.” But the high school basketball tournament finals had been moved to West Lafayette or Bloomington because Hinkle wasn’t big enough.
Scarpino: Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler campus.
Morris: Yes. And, so, he badly wanted the high school tournament to be played in the state capitol. He was also very interested in the Pacers. But I do believe, at the end of the day, the high school tournament was as important, if not more so, than the Pacers.
Scarpino: And they were playing in the Coliseum up at the fairgrounds, which was not a palace.
Morris: That’s correct. And it seated eight- or nine-thousand, and Market Square seated seventeen-thousand-five-hundred and was about two-hundred-seventy-five thousand square feet. Our building is eight-hundred-seventy-five-thousand square feet. So, this was paid for in large part by federal revenue-sharing. The deal was, it would be connected to the City Market, and the Gold Building on the northwest corner would be built. And then on the northeast corner there was to be a hotel. And it was sort of the precursor of tax-increment financing. The northeast corner was never built. It’s now been built, but we were able to... we owned a good bit of the land, so there was very little land cost. We bridged the street, so we didn’t have to pay for the air costs there. And then we connected into the City Market. I don’t think that was ever really effective...
Scarpino: The connection to City Market...
Morris: Yes. I could be wrong. But that brought the Pacers and all the entertainment, hundreds of events downtown. So, the Market gets improved, but the Market is a very different place than it was then. There were lots of stand-holders then. Big decision to move that downtown.
Scarpino: To move the Pacers downtown to Market Square Arena.
Morris: To build Market Square, yeah.
Scarpino: What made it a big decision?
Morris: Well, I mean, the downtown is the most important part of any community. When you go anywhere and travel, your image and impression of the city is based on what you see in the downtown.
Scarpino: Right.
Morris: And this suddenly brought many more people downtown to enjoy events. We had no restaurants to speak of, a couple. We had no hotels. And now, the last couple of years, USA Today has said that Indianapolis is the most important convention city in America. Eighty-one thousand people employed in the hotel industry and entertainment.
Scarpino: Just so we get this in here for somebody who uses this, ground was broken for Market Square in ’71. It opened in September of ’74. It cost about twenty-three million dollars.
Morris: About twenty-three million.
Scarpino: The city contributed about sixteen million of that?
Morris: And I think that came from revenue sharing, didn’t it?
Scarpino: I believe so. When Market Square opened, it was the fifth largest sports arena in the United States. You mentioned it hosted the men’s college Final Four in 1980, and then all kinds of concerts and cultural activities and circuses. I went to the rodeo there when I first moved to Indianapolis...
Navigate Change
“I think they’ve been terrific. But, I mean, the downtown is a much different place. IUPUI is a great university with the most powerful internal commitment from the university to take it to true greatness--with its partner at Purdue--than it’s ever had. ”
Description of the video:
Scarpino: Okay, so it’s another topic related to improving the city of Indianapolis in the Lugar Administration. Richard Lugar favored the creation of a university in downtown Indianapolis. He worked with community and political leaders and the presidents of Indiana University and Purdue University, and his goal was to establish a downtown university. And what ultimately happened was that IU and Purdue agreed to merge extension programs that they already had in the city. In 1969, the Trustees of IU agreed to combine the programs they had in Indianapolis, and Purdue did the same thing. As a member of the mayor’s staff, did you play any role, or play a role in the establishment of IUPUI?
Morris: Well, I don’t know. This was very important to Dick Lugar, very important to the city. He and I... maybe I kidded you about this before, but we used to say, “there’s no great city in the world without a great university.” And I don’t know whether I said it or he said it, but we gave him credit for it. And if I said it, I would have been inspired to say it because of him. IUPUI was, I think, about fourteen-hundred-fifty pieces of real estate were purchased to combine the campus, to make the campus possible. I don’t believe eminent domain was ever used. There may have been two or three, but I don’t believe so. Now, the threat was probably always there, but we had good support from the legislature. Larry Borst was very helpful, and he was chairman, and Maury Mills, they were chairmen of Budget and Finance. Larry Borst always dreamed of IUPUI being called the University of Indianapolis. And Gene Sease, he called me one morning about nine-thirty, ten o’clock, he said, “Jim, later today I’m going to rename Indiana Central University, the University of Indianapolis.” And Larry Borst to his dying day never got over that.
Scarpino: He did launch a pre-emptive strike, didn’t he, to get that name?
Morris: He did. He got it done. I’m sure I was involved in a hundred ways of helping, and sort of reflecting the mayor’s position on things. And I was a Trustee of IU for fifteen years and worked very hard to move all that forward. Still working on it today. IU, as you know, is the administrative manager of the campus right now. The Purdue faculty get an IU paycheck. But Purdue grads get a Purdue degree. The campus, I was trying to think, the campus in Fort Wayne was maybe always managed by Purdue. But, then the IU campus in Fort Wayne was an extension for a time of the IUPUI campus, as is the extension in Columbus, it’s only architecture there. In the middle of all this comes along this new model of medical education where, instead of starting another medical school somewhere, you can get your, then, first two years, and now all four years, got about six or eight places around the state – Terre Haute, Ball State, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Gary. I don’t know if Richmond and New Albany have that. Evansville now has that. That was very creative. You know, there was, I mean the politics of this... the people in Bloomington were unhappy, they felt this was going to dilute the resources coming to Bloomington. There were people here who wanted it to be completely independent right off the bat. And the notion that you could earn an IU or Purdue degree here made the degree more valuable than the University of Central Indiana or whatever. But the last forty years, two-hundred-sixty-, two-hundred-eighty-thousand degrees have been awarded. And most of those young people have stayed in the state of Indiana. IUPUI now has the largest research budget in the state, more than Notre Dame, Purdue or Bloomington, primarily because of the medical school. The Herron School was brought in. Obviously, the medical school, largest medical school in the country, largest nursing school, largest dental school in the country. There was a time when the Indianapolis law firms would never even consider interviewing a graduate of the IUPUI Law School. Now they clamor to get...
Scarpino: Stand in line...
Morris: Stand in line, exactly. There are pieces at IUPUI, the Lilly School of Philanthropy is as fine a program as there is in the country. The faculty, the liberal arts faculty is very good. The Kelley programs are very good. And, you know, Purdue has several thousand graduates each year in science, engineering, technology, so this has been a very good thing. I’m in favor of this sort of new, you know, what’s been suggested now, I think bringing more… they’re hopeful that more Purdue engineering students will come here. Purdue is not able to... the number of applicants Purdue has in engineering and science and technology has just exploded, and this will enable them to take more students. The same with Kelley. So, the potential to have really one of the great urban universities in the world is here. It’s exciting.
Scarpino: Do you think that Richard Lugar had that in mind?
Morris: Yeah, I do. I think he knew that if this was going to be a great city, we had to have a great university. I mean, if Eli Lilly and Company, which you could not overstate the importance, it touches every Hoosier every day, it has to have graduate education. You know, they speak fifteen languages at the Lilly headquarters. You’ve got students from all over the world now. There are a lot of footnotes, but he knew how important this was. Now, whether he grasped the entire magnitude of the opportunity and the need, the business community knows how important this is. I think they also don’t know exactly how to help get it there. And the politics of people that live in Seymour or living in Kentland, Indiana, they go, “well, Indianapolis gets everything.” And of course that's nonsense. You know we’re at the bottom of the distribution of highway funds, and compared to what we generate, and this is really important.
Scarpino: In 1972, Mayor Lugar used a combination of public and private money to fund the renovation of the City Market in the downtown. I understand that Eli Lilly made a substantial gift to the city to help fund the renovation. Did you play a role in the negotiations that led up to the funding and renovation of the City Market?
Morris: Yes, this is just a great story. When Dick was elected in 1967, there was a remarkable man by the name of Frank Murray. Frank Murray had been president of the Indiana Taxpayers Association. He was quite a man, quite a guy. He lived at about 3700 Pennsylvania, one of those big old square houses, and I spent a lot of time with him in 1967. He was for Lugar. But he had stopped every bond issue. He had the ability to go out and get a petition signed. So, Dick, masterful, gave him the job ‘market master.’
Scarpino: Of City Market?
Morris: And he became the head of the City Market. And he became as passionate about that as he was about stopping bond issues. He was a great, in the tradition of William Jennings Bryant, great orator, just talked. We were thinking about things to do with the magnificent catacombs under the City Market. Dealing with the tenants, stand-holders of the City Market, a very independent group, and they really would rather be left alone. And yet, if the slightest leak in the roof or whatever, they would be the first to be very unhappy. It was also the time that the train station, do we renovate that or...
Scarpino: Union Station in downtown?
Morris: Union Station, yes. Andy Jacobs had always been strongly opposed to that. So, Dick Lugar made an appointment with Mr. Lilly to go down and see him to ask for help on some of this. And Mr. Lilly had a great interest in historical landmarks, a wonderful human being. Dick had an appointment with him at nine o’clock in the morning. And Dick arrives precisely at nine o’clock. And, so I’m told, Mr. Lilly was overwhelmed, impressed, surprised that a politician would show up on time. So, Mr. Lilly, I don’t remember, I should, whether it came from the Endowment or him personally, but he gave five-million dollars to restore the City Market. On that, that moved forward, and then that became a part of the… one of the big decisions that we made was to build Market Square Arena. I remember going into the mayor’s office one morning about ten o’clock, stopping on the way to bring John Walls with me, and I said, “Dick, someday somebody’s going to build a new arena in our city. Either you’re going to do it and get it done, or somebody else will do it.” Dick Lugar loved the Indiana high school basketball tournament. When he was at Shortridge, he was a stringer for the Indianapolis Star for Bob Collins, and he was a stringer covering high school basketball games. He played on the basketball team at Oxford, at Pembroke College. So, he decided to build the Market Square Arena.
Scarpino: That was your idea, or you encouraged him to move in that direction.
Morris: I wouldn’t say... yeah, I strongly encouraged him. I don’t want the credit for it, but I strongly encouraged him. I said, “Hey, if we’re going to do this, then let’s get on with it, or we’re not.” And he said, “Okay.” But the high school basketball tournament finals had been moved to West Lafayette or Bloomington because Hinkle wasn’t big enough.
Scarpino: Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler campus.
Morris: Yes. And, so, he badly wanted the high school tournament to be played in the state capitol. He was also very interested in the Pacers. But I do believe, at the end of the day, the high school tournament was as important, if not more so, than the Pacers.
Scarpino: And they were playing in the Coliseum up at the fairgrounds, which was not a palace.
Morris: That’s correct. And it seated eight- or nine-thousand, and Market Square seated seventeen-thousand-five-hundred and was about two-hundred-seventy-five thousand square feet. Our building is eight-hundred-seventy-five-thousand square feet. So, this was paid for in large part by federal revenue-sharing. The deal was, it would be connected to the City Market, and the Gold Building on the northwest corner would be built. And then on the northeast corner there was to be a hotel. And it was sort of the precursor of tax-increment financing. The northeast corner was never built. It’s now been built, but we were able to... we owned a good bit of the land, so there was very little land cost. We bridged the street, so we didn’t have to pay for the air costs there. And then we connected into the City Market. I don’t think that was ever really effective...
Scarpino: The connection to City Market...
Morris: Yes. I could be wrong. But that brought the Pacers and all the entertainment, hundreds of events downtown. So, the Market gets improved, but the Market is a very different place than it was then. There were lots of stand-holders then. Big decision to move that downtown.
Scarpino: To move the Pacers downtown to Market Square Arena.
Morris: To build Market Square, yeah.
Scarpino: What made it a big decision?
Morris: Well, I mean, the downtown is the most important part of any community. When you go anywhere and travel, your image and impression of the city is based on what you see in the downtown.
Scarpino: Right.
Morris: And this suddenly brought many more people downtown to enjoy events. We had no restaurants to speak of, a couple. We had no hotels. And now, the last couple of years, USA Today has said that Indianapolis is the most important convention city in America. Eighty-one thousand people employed in the hotel industry and entertainment.
Scarpino: Just so we get this in here for somebody who uses this, ground was broken for Market Square in ’71. It opened in September of ’74. It cost about twenty-three million dollars.
Morris: About twenty-three million.
Scarpino: The city contributed about sixteen million of that?
Morris: And I think that came from revenue sharing, didn’t it?
Scarpino: I believe so. When Market Square opened, it was the fifth largest sports arena in the United States. You mentioned it hosted the men’s college Final Four in 1980, and then all kinds of concerts and cultural activities and circuses. I went to the rodeo there when I first moved to Indianapolis...
About James Morris
James Morris is an IU alumnus, trustee of Indiana University, and Vice Chairman of Pacers Sports & Entertainment. A native of Terre Haute, Indiana, Morris studied political science at IU Bloomington and was active in student government. When Indiana Senator Richard Lugar was mayor of Indianapolis, Morris served as chief of staff from 1967 to 1973, developing education and employment programs for the city's youth.
Morris served as president of the Lilly Endowment from 1984 to 2002, helping to revitalize downtown Indianapolis, strengthen Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, and involve private companies in public initiatives. In 2002, Morris was named the executive director of the United Nations' World Food Programme, overseeing food aid distribution to more than 110 million people each year in about 80 countries. In 2003, he led the biggest food operation in history, providing food to nearly 27 million Iraqis after the United States-led invasion of Iraq.
Morris became president of Pacer Sports & Entertainment in 2008. Throughout his career, he has lent his expertise to the American Red Cross, Butler University, the U.S. Olympic Committee, and other not-for-profit organizations. Former Senator and fellow Oral History Honoree, Richard Lugar said of Morris, “In his service in the World Food Program, and now with UNICEF, it is based upon humanitarian feelings about people all over the world. He has seen enormous suffering, and he has tried his very best to alleviate that through constructive programs and leadership.”
Born or Made?
“I think you learn to be a leader. Maybe somebody is born with special skills to be a great quarterback: stature, size, strength. But I don’t know if humans are born with an innate, inherent instinct to be helpful, to care, or to have integrity. And I think, through school, through your church, through your family, through your community, you learn to care and learn to think about what you hope for. And that’s acquiring the skill.”
Leaders Are Readers
“[Senator Goldwater] was a strong, independent person. He was a gentleman. He was patriotic. I had read his book 'The Conscience of a Conservative.' Hadn’t thought about that now for a long time. ”
Books I Recommend
- The Conscience of a Conservative
—by Barry M. Goldwater
Non-Fiction, Leadership
