It could be something in the air or the water. Maybe it's the large amount of potholes.
Perhaps it's just that appealing here.
With the possibility of former president Blaine Brownell coming back to Ball State, it goes to show that the university offers more to its students, faculty, staff and community residents than we often give it credit for.
In the midst (or should we say, settling) of all the negative attention Ball State's seen in the past year and a half, there's still something there that keeps alumni coming back and attracting high school students in.
For whatever reason, a lot of us find our home here.
If it's not a "home," by definition, it's at least a niche. Somewhere where our environment and climate, in the not-so-geological senses of the words, appeal to some at such an extraordinary level that we're pulled in to the point that we never really let go.
Case and point: Men's Tennis Coach Bill Richards, who is just two games away from setting a milestone of 500 career wins. Richards is in his 33rd year of coaching the Cardinals, a position he took on July 14, 1972.
Most of today's students weren't even alive then.
During his interview, Steve Rodecap, a Ball State tennis alumnus and now coach at Marquette, commented on how incredibly loyal Richards is. He'd have to be to want to stay more than three decades.
"I've never even looked at another job and will not," Richards said. "We're definitely going to finish it out here."
It could be the people he works with, as well.
"It sounds kind of corny, but it's always been a family type of a program," Richards said, speaking of the alumni he credits much of his success to.
Meanwhile, there is also word Blaine Brownell may return to Ball State next year to teach, not even two years after he left his post as the university's president. Though he says he has not entered into any official talks with the school, Brownell said he still thinks highly of Muncie.
"We haven't been back as often as we've wanted to," Brownell said.
There's something only a Ball State alumnus (in some way, shape or form) would say about Muncie.
Richards and Brownell are not alone, though. If home is truly where the heart is, it says a lot about some of Ball State's most enduring faculty and staff. There are surely more of them out there who have put in countless hours of work because of their dedication to this university and its students. There are even larger amount of alumni in the work force who still continue to give Ball State the praise it receives today, let alone the group's financial support.
They love this university and continue to give to it, if for nothing else because of what it has given to them. Because to all of these aforementioned people -- and so many more -- Ball State is more than a university.
It's also a home.
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