Since 2016, Mike McDaniel has been a dedicated member of the Ball State Board of Trustees. He is also a proud two-time graduate of our University, where he met the professor who became the mentor who shaped his future career in state politics.
Mike recently finished his final legislative session as the executive director of governmental affairs for Krieg DeVault, a law firm based in Indianapolis. Before working for Krieg DeVault, Mike’s 51-year career in government relations and administration included his seven years of service as the chair of the Indiana Republican Party.
In this episode, Mike shares personal highlights of growing up in Muncie and his favorite memories of his time spent as a Ball State student. He also shares colorful stories about his career in politics, from running campaigns for state officials to favorite experiences with past U.S. Presidents.
Mike also discusses the time he spent working for his alma mater, serving as a liaison for lawmakers, along with accomplishments he’s most proud of achieving on behalf of Ball State in his roles as a political advocate and a trustee.
If you enjoy this episode, please leave a review to support the show.
Since 2016, Mike McDaniel has been a dedicated member of the Ball State Board of Trustees. He is also a proud two-time graduate of our University, where he met the professor who became the mentor who shaped his future career in state politics.
Mike recently finished his final legislative session as the executive director of governmental affairs for Krieg DeVault, a law firm based in Indianapolis. Before working for Krieg DeVault, Mike’s 51-year career in government relations and administration included his seven years of service as the chair of the Indiana Republican Party.
In this episode, Mike shares personal highlights of growing up in Muncie and his favorite memories of his time spent as a Ball State student. He also shares colorful stories about his career in politics, from running campaigns for state officials to favorite experiences with past U.S. Presidents.
Mike also discusses the time he spent working for his alma mater, serving as a liaison for lawmakers, along with accomplishments he’s most proud of achieving on behalf of Ball State in his roles as a political advocate and a trustee.
If you enjoy this episode, please leave a review to support the show.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Hello, I'm Geoff Mearns, and I have the good fortune to serve as the president of Ball State University. On today's episode of my podcast, I'm going to have a conversation with a Muncie native whose affinity for our university goes back to his childhood days and to his college years on our campus.
That's because my guest is Mike McDaniel, a two time Ball State graduate and a current member of our Board of Trustees. Mike's love for Ball State is deep and long standing. He is also well known for a long career in state politics. He has a deep background in government relations and administration, having served as the Indiana Republican State chairman from 1995 to 2002.
Mike also chaired the National Republican State Chairman Advisory Committee, and he served on the executive committee of the Republican National Committee. More recently, he finished his final legislative session serving as the Executive Director of governmental affairs for Krieg Devault, a law firm based in Indianapolis. And I'm grateful that Mike could sit down with me for this conversation just ahead of tomorrow's meeting of our Board of Trustees, and I look forward to asking him about his time at Ball State and his continued engagement over the years with his beloved alma mater.
So, Mike, it's a pleasure to welcome you to the podcast. Thank you for joining me in the studio this afternoon.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Great to be here. Thank you.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Well, we're glad to have you. So, people who listen to my podcast know that I like to begin by asking my guests about their upbringing, and I'm especially interested in yours since I understand you were you were practically raised on this campus. Tell us about growing up in Muncie and in and around Ball State and The Village.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, actually, I was born at Ball Memorial Hospital—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Right across the street.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
February 11th, 1951. I'm surprised there's not a plaque over there somewhere, but there’s not. I went to Emerson Elementary School, which is about three blocks from campus, which is now a dog park.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
(jokes) Progress.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
They tore it down to make a dog park. And I lived on Alameda Avenue, right across the street from Tuhey Park. So I went to Tuhey Park to play baseball, football, tennis, learned to swim there. Ice skated in the winter. Sledded there in the winter. So I loved living that close to the park and doing all that. But one of my favorite things to do was ride my bike around the Ball State campus back then. And that was always great fun. I would go to football games when they were held on the lawn across the street from Ball Memorial Hospital, and people would sit on the ground on blankets and stuff, and you could go right up there and watch the ball games.
I also went to baseball games there. The old baseball stadium had a cement stadium. That was a great old stadium, I wish we still had it. But the interesting thing about that was there was a cinder track around the football field. The cinder track went through the outfield of the baseball stadium, which made for some interesting baseball play. But I loved going to games over there as a kid, and so I'd ride my bike out there.
On Fridays at Emerson, you'd get an hour for lunch instead of the usual half hour. And so on Friday, my buddies and I would ride our bikes to The Village to go to the sweet shop and sit at the counter and eat sloppy joes sandwiches, and then buy all the candy we could with what money we had left over, and then ride our bikes back to Emerson Elementary, which was only a couple of blocks away.
The other thing we loved to do was to go to the Student Center to bowl and to play pool, and that's where I'd get a haircut.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Right.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
So I literally grew up on this campus back in the early 60s and loved every minute of it. And I knew every part of this campus. But my mom used to tell me to speed up when you're riding by the Sig Ep House. I don't know why she said that, but—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
You found out a few years later when you were a student.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Yeah.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
You know, you told me a story recently that I want you to share about uh ... you mentioned riding your bike—you told me a story about riding your bike through The Village one day, and you bought a Ball State Teachers College sweatshirt.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Actually—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Tell us about that story.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Actually, I used to love to go to the Student Center and then go into the bookstore when I was in there and look at all the Ball State swag: sweatshirts, t shirts, everything with Ball State Teachers College emblazoned on it. I'm in there one day, and I see this giant sign— had a table full of sweatshirts and t shirts, 60% off. I immediately rode my bike back home about five blocks, got the $7.50 that I'd saved up—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
That's a lot of money.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Rode back to the Student Center as fast as I could, because I wanted one of those sweatshirts with the Ball State Teachers College emblem on the front. Bought the sweatshirt and was so proud of my purchase that I took home. And the next day the headline in The Muncie Star was “Ball State Teachers College to become Ball State University.” The day after I'd bought the Ball State Teachers College sweatshirt. [laughs]
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
I wonder why they were 60% off. They knew something you didn’t.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Apparently. And, so I was just devastated. I’d spent my hard-earned $7.50 I got from taking in a lady’s paper while she was on vacation and spending it on a Ball State Teachers College sweatshirt. I wish I had that sweatshirt—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
I was going to say, do you still have that t-shirt? I mean, that sweatshirt?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Not that I could fit it on one arm today, but it was... I wish I did have that sweatshirt today.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Certainly it would have become a collector's item.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
But that was a huge deal for Ball State to become a university. And everybody was so proud that we're no longer connected at the hip with Indiana State. Originally, it was Indiana State. We were Indiana Normal, then went to... the legislature finally uncoupled us from ISU, and then eventually made us a university, which was great.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Yeah, and we've been on a wonderful trajectory ever since. So, you moved away from Muncie, but you’ve stay connected to Ball State. In fact, as I said in the intro, you earned two degrees from Ball State, a Bachelor of Science degree in ‘ 73 and a Master of Public Administration in 1979. So you shared some memories about growing up in Muncie. Tell us about some memories of your time on campus as a student and maybe in that same fraternity house.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, I was the first one of my family to go to college, and that was important to me. That my parents, who didn't have the opportunity to do that, they helped me with tuition. But I packed school books at DC Heath Publishing Company in Indianapolis every summer to make enough money for room and board. And back then, the goal each summer was to save $2,500 to cover all my room and board for the year, you know
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
A little more expensive today.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Exactly. But that's what I did to get by with it. I loved my time at Ball State. my first two years I lived at Howick Hall in the Noyer Complex, and I loved the dorm life and Howick, over in Noyer. I lived on the second floor, on the corner, right across the street from the Med Center.
And we used to say we saw people go into the Med Center, but we never saw anybody come out of the Med Center, which is kind of a scary thing.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
So the goal was not to do anything that would get you—
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
That's exactly right. Then I broke an ankle and they dropped me on the way, and they had take me to the Med Center ... so I'm glad to be here at all today. So anyway, but uh, second floor, my room was next to the study lounge, which was one continuous double deck euchre/poker game the entire two years I was in Howick Hall. I don't think they'd ever shut down. It was right next to my door, and here's the study room.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
The game kept going continuously—
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Yeah, always. I mean, there was always a game going on in there. And also in that time, I picked up a nickname that I've never had anywhere else. You were asked to put your name on the door of your dorm room. Well, my name is Michael Don McDaniel, and I put M.D. McDaniel. I immediately became Doc, and to this day, all my buddies that I went to Ball State with, when I see him ‘em, “Doc, how are you?” People around me go, “Why they calling you Doc?”
And I go, “M.D. McDaniel, and so it's funny how stuff like that when you go to school—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
How it sticks.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
It sticks, and goes on, but I was MD McDaniel. I was active in intramural sports. We had a great—we were dorm champs in football, in flag football, we were dorm champs in softball. Played basketball till I messed up my ankle. So I had great fun doing intramural sports for the two years I was there. But here's one of my favorites: We used to have fire drills about once a month, where they would have everybody evacuate the dorms, Klipple...the ladies on the other end of the building. The men out of Howick and so and so on. Well, every time they do it, I would open my window, put Chicago on the stereo, and put the speaker as loud as I could turn it on, and they became dance parties.
We would be out there until the album was, even though they told us, you can go back in, we'd stay out there with everybody, and they became dance parties outside of Howick Hall for fire drills. And we had so much fun doing that. It kind of became a tradition. People expected me to turn on the stereo and be there for the fire drills and have a party. So it was a lot of fun.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
So you were both a doc and a disc jockey?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
That's true. But here's the other thing that happened while I was here: When I first started here and lived in the dorm, women had hours. If they lived in Klipple Hall, if they weren't in by 11 o’clock, they were in deep trouble and you could get reprimanded and all kinds of other things. But men did not have hours, which is just so wrong on so many levels. But women did. Well, the second year I was there, they eliminated women's hours. So what happened? The night that they said there are no longer hours, the men were so, you know, so what .... We all stayed in the dorms while the women were all outside running around yelling at the guys in the dorm, because we're going to show them it's not that big a deal, you know?
But that was a time when women had hours in dorms and they stopped doing it the second year I was here, which was a big deal. I met a girl, from Indianapolis, that I dated the whole time I was at Ball State, who, uh, I think I decided I wanted to date her because she looked just like Ali MacGraw. And you gotta remember, in 1970, the big movie...
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Love Story.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Love Story.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Erich Segal.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Remember when she said ... He said, “I'm so sorry.” And she said, “Love means never having to say you're sorry.” And everybody in the audience went, “What? What did that mean?” But anyway, I dated this gal the whole time I was at Ball State who looked like Ali MacGraw.
And it was uh.... we had a lot of fun. I had great professors at Ball State.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Do you remember one in particular?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, I'm going to get to that. I just, I enjoyed my classes very much, especially my political science classes. And back then in undergrad, you also had to have a certain amount of phys ed credits. And so I took golf.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Yeah.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Makes sense. I took volleyball.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Right.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Taught by Don Shondell.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Coach Shondell.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Who is the—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Legendary.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Legendary coach and teacher in the world and loved Don Shondell. And then I also took walking.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
How did that go for you?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, things were going well, except back then they used to send your grades home. I got a B in walking.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
You got a B in walking.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
My dad was so proud of me for getting a B. He got the grades and he said, “I’m spending this money, and you got a B in walking?” I said, “Well, Dad, I did all the walking. But you're supposed to keep a journal every day. And I didn't do all the journaling. So he knocked me down from an A to a B, and he didn't seem to buy that story whatsoever.”
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
And I know how you collect items. Do you still have that report card?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
I wish I did. I'm sure somewhere in my mom's estate, which my sister has all that stuff, I'm sure somewhere that... I would like to dig out that ... and frame that B in walking I got.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
I know you have lots of memorabilia from your career, which we'll get to, but yes, you should frame that one.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Yeah.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
That was a time, when you arrived here, and then the early 70s when you were here, that was a time of a lot of activity on campuses all across the country related to the Vietnam War.
Do you remember what Ball State campus was like during that time?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
I was sitting out here, outside the back of the Ad building just a little while ago, and I'm looking out at the green there where they’re setting up for graduation, and all I could think about was when I was here at Ball State, when they shot four students at Kent State.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Right. Which was 1970, May of 1970.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And all I could remember was walking by that building while I was here, thinking, “Kent State can't be that much different than Ball State, and for four kids to die on campus because of a protest?” Of course, the governor of Ohio at the time, was pretty notorious, and proud of himself for being tough on demonstrators. But that time period, you know, and of course, Nixon and the Vietnam War and the whole thing ... I mean, it was it a pretty... but we didn't have a lot of demonstrations on campus. We had some. but not very many. But it was a turbulent time.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Yeah. So tell us, I think you were going to tell us about maybe a particular professor who influenced your career?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
One of the professors I absolutely loved was a young man who came here from Missouri, Doctor Tad Perry, who ended up being the head of the political science department. And Doctor Perry end up being a lifelong mentor to me. And, uh, his first course he taught at Ball State was a course called Rural/Local Government.
And when I went in to look at the potential class I thought, Boy, this has got to be the most boring class in the history of political science classes. Because he was a small town councilman from a small town in Missouri. Like it was like, listening to stories about Mayberry. And uh, and it was really fun. I mean, he made it fun because he was telling real stories about what happened when he was on the council in that small town in Missouri.
And after that, I took every class Doc Perry offered in the political science department and, you'll see, as we talk later, about what a difference he's made in my life.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Yeah. Did your parents influence your interest in politics or government?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
My grandfather, who was a Muncie policeman, was Archie Bunker before Archie Bunker was Archie Bunker. I mean, he was a very hard-nosed, conservative Republican. In fact, I was at Ball State before I realized that the word Democrat didn't always have two other words in front of it.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
[laughs[ Which we will not repeat on this—
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
That’s how hard-nosed he was. But anyway, he was a major influence. My parents used to cancel each other out in every election. My mom, being my grandfather's daughter, was a Republican, hard-nosed, and my dad was a Democrat. And so they'd cancel each other out every year. And so, but the real—the real difference for me was, after that one, Doctor Perry got me involved in the program that led to my trajectory of 51 years in politics.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Yeah, and it’s a long career. We'll talk a little bit about it. When you said your parents canceled each other out when they voted, did you talk politics at dinner table?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
No. They hardly ever talked politics at home. Now, I’d go to grandpa's house, you know, Barry Goldwater was going to be the next president, you know, blah, blah, blah and on and on. In fact, did you know Mrs. Goldwater was from Muncie?
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
I did not know that.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And Barry Goldwater and Mrs. Goldwater were married in Muncie.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
There you go.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
There you go. More than you ever wanted to know.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
No. That's an interesting fact that we've shared with the folks here today. So, maybe you were alluding to this just a moment ago, but when you were a graduate student here at Ball State, you became an intern at the State House for Senator John Mutz. And I think that was 1974. And as we've mentioned, you've been involved in politics and with the Indiana General Assembly ever since. 50 years. Tell us about that initial internship and about the—
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, I was a graduate student and Dr. Perry, I couldn't work it out to be an intern in the legislature as an undergrad, and Tad Perry hounded me and said, “You got to go do this.” And so as a grad student, I did. And Ball State ran the entire intern program at the legislature at the time, because Ball State was on a quarter system and it was the only school that was willing to give enough academic—in the short session, you could go for a quarter—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
From like January to March?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Right. And in the long session you could go for two quarters, and they'd make you write a paper to make sure you got all the work in you needed to get in. But Ball State was the only one doing it. So I did as a grad student and loved it. I was assigned three state senators: one was John Mutz from Indianapolis, one was Jim Gardner from Fowler, Indiana, and the other was John Shawley from Michigan City.
And if you ever saw Professor Kingsfield—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Three-piece suit ...
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
John Houseman was John Shawley. Bow ties and the whole thing. I mean, he looked like him every day, you know, same black suit, white shirt, black tie, that kind of thing. But those were my three, and I loved it because they were from three different parts of the state. And interns used to help do constituent work. So I got to know about each of those parts of the state. And because Indiana has a citizen legislature, their only staff is their intern and their secretary.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Right.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
So it was important, so could be important work, if you were taught to work the way it needed to be done to help them. So interns really had a pretty good role to play. And then after my internship, my first job, and I'm trying to tell you how I got to 51 years in this business ... My first job was research director of the city-county council of Indianapolis, which I did for a year out of school. And then the president pro tem of the Senate called me one day and said, “Mike, we want you to come over, be an assistant to Mutz, be my assistant as president prom tem and run the Senate Republican intern program.”
I said, “Can I start tomorrow?” He said, “Yeah.” So I ran those programs and worked for Mutz. Then Mutz decided he wanted to—and actually, Mutz had a primary race for a state Senate seat against Dan Burton, who eventually became a congressman. I wrote my master's paper on the race between John Mutz and Dan Burton. Kept little stack of note cards at work, and at the end of every day, I'd write down stuff, wrote the paper about that. And that was quite an experience. And then Mutz wanted to for lieutenant governor. Asked me to run his campaign, and we had a four-way race for lieutenant governor primary, and we won. We beat the Speaker of the House, Representative Kermit Burrous, from up in Mexico, Indiana. And we beat Ralph VanNatta from Shelbyville, who ran the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Now, what was important about that was back then, the county chairman of the party in power got to run the license branches.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Pretty good job.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And they made money enough to go to take a trip to Florida every year, buy a new car every year. You talk about the ultimate political opportunity, that was it. So Ralph was a very popular figure inside the party, because he ran that and then you had the Speaker of the House ... Well, we beat them. And there was another guy that got in by the name of Gary Benson.
I'm not going to tell you how he got in it, but let's just say that he was in it to siphon off enough of the idiots who voted for the first name on the ballot, which would have been Kermit Burroughs.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
A little strategy.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
(laughs) So that made the difference. I think we end up winning about 11,000 votes statewide. And, uh, so then I became chief of staff for the lieutenant governor for seven years. And then, uh—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
For seven years? For almost two terms?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Yeah. And, that was a time when we had unemployment in places like Muncie, Kokomo, and Marion at 17, 18%.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
This was because of the decline of manufacturing in some of these communities.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Right. In the early ‘80s, there was such a recession that it really affected manufacturing states like Indiana. So our job was to, as lieutenant governor, since he was head of the Department of Commerce, was to come up with legislation to help reverse that trend. And we passed 46 pieces of economic development legislation in those seven years. And then, two people I hired to do that for us, one in the House and the other in the Senate, Thor Miller from Muncie, who was an intern I hired, did the House, working with Muncie Speaker J. Roberts Daley.
And then in the Senate, I hired Diane Parsons, an intern I hired from Crown Point to do the Senate work. And so I had two Ball State interns doing that work in the lieutenant governor's office. And they did amazing, amazing work.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
So is that how you created the internship program and its affiliation with Ball State?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
No, it was done. Because I started there as an intern. It was in place and Tad Perry was running it. But then I took over the Senate program, and one of the things I initiated was boot camp for interns.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
What was that like?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, it was a two week thing that before they were going to meet their legislators, where I would have education programs every day, quizzes the next day, every day, trying to get them ready so that when legislators did arrive, they didn't have two weeks or a month to get up to speed. I wanted them to be able to serve their senator the day they got there. And so, I'm still getting jokes from former interns about intern boot camp. But, uh, but it worked. I mean, they were ready, and we served them well, and some of my, some of my favorite interns from that time, of course Thor Miller and Diane I talked about...but then, in ’88, Mutz wanted to run for governor, and he asked me to run his campaign for governor against Evan Bayh.
And we lost to Evan Bayh in one of the closest elections. Of course, he was the son of the famous Birch Bayh, the Senator from Indiana. Every time we’d do a survey saying is experience important? They’d say, yes, very important. And then when we’d say, well, are you planning on voting for Evan Bayh, they’d say yes, because they thought they were voting for Birch Bayh.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Right.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And so they ended up beating us by a very small margin. At that point, I needed a job because I, you know, and so the governor appointed me as the executive director of the Election Commission, which I had for six months. I'll never forget the first day I showed up up there, some dumpy old office up on North Meridian Street in Indianapolis. I walk into the second floor building and here are about four ladies sitting around with Cokes in their hands, watching soap operas on TV, and I said, “Hey, I’m your new executive director.” I said, “Don't get up. I'm not going to be here that long.”
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
(laughs) And they didn't move.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
I don’t think they moved the whole six months I was there, but that was the job I needed. And then I got a call from Dr. Tad Perry, who was also representing Ball State in the Statehouse, to pass legislation and to work on budget stuff. And so he said, well, could you—would you be interested in coming to work for me with Tom Kinghorn, who was the vice president of business affairs at the time, and with President Worthen. And I said, I'd love to. That'd be great. So he said, well, since you just ran a campaign for Mutz, we need to check with the Democrat Speaker of the House to see if that's okay with him. I said, fine, so they called Mike Phillips from Boonville, who was speaker of the House at the time. Mike said, absolutely, you ought to hire Mike. Which I've always been grateful to have the Democrat Speaker of the House say, yes, please hire Mike at Ball State.
And so, I went to work with Ball State. I was here from approximately ‘90 to ‘95. And then one day I went in, when there was an opening in the Republican state chairmanship, and I told Tom Kingman, I said, Tom, I want to run for state Republican chairman. And I never forget Tom said on purpose? I said, yes. And so I ran in a five way race for state chairman, and for the first time in my life, I was the lesser of evils to a group of committee people. And I got elected Republican state chairman, where I was for seven years. And then left there in 2002, to go to work Krieg DeVault, where I've been for 22 years, lobbying legislature for clients like state judges, NCAA, the Pacers, the harness racing industry, which is a $2 billion industry in Indiana, and clients like that along the way. And it's been tremendously fun.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
So a couple of questions—
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
It all adds up to 51 years.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
51 years. So I want to ask a little bit, break up some of that—did you enjoy running campaigns?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
You know what, early on I thought maybe I wanted to be a candidate. And then I decided I was having more fun managing campaigns, because what I left out of that list was in 1978, when I was working in the Senate, I was also running all of the Republican Senate campaigns, a year that we got the majority back in the state Senate that we have never relinquished.
And so it was a great honor for me to be able to go help with Senate campaigns in different parts of the state, different television markets. And we won the majority back, that was probably one of the most rewarding campaign management jobs I ever did. And we had people that were there for a long, long time in the legislature that got elected in 1978.
And, uh, it was great fun. But I realized I enjoyed running campaigns. So, I liked it so much. You know, I talked about Mutz winning a four-way race ... Mutz was always kind of a policy wonk. He loved being innovative, thinking of new ways to help people, and new programs for government to run. In fact, to give you an idea, he was the one that got past the idea of a rainy day fund. So the state always had a little nest egg over here in case things got bad. You could rely on covering with the rainy day fund. That was one of his. The other one he did was the White River State Park.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Right.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And that was his deal. He had this vision for White River, along downtown.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Which we’re the beneficiaries of...
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Which back then, for anybody to have a vision of doing something nice on White River...so today we have the zoo, we had the Eiteljorg Museum, the state museum—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
The NCAA.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
The NCCA headquarters. All that wouldn’t have been there if John Mutz wouldn’t have done what he did with the White River State Park. And I enjoyed working with John because he was—but the joke between the two of us, because I was his chief of staff in the lieutenant governor’s office, I used to jokingly say to him, government is something I do to kill time between elections.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
(laughs) Governing? That was your joke or his?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Mine. I said governing is my idea of something you do to kill time between elections. And of course, Mutz was a policy wonk who loved governing. So he said, well that works out to be a pretty good team.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
I was going to say, you complement each other.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
So anyway, he loved that idea. The closest I ever came, I don't think I ever said this very much, but I had one meeting with a now deceased Marion County Republican chairman who called me into his office and talked to me about potentially running for mayor of Indianapolis early on in my career. I said, on purpose?
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Why did you say no?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
You ever seen how hard those guys work? You ought to know. Your hours are crazy.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
And my mother was a mayor.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, that’s right. And you don't .... keeping up the schedule you keep up here as university president is similar to being a mayor. And I thought, why would I want to do that every day, 20 hours a day? You know, people and especially when you're mayor, if your trash isn’t picked up or your streets have holes in them, they know where you live and who to call.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Or show up at your house.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Or show up at your house. So I didn't want any part of that stuff.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Yeah. So tell us, I want to ask...You must have met some pretty interesting personalities. So tell us about who was the most colorful. Maybe I'll use that word in quotes. Who is the most colorful Indiana politician you met during your career?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, I can give you two of them. One was a Democrat by the name of Larry Conrad, who is from Muncie, a Ball State grad. He went on to be Secretary of State of Indiana. And Larry Conrad was one of the most charismatic political leaders I ever met in my life for state politics, anyway. And just a great, great guy.
And, uh, what’s funny was he was writing a book at one point about lynchings that took place up in Marion. My grandfather, who was a Muncie policeman, got sent to Marion to keep the mob away from the young men that were jailed. And Larry Conrad was writing a book about this, and he goes down to see my grandfather on West First Street, and he sees behind him a picture of me with Ronald Reagan shaking hands. And he said to my grandfather, do you know Mike McDaniel? And he said, that’s my grandson and my grandfather proceeded to tell him now if anything would ever happen to Governor Orr, and Mutz becomes governor, Mike automatically becomes a lieutenant governor, which is clearly not the way it worked. So Conrad couldn't wait to call me and say, you're not going to believe what your grandfather said to me.
So I immediately got in my car and drove to Muncie and explained to my grandfather that that's not the way it's worked. I know you're proud and all that stuff, but Conrad was just such a great leader. Muncie guy and Ball State. Republican side, it would be Rexford Carlisle Early who was chairman, a couple of chairmen before I was.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Rexford?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Carlisle Early, from Vincennes, not Vincent. Vincennes is the way they pronounced it, but he had a whole bunch of Rexisms that he was known for, like, you don't light the grease until the bat is in the boat, you know ...And he wrote a book called It's a Mighty Thin Pancake That Don't Have Two Sides. That was the name of his book. He was a real character, and he was my buddy. And I loved him. And, he did the Indiana Week In Review show before I did.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Right.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
In fact, for about a year, I had one guy said to me, he said ... I was a little heavier than, he said you can more than fill Early’s seat, but you'll never fill his shoes.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Wow.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Oh yeah, So yeah, he was character and I loved him. But, it was a lot of fun.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
So you also, as I mentioned in the introduction, played a role on the national level. So tell us about one of the famous, or maybe perhaps infamous, politicians on the national level. Who was your favorite that you met in that part of your career?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
That's not even a problem. My absolute favorite were the Bush family, George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, I truly loved. I was invited to the vice presidential residence in Washington, DC when he was getting ready to run for president.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
This was when Ronald Reagan was president.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Right, and that was an experience. I gotta tell you one quick story about that: He hadn't come downstairs yet, there were about 20 of us. Barbara Bush comes down who I absolutely loved. She said, George's upstairs farting around, trying to decide what tie to put on. And we all kind of looked at each other like....
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
She's referring to the vice president of the United States.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Did she say what I thought she said what? And then she followed that up with, We had the king and queen of Jordan here this afternoon. You wouldn't believe the god awful thing she was wearing. It was like talking to your grandmother, you know? It was incredible. I loved her for it. And I got even more Barbara Bush stories—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Not all of them you would want to tell on this show.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
I mean, I could tell ‘em, but we don't have a week to ten days, so I can’t tell all of them. But then George W. Bush and Laura Bush, I also thought the world of him, I ended up being his state chairman when he ran in 2000, at the same time I was state party chairman and got to know him. When H.W. came through for me for a state dinner in 1999, people had given me stuff for him to sign...we’re up in a suite up in the Westin before we went down for a speech, and people had sent like maps of the South Pacific, where he was shot down in World War II, and books and pictures stuff.
I said, Mr. President, all those tables over there are, you know, things that people want you to sign if you have time, if you don't, I'll just tell ‘em...and he said, oh no, he sat down and signed every piece, did all that. And when he was done, I said, I got a couple things you could sign for me, Mr. President. And he said, what's that? So I pull out two baseballs, because I knew he played at Yale—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
He was the captain of the Yale baseball team.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And he played in the first College World Series. And so, when I gave him the two balls, he said, are you a baseball guy, Mike? And I said, I love baseball, Mr. President. So he signed the two balls. And the very next Monday in the mail, I get the famous picture of George Bush in his Yale baseball uniform with Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth was giving him a copy of the manuscript of The Babe Ruth Story to Captain George H.W. Bush and the Yale baseball team.
And he signed it, Thank you all for all you've done for me and what you're going to do to help elect my son president of the United States. Now, if I wasn't on the team for W before that, I sure was after I got that. So then fast forward, I did an event at the airport for W right before he was, before he ran in November of 2000. And we did an event and before we left, I said, hey, I got a couple of things I want you to sign. I took a clean baseball, and I took the one that his dad had signed. And when I gave him that one, he said, you got the old man on here. I said, yeah. He said, you want me to send this down to Florida and have Jeb sign it?
I said, no. He said, Why not? Because he’s not running for president? I said no, I’ve been around enough these Secret Service guys enough to know I'll never see this ball again. He said, I don't trust ‘em either. And he signed the ball. So I have one ball at home signed by President Bush, and I have one signed by both presidents Bush, that each of them signed separately.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
So you still have that baseball?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Oh, I have those baseballs. And I took them—Antiques Roadshow came to Indianapolis one year, and I took the ball with both of them on it. And the guy that does all the sports stuff— Antiques Roadshow is one of my favorite shows on TV—and he looked at it and goes, are these signatures real? And I said, well you're supposed to be the expert. I said, I saw each of them personally sign it. I showed him pictures of H.W. signing it. And he said, well, there's good news and bad news. And I said, what's that? He said, well it's worth about $1,800 right now. But as soon as one of them dies, it'll go up to at least $2500. I said, well that’s a real positive, upbeat kind of thing.
But anyway, the Bushes. And then I would also add President Reagan, because I got to do some—we have time for me to tell you the Reagan story?
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Sure. Tell us the Reagan story.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan decided he wanted to do a speech of the joint session of the Indiana General Assembly. And because I'd done some advanced stuff with his team, they called me and said, Mike, the president wants the joint session. We never had a president of United States do a joint session to the legislature, ever in our history.
And, I said, well, I'm working in the lieutenant governor’s office, not the governor’s office. Protocol calls for you to call them, see if it's okay for me to help you. And if they say it’s okay, I'll help you. So they called the governor's office and governor’s office said, Sure, have Mike help you. So what they wanted me to do in 11 days was to get the place of birth and social security number of everybody that was going to be in the hall—all 150 legislators, all the Supreme Court, appellate court, and all 200 people that were going to be in a gallery.
And so for about ten days, I was the most powerful guy in Indiana because everybody—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Everyone wanted to—
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Be in the room to hear Ronald Reagan. And then I made about 400 people happy. And about 4 million people not happy. But so, the day before he was going to be there, they called and said, well, the president wants to thank you before he goes onstage or onto the podium to speak to the legislature.
So they put us in this cubbyhole office on the horseshoe, which is the hall that runs around the outside of the chambers, right back there, so you could leave that door, walk right around the corner and go up. Said he wants to say thank you to me and the two other people that helped put it all together. Then they called back an hour or so later and said the president likes fresh squeezed orange juice. Could you get a carafe of fresh squeezed orange juice and put it in a cooler full of ice water, so he could have some orange juice before he goes out. And I thought, well, something's wrong with this, because they had just had an assassination attempt on his life like, nine months before that.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
That’s right.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And they're going to let me go over to the Hyatt, get orange juice that nobody's tested, tasted, anything else.... something about that didn't make sense. So we did. Went over there, got a carafe of orange juice, Saran wrap over the top of it, stuck it down in a cooler full of ice. The big moment arrives and Reagan walks in and says, Mike, thanks. Good to see you again. I appreciate what you've done for me, blah blah blah. Shakes [names inaudible]. So here we are with the cooler full of orange juice. Does it get a glass of orange juice? No. He reaches down with both hands into the ice water, rubs his hands together, slicked his hair back and out the door he went.
Well, it turns out it was an old actor's trick. You think about every speech you ever saw Reagan give, about how dark and how slick his hair was. They didn't want to say, we want you to have some ice water there so he can slick his hair back. So the orange juice was the ruse.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
That’s why he wasn't worried about drinking it.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Exactly. So [name inaudible] and I turn to each other and say, we have been had and immediately grabbed a glass and toasted each other and out the door he went to give the speech, but that was my Ronald Reagan Indiana General Assembly story ....
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
He was a pro.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Yeah.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
You mentioned, a few moments ago, about being on Indiana Week in Review and you were you were the spokesperson for the Republican Party or the conservative perspective. And Ann DeLaney, who was the former chair of the Indiana Democratic Party, she was representing the alternate view. How many years did you do that with Ms. Delaney?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
I did, 21 years, a little over a thousand shows. So I did it, average of about 49 weeks of the 52 weeks a year. We taped on Friday afternoons at Channel 20 in Indianapolis, and then it went statewide to all the public television stations around the state. And Jim Shella, a political reporter from Channel 8, was the moderator.
And two other reporters that were on there almost all the time was John Ketzenberger, a Ball State grad, and Leslie Stedman Weidenbener, who's now the editor of the Indianapolis Journal, who's also a Ball State grad. And so, we had fun doing that for 21 years. And we had our moments ...Ann and I would scream and point at each other about this and that and, you know—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
You were like the public television version of that Saturday Night Live skit—
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Kind of, you know ... I didn't ever call her an ignorant slut like they did on that show. But, we had our moments and—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
What was your relationship off camera?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
She's a dear friend. It didn't start that way. But over the years, we became very good friends. And we'd go to dinner. Or she'd asked me to go walk with her on the Monon Trail, people would be coming up to us, rubbing their eyes, like, what are you two doing together? You know, that kind of thing. They didn't understand that we could be friends. And now her husband, Ed Delaney, is my state representative, so I can't get rid of the Delaneys. But we had a lot of fun doing that show, and because of it, I couldn't go anywhere in Indiana where somebody wouldn't stop me and say, hey, Weekend Review. Well, I can always tell immediately if there were on my team or the other team.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Yeah, the look on their face gave it away?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
But my best part of that was, my late wife and I were in Bar Harbor, Maine. We're walking down the hill towards the water, and this lady comes up from behind me and tugs on my shirt sleeve, said, you come with me. I said, well, one who are you? And two, where are we going? She said, you just passed a bus full of seniors from Elkhart, Indiana, and they want to know if you're that guy on that arguing show. That's what they called it, that arguing show. And so I ended up getting up on the bus in Bar Harbor, and the guy gave me the microphone and I answered question for about 15 minutes while my wife was outside, rolling her eyes like, you know, come on. Well, ten days later, I was in Sausalito, California, for conference. I'm sitting in a restaurant looking back over San Francisco Bay at skyline, and this guy comes up to me and days, Week in Review. I said, where are you from? He said, Lafayette, we're here on vacation. So I went from Maine to San Francisco in ten days, where I got stopped by people...
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Because of being a star on that arguing show.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Because people watched that crazy show.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Well, 21 years, 49 weeks out of the year ...
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And somebody said to me, well, why did you quit? And I—Jim Shella and I were at an Indianapolis Indians game and Jim had been moderator for 25 years. And he said, I'm thinking about hanging it up after this election, the 2016 election. I said, well, when you go, I'm gone. He said, why? Well, I knew, and I've never said this out loud, but I knew that there's no way I could go up there every week and defend the actions of Trump, the way he conducted himself. Ann Delaney would have ate my lunch every week, and just ... it would have been hard for me to do that. So that's why, quite frankly, you know ... I thought Trump had some good ideas on occasion, but I didn't like the way he conducted himself. In fact, Rex Early called me one day and said, I just talked to the Trump people. And I told them, you'd be the perfect guy to run the state Trump campaign in Indiana. I said, have you lost your mind? Has the butter slipped off your biscuit? And he said, why? I said, well, my wife hates him because of the way he treated women. And he said, Well, two-fer ... you get to be the Trump chairman and you get a new wife.
I said, no, it’s not gonna work that way. But anyway ... so I passed on the chance to be the state Trump chairman, but that’s, you know, like I said, I thought he had some ideas on occasion that were good. And of course, having Mike Pence on the ticket, the idea there was Pence kind of thought he could, having watched and experienced, he could kind of temper some of the bombastic approaches that Trump had. Well, that never happened. In fact, one of my favorite cartoons of all time from Gary Varvel is a picture of Trump walking off and Pence walking behind him with a pooper scooper, and the title was “Shovel Ready Job.”
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Oh well, I want to ask you, this is a segue to a question about, about Vice President Pence, then Governor Pence.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Yeah.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Governor Pence appointed you to the Ball State Board of Trustees, and you're now, I think, seven, eight years into it. You started a year or two before I had the great good fortune to be appointed as the president here. What was your reaction to your appointment? And, reflecting on those 7 or 8 years, what do you think you’re— the Board of Trustees—has accomplished during that period of time?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, I, first of all I had the opportunity to be on there. Governor Pence called me, one of the last things he did before he left Indiana to go to Washington to be vice president was to make my appointment, and I was to complete the term of Frank Hancock, who wanted to step down to concentrate more on his successful business, Sport Graphics. That's a commercial, Frank. I expect gratuity for that. But anyway, he wanted to step down, so Pence appointed me to fill that rest of that term. And I've been reappointed twice from Governor Holcomb. And it was a huge deal. Most people in the legislature had thought I'd been a trustee forever because they associated Ball State with me.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
You've been such a good advocate for us.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, and I'll get into that in a second. But anyway, that was because one of the things I think and, and, and we didn't really talk about this, but, one of the things that I was most proud of when I was working for Ball State doing government affairs, Dr. Perry and I had a goal of trying to bring the profile of Ball State up in the minds of legislators. At that time, everybody thought of IU and Purdue and everybody else. And over the course of those five years, we elevated it—after a lot of work—to they thought about IU, Purdue, Ball State and everybody else, which the people at Indiana State and Vincennes and Ivy Tech didn't really care for, but we did that. And the other two things I would point to during that same time period, we got the money from the legislature to build Worthen Arena and, uh, they weren't spending money on building arenas back then, but we—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Yeah, they don't typically build athletic facilities.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
The reason they did was because this is not an athletic facility.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
It's a classroom.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
It’s a physical education classroom. It’s the way we sold it down there.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
You are a pretty effective advocate.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
We got the money to build Worthen Arena, which we’re very proud of. I got to pick my seat where I wanted to sit in the building, which and having it named after President Worthen, who was just a wonderful man, was great. And the other one I would point to during that same time period, we got approval after two sessions attempting to get approved, the Academy.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
The Indiana Academy.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
For Science, Math, and Humanities. Legislators was skeptical because they were worried about a residential high school program on a college campus.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Not a frivolous concern.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
That's why it took us two session to get it done. But I'm still proud of the fact that even to this day, it's always been voted one of the best high schools of America. In fact, USA Today, a week ago or ten days ago—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
U.S. News and World Report. Yep, U.S. News.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Ranked it number two in the United States. And so, you know, every time I think about that, you know, we fought hard for two years to get that through the legislature. But I'm proud of that. I mean, that's—
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
another part of your legacy.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Wonderful thing here. And, so Worthen Arena, if you’re a sports nut like I am about Ball State sports ... Worthen Arena, really? I got to pick out the seat. I sat at, for all that time, I sat just above the rail on the Ball State team bench end of the court. And when I picked that seat, they said, well don’t you want to sit over here next to the trustees and stuff? I said, no, I want to be here because this is where the referees are going to go in and out so I can scream and yell at the referees. And they said, okay, so that's where I sat all those years.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
And you sat in those seats for 20-plus years.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Oh yeah ...
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
But you're a big fan of the Ball State Cardinals. But a couple of years ago, you changed your seats to another prime location.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, that was a health issue. I had back surgery, and I begged Stephanie if she could get me down on the floor. So I stood at the end of the visiting team bench. I'm using my back problem as an excuse, but the real reason: one of my goals, that I have not achieved yet, is to get a technical foul and get thrown out of a game.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
You're working on it though.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
I've tried my best. When a referee makes a bad call and I come down to get a drink of water, as close as I am to you. I say to him, you know, what year did you graduate from Kent State? You know that kind of stuff, and they turn and give me a dirty look.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
But you're right in front of those students.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Oh, yeah. I got students sitting behind me and they're saying stuff that I didn't even know how to say. I'm learning big time. And it's been fun sitting in front of the students. They are really good, we’re really good when they're there. And it's really kind of neat. But I'm a great fan. I've been to, 38 states and Canada to watch Ball State either play football or basketball. And, uh, so that's been fun. I've traveled all over the country.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Were you at the Sweet 16 games? That run?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
I was at the Sweet 16— first we went to Salt Lake City, where we beat Louisville when Denny Crum was the coach. And then the next game, we beat Oregon State, where Gary Payton was the star. A famous NBA player. And for Ball State to go to Salt Lake City and win those two games was remarkable.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
And Oregon State was one of the favorites to win the whole tournament.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, then we went to Oakland, California. And who do we get paired up with? Nevada, Las Vegas, who was picked to win the national champion.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
And did.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And did. The score was 69 to 67. And one Ball State man, who shall remain nameless, had the chance to win the game and kind of got in between and couldn't decide to shoot or pass. And did a little of both. And it was a disaster. But we were within two points of beating the eventual national champion, Nevada, Las Vegas.
And Jerry Tarkanian, who was a coach at UNLV, said this is the best team we played.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
And the margin of victory in that game, two points, was their smallest margin of victory.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
In the whole tournament.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
In their whole tournament.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Now, I also went to Maui for the best three days in Ball State basketball history in 2001. First day, and I don't know if it was Tom Kinghorn or who it was, but somebody got the idea that all the Ball State people need to wear red and white flowered Hawaiian shirts. Of course, when I put that on, I look like the guy in the Hawaiian Punch commercial, you know, and I, my wife, was making fun of me while we're getting ready to go to the game dressed in the hotel.
I said, guess what, honey? I got one for you, too. So I made her wear one. We're walking through the lobby of this hotel, and I heard some, older lady from Kansas go, Isn't that cute? They're dressed alike, you know, and I'm like, oh, God [mumble]. Anyway, so we go to the game. Ball State beats top five in the country, Kansas, by a basket at the last second. I can still see Petie going down the lane and hitting that layup to beat Kansas. They were stunned. The Kansas people, always travels well. They were like, you got to be kidding me. We lost to Ball State? And they’re like who is Ball State and who invited them to this thing? So we go back to the hotel where most of the Kansas people were staying. Well, now the shirts were walking through that lobby like, yeah, you know, hey, Ball State, you know, and we had fun.
But I spent more money in three days because that little junior high school-sized Indiana high school gym that they played the Maui Invitational at was not air conditioned. And so I spent more money dry cleaning those shirts over the next two days than about anything I did. Next day we beat UCLA. Who was like, six in the country, by 18.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Right.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And Lavin, the guy that you see on TV all the time as a commentator, was the coach for UCLA at the time. They were stunned. So the third day, we played Duke, played them real well, and lost to Mike Krzyzewski and Duke by 12 in the final. But it was a great, great three days of Ball State basketball. We shocked the world on that trip.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
So, dial back a bit. Serving on the Board of Trustees I know was an honor for you. Tell me, tell us about how you feel about your responsibility serving on that board.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Before I get to that, I’ve got one more sports-related story. In 1990, we changed the logo here on campus to the current Cardinal that we have, which I just thought was great. And I remember reading a story once about former Secretary of State George Schultz, had a Princeton tiger tattooed on his rear end. And I thought, you know what? That’d be the ultimate tribute to have that new Cardinal tattooed....I wasn't a big time tattoo guy, but I thought that'd be cool. That really shows your commitment to Ball State, blah blah blah. And the more I got to thinking about it, the more I thought, the older I get, it’d probably look like Big Bird, so I didn't do it. So, that's why I decided not to do that. But, uh, the whole logo change was a big deal. And it was very, very popular. I'm sorry, what was your question?
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
So my question was, I know you feel it's an honor to serve on the Board of Trustees at Ball State University. How do you approach that responsibility? Why does it matter to you so much?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, first of all, it's a responsibility. And I take that seriously. I work with—the members of the board are just the most tremendous people I know. We work well together. They're committed to this place because they love this place, and they want to do what’s right for Ball State to make it, continually getting better and trying to promote the university and move forward. Not only for the state of Indiana, but for the students who come from all over the country and around the world to come here and get a good education. And we take that very serious. And, uh, it's fun. But one of the most important things that we did during my time on the board and, at the expense of sounding like Eddie Haskell, was to hire Geoff Mearns to be the president of Ball State University. And I'm serious when I say that.
I was glad that, when we had to make that pick, you were head and shoulders above the others, and we were thrilled to get you. We want to keep you as long as we possibly can. Seriously. Because you've done a remarkable job.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Thank you.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Do I sound like Eddie Haskell? You guys don't even know who Eddie Haskell is.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Some of the folks who are listening probably do.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Yeah. “Hello, Mrs. Cleaver, you look lovely today....” But anyway....
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Thank you for your kind words.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Yeah, but anyway, seriously, that was a huge...You were the only one, actually, when we interviewed people, who came in and said one of the things I want to do if I become president is to help make Muncie better because if Muncie’s not better, we're not as good as we can be.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Right.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And that hit home resonated with a lot of people and, uh, rang true. I guess it manifested itself when we were asked to take over the control of Muncie’s school system. And there was some reluctance with some of the members of the board. And you said, absolutely, this is something we got to do, ought to do, and you've done it and made a heck of a difference here. And, uh, but that was really what you said when you applied for the job you followed through on.
And besides that, the scholarship money you and Jennifer, your wife, have given to students in the Muncie school system who want to come to Ball State is a remarkable commitment. But we love you for that. And, I think the other thing that we've done is improve the look of this campus in my time period and, uh, the new buildings that we have, the health sciences and, you know, diversity and everything else in the middle of campus, when a lot of people will bury those buildings somewhere else.
I think that was a statement. I think those things are very proud. And what we're about to engage on with this whole Performing Arts Center and hotel on the corner over here in The Village is going to be remarkable. At first, I wasn't one of those that thought, Oh yeah, you know, but now I'm very excited about it.
I think it's going to be really transformative for The Village. And, uh, a lot of ways back to The Village I knew as a kid when it was a vibrant area of shops and businesses and so forth and so on. So, yeah, I mean, I'm proud of what we're doing here. And like I said, I love the people I'm serving with and they're committed to this. And so am I.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
And you talked about the—I'm very fortunate to have this opportunity and particularly fortunate, as you said, the way the board works together, and the support that you give to me and to my colleagues and our faculty and staff, all of us rowing in the same direction to help our students succeed and propel them to, you know, fulfilling careers and meaningful lives as we say.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
People don't seem to understand. That's not that way on a lot of campuses. I mean, usually with this stuff over the last five years that have gone on at IU, and what they are dealing with, you know, I think their new lady that’s the president there will be a good one if she can survive some of the craziness that's going on there. But people kind of take for granted—and I tell people all the time, we have the best president in the Indiana system.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Well, you're kind.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
I used to say the one of the best, when Mitch Daniels was at Purdue because I grew up with the little guy and he was a personal friend of mine. And, but, yeah, clearly you're the best in Indiana, and we're proud of it. But one of the things you've done, which I think is very important because people have to remember a good part of our funding come from the state of Indiana.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Absolutely.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
And I'm very proud of the fact that you have gone out of your way to make yourself accessible to all legislators. Every time you go to Indianapolis for an event, you always seem to schedule a luncheon or dinner with a key legislator, which that kind of—building that kind of relationship with those people can only do us a lot of good going forward and has so far. And I think for you to take time to do that has been very powerful.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Well, thank you, but they are as you say, we're the beneficiaries of the investment that they make. They, in terms of our operating budget, it's about $130 million dollars a year. And not to mention their investments in capital.
So, let me wrap up with a question that I ask all of my guests. And, you know, you received the Distinguished Alumni Award from our Alumni Association, which really is given to graduates who exemplify, in their profession, in their personal lives, the enduring values of our Ball State University.
And these enduring values are represented by Beneficence. They make this culture distinctive. They define the character of our people. And beneficence, as you know, means the quality of doing good through service to others and through philanthropy. So Mike, if you would, as we wrap up, what does beneficence, what does doing good for other people, mean to you?
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Well, I was thinking about that. And to me, my career in politics, the government, I didn't do it just to be doing it. I started out because I want to make a difference—a positive different in people’s lives. Fortunately, I've been associated with people that I respect and feel good about. Dick Lugar, United States Senator John Mutz, Governor Bob Orr, people that truly were committed to service, and helping them get elected to do the good things they did. Things we did with the legislature to move the state forward, to me, is a form of service.
And my time at Ball State, both working for the university and then now as a member of the Board of Trustees, allows me to do that even closer in a form of service to my university, which I truly love. I didn't love it quite as much when they changed it from Ball State Teacher College to Ball State University.
But anyway, that kind of service is important to me, and I believe in it, and I love it.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you for spending this time with me. I'm sure people will enjoy this. And this conversation will be part of our archives, because your life has been a part of our history. And I'm grateful for your support, grateful for your encouragement and your advice. And also, Jennifer and I feel so fortunate to have you as a friend. Thank you.
[MIKE MCDANIEL]:
Thank you.