INDIANAPOLIS — For Adam Couch, the trip to Miami still feels hard to believe. What began as childhood Saturdays at Memorial Stadium has grown into a 40-year journey rooted in loyalty, family and Indiana football.
“It just feels surreal,” Couch said. “It’s one of those things you always dream about, but it always seems so far out you never think you’ll reach it.”
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Couch’s IU football story started when he was about five years old, when his father took Adam and his older brother, Chris, to their first games as season ticket holders. Five years later, once their younger sister was old enough, she joined them.
Today, Adam is 40, his sister is 35, Chris is 44, and their father, now 74, remains the family’s biggest Hoosier fan.
“We still have the same seats,” Couch said. “My dad is the original IU fan.”
Those seats became the foundation for decades of memories. The family followed the Hoosiers well beyond Bloomington, traveling to Tempe, Arizona, for the Insight Bowl, to New York for the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium, and to countless Big Ten road games, particularly during the Antwaan Randle El era.
Throughout those years, one tradition was rarely broken. Adam’s father and Chris almost never missed a home game, barring illness.
Chris has cerebral palsy and has used a wheelchair his entire life. For him, IU football has always meant more than the score.
“Being at the games is his happy place,” Adam said. “It’s his escape from everything around him.”
That escape became even more meaningful a few years ago when Chris became seriously ill. He spent nearly two years in and out of the hospital, and his family nearly lost him. Even then, football remained constant.
“He would always ask about the games,” Adam said. “He’d ask if there was a game that weekend or if we were going.”
Chris continues to fight every day, and he continues to fight to be there with his dad.
Chris experienced not only the excitement inside the stadium but also a powerful moment of compassion afterward. As Chris and his father searched for a wheelchair ramp in the rain, a group of IU fans noticed the long walk required compared to the nearby stairs.
“They all huddled together,” Adam said. “They lifted my brother and his chair and carried him down the stairs to get him to shelter faster.”
The moment, captured on video by Chris’s sister and later shared on social media, quickly drew attention. For Adam, it perfectly reflected what being a Hoosier fan means.
“No one hesitated,” he said. “They didn’t see a kid in a wheelchair. They just saw someone who needed help.”
Now, as the family heads to Miami, they are bringing decades of memories with them.
