Dick Moren isn’t in the Hoosiers’ starting lineup, but he might as well be.
The 88-year-old father of Teri Moren, the coach of the Indiana University women’s basketball team, he has two game-day outfits: one for home games, one for away games. He has routines before and after games that he follows religiously. His diet at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind., has been on lock for nine seasons.
Now, Pops, as many members of the Indiana staff and team call him, is preparing for his biggest role yet: the No. 1 fan of a No. 1-seeded team that is trying to make its way to the Final Four.
“I couldn’t ask for more,” Dick Moren said over the phone, proudly sharing the team’s record entering the N.C.A.A. tournament: 27-3 overall and 16-2 in the Big Ten.
Since his daughter was hired at Indiana in 2014, Dick Moren has been a constant in the rotating cast of characters that make up college basketball. His relationship with his daughter and her team, his ever-present positivity and his dedication to all things Indiana basketball have made him a beloved face on the sideline.
On game days in Bloomington, he travels to campus from his home in Seymour, Ind., with Teri Moren and Leann Hutchinson, Teri’s older sister. The three must exit the same door on their way to the car. Dick and Teri Moren sit up front talking shop — “How are the kids looking?” he asks — while Hutchinson sits in the back.
The sisters’ brother, Scott Moren, is not allowed to commute to the game with them. Neither is Hutchinson’s husband, Charles.
“They have to drive separately,” Leann Hutchinson said. Only those who won’t question the game-day superstitions are welcome in the car.
When the three commuters arrive at the arena, they go straight to the coach’s office, where Dick Moren gets two or three pieces of candy — “anything chocolate, but sometimes a Twizzler” — before heading down to the court.
A new tradition was instituted this year: the pregame elevator selfie. “It just lightens the mood a bit because she has a game face on the minute we hit the door and say goodbye,” Leann Hutchinson said of Teri Moren. They realized every time they took a selfie, Indiana won, and surely photos had something to do with it.
They may be on to something. This season, Indiana earned a No. 1 seed for the first time in program history. The Hoosiers won the Big Ten regular-season title for the first time since 1983. On Feb. 19, they sold out their home arena for the first time.
Teri Moren still seems in awe of the fact that she gets to share it all with her family by her side. “When you see our family, what really pops out is, ‘Man, they’re close. They really, really care about each other and love each other,’” she said. That love makes its way to the team.
“Over the years, I think the relationship with Coach Moren and her father has brought joy to the entire team,” guard Chloe Moore-McNeil, a junior, said. “Seeing him always brightens our day.”
Teri Moren’s connection with her family shows “what kind of coach she is,” said Sydney Parrish, another junior on the team.
On Saturday, Indiana took down a No. 16 seed, Tennessee Tech, 77-47, for its first win of the tournament. Dick Moren was there, in his usual spot at Assembly Hall. Of course he was.
He was there when Teri, at age 8, entered a punt, pass and kick contest. She beat all the boys, he said proudly. He was there for the A.A.U. games, there at Indiana University basketball camps, there for the high school games, the college games she played at Purdue and the games she coached at Indiana State.
But he wasn’t in the loop when his daughter first applied for the Indiana coaching job. For the Moren family, Sundays were always for church, visiting Grandma and watching “The Bob Knight Show” and Indiana basketball. Teri Moren knew how excited her parents would get at the notion of her coming home to Indiana University. So she decided to wait until being offered the job before sharing that she was in the running.
But the news of her application made it into a newspaper.
“I’m sitting with my wife in the family room and looking at The Indianapolis Star and said, ‘Do you know that Teri applied for the Indiana job?’ And she said, ‘No, did you?’” Dick Moren said, laughing at the memory. “She didn’t want us to get our hopes up.”
She received the offer in August 2014. “Get all the red and white you can because I’m coming home,” she told her family.
At the time, her mother, Barbara, was dealing with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. She died that October, just after Teri Moren started her new job. The Indiana basketball team and Fred Glass, the athletic director at the time, went to the funeral.
Leann Hutchinson now likes to say that her mother has the best seat in the house.
When the coach goes to the court, her father goes to his reserved seat, one with empty seats to his left and right. Then he gets his game-day fuel: popcorn and a Diet Coke.
What if someone tries to sit on either side of him? “They can’t,” he said. “I’ve got reserved seats.” Then Leann Hutchinson piped in. “There’s a seat in between us,” she said.
Dick Moren surely doesn’t think he has much to do with the success of his daughter’s team. But he doesn’t necessarily think his routines hurt, either.
After the buzzer, win or lose, he and Leann will join Teri for media obligations and then follow the coach to her office.
“One of my most favorite things is my dad gets to listen to my staff decompress and talk about the game,” Teri Moren said. “My staff is so great to him, as are our players. He feels like a part of the conversation. He always has his stat sheets with him, and he takes those home.”
When everyone heads home, Dick Moren has more work to do. If the game is on the Big Ten Network, he’ll rewatch it that evening. “Certainly the next day he will have watched that game once or twice,” Teri Moren said. “He’ll find something different once he watches it, but it’s hard for him to watch the games that we lose.”
If the Hoosiers keep this streak alive, they will head to Greenville, S.C., for the round of 16. Dick Moren is not planning on making that trip. He will wear his away-game outfit instead: khaki pants and an Indiana University sweatshirt. But if the team advances to the Final Four in Dallas, he will stop at nothing to get there.
There’s only one thing he wouldn’t do for the team, he said. When asked if he ever gave advice to the players, he stopped in his tracks.
“Goodness gracious, no,” he said, almost aghast at the question. “Encouragement only. No X’s or O’s. Just do your best and that’s all you can ask for.”
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