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MULBERRY—First, turn on the TV, or log on to the computer.
You find this newfangled idea called the ISC Sports Network, and it doesn’t take long to realize you’ve come across an all-you-can-eat buffet of Indiana sports. High school football games by the dozens, basketball games by the score. Some live, some replayed. One of the cornerstones is the mighty MIC, where the Carmels and Warren Centrals of the world reside, but anywhere in the state is fair game. Volleyball, soccer, talk shows, state tournaments. Also small colleges—Marian and UIndy.
On and on and on—a seed of an idea that is growing into an oak tree, reaching into every corner of Indiana. Comcast includes some of the sports network schedule on its cable system. That’s 300,000 households. Nine cable systems carry the network. The internet exposes ISC to everyone.
Next, you wonder where this telecommunications mushroom cloud is headquartered. Amid the bustle of downtown Indy, or the frenzy of the suburbs in Fishers? Nah. Come with us.
We’re driving into Mulberry, a town in Clinton County of 1,300 people and no stoplights. There, according to the sign, is the World Famous South Fork Restaurant. Next to that, Mulberry Town Hall & Municipal Utilities. Across the street, and in the shadows of the town water tower … a one-story brick building. We’ve arrived.
If ESPN has its Bristol, Connecticut, ISC Sports Network has its Mulberry. So this is where it all started?
“Here in the cornfields,” ISC President Greg Maish says. “It was a coach’s show, Clinton Prairie High School, in a coach’s office—one camera, two mics and a whole lot of starts and stops.”
That was 2008 with Mulberry Telecommunications. Things have changed, but the location of the office hasn’t—116 S. Glick St. “It’s home,” Maish says. “We can go play in the big city and come home and relax.”
Maish and some buddies started tinkering with the concept 15 years ago. “We were all sports nuts, grew up watching TV. I always had that idea, ‘Hey, what would happen if we just put a television channel out there?’ So we just kind of started building something from scratch.”
There were 1,200 customers, watching Clinton County stuff. “We just had that vision; we wanted to do something different and have some fun with it,” Maish says. “The quick story is, we started to say, ‘Hey, there may be something to this.’”
“Small colleges, high schools and the things surrounding Indiana sports. The passion is still there. That’s what we find. All that needs a place. It needs a home where people can go and see it.”
Their production grew more sophisticated, their goals more grand. They reached out to companies trying similar things in other parts of the state. Finally, MTC and Enhanced Telecommunications in southeastern Indiana came together and gave birth to the ISC Sports Network.
That was 2018. Look at it now. The ISC footprint is starting to look like King Kong’s, especially down the road in Indianapolis. When Maish isn’t doing this, he’s still co-pastor with his wife at a Crawfordsville church. Mulberry and Sunday sermons—not your garden-variety road to a statewide sports network.
“We are unique. From a full-scale non-stop ride that we’re on, nobody else is doing it like we’re doing it,” Maish says. “Because our local market is so small, it forced us to think bigger from the beginning. We knew eventually we would get into those areas where it’s got to look good, it’s got to be good, and it’s got to be able to translate into different areas that are beyond our little 1,200 subscribers.”
This is where Greg Rakestraw comes in. His voice echoes around the state through his work with the Indy Eleven, the IHSAA network, the post-game Indianapolis Colts show and IUPUI basketball. Now he’s an ISC vice president, helping expand the schedule to a more statewide audience, handling the play-by-play on many games.
The first week of the high school football season, he was at Center Grove-Warren Central. ISC Sports Network also did Lafayette vs. West Lafayette. And so, the fall began.
“Are there enough eyeballs that care about Clinton Prairie basketball to have its own channel? No, there’s not,” he says. “Are there enough eyeballs that care about Warren Central football to have its own channel? Probably not. But if I said, are there enough people that care about Indiana sports that will watch a mix of high school football and small-college football and will talk racing and a variety of other things? If somebody turns on the TV or goes to the website, and it’s like, ‘I know I’m going to see places that I know and schools that I know and people that I know; maybe there’s something here for me’ … That’s kind of the idea.”
Rakestraw is not a Mulberry guy. He played tennis at UIndy, and he and his wife and two kids live in Broad Ripple. He did more than 200 events last year. As a window into his life, he calls up his schedule for Labor Day week. On Monday, the Mayor’s International Futsal Cup—a downsized soccer spinoff played on a surface parking lot just north of the Indiana Statehouse. Tuesday night, Center Grove-Carmel volleyball. Wednesday, the Indy Eleven game at Lucas Oil Stadium. Friday, Center Grove-Carmel football. Saturday, public address work for the Brickyard 400. Sunday, more Brickyard and the Colts postgame show.
“My kids are 8 and 4, so, yeah, it does get hard,” he says, pondering a future cutback on the schedule. “I have a very understanding wife. The trade-off from a personal standpoint is, I am a very infrequent golfer. I don’t play nearly the amount of tennis I used to, and I don’t go out drinking with the boys.”
Rakestraw and Maish give a tour of the Mulberry headquarters. There’s a nifty studio for talk shows. A nearby booth where someone can sit down on a Monday morning, watch a tape of a Friday game and do the voiceover play-by-play to get it ready for replay broadcast. On one wall is the production-schedule calendar—a massive thing, with nearly every day filled. On another wall, plaques that commemorate the several moments from games produced by this office that ended up on ESPN SportsCenter’s plays of the day.
“For most of them, we’re still [Mulberry Communications] sports,” Maish says of the local populace. “We still show up at Clinton Prairie or Rossville or McCutcheon. It’s small-town charm, right? You are what you are. I believe in that a lot. Know your roots. …
“And to be fair, we still haven’t arrived. We’re still trying to build something here. Getting to do what we do is a joy. I’m usually smiling. I’ve always been drawn to building something from nothing.”
Inside, the omnipresent TV monitors suggest a communications beehive. Outside, the trucks rumble by on State Road 38, and the quiet weekday life of Mulberry goes on.•
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Lopresti was a columnist for USA Today and Gannett newspapers for 31 years. He can be reached at mjl5853@aol.com.
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