Doyel: David Benner, a legend at IndyStar and then the Pacers, dies

GREENWOOD – David Benner wouldn’t say he was dying. Not his style. And this was a man of style – and substance. He worked for the IndyStar from 1979-1994, worked his way up from copy boy to the biggest beats in sports before shifting gears and working for the Pacers in media relations. An unusual career switch, something only the strongest of souls could do, but that was Benner. One of the strongest souls around.

Benner left us Wednesday morning at age 67, dying of the cancer that had been coming for him for a decade, nibbling around the edges, trying to get close but running into the same wall most of us ran into, eventually: Benner would decide how close you’d get. You, me, cancer … none of us chose. Benner chose.

Toward the end, when the cancer stopped nibbling and started taking large bites, Benner knew the decision was no longer his. A proud Southsider, he spent a week in intensive care at St. Francis Hospital before moving into the nearby Franciscan Hospice House. That was three weeks ago.

By then he’d done the chemo, over and over, and he’d come to grips with what was happening to him, and what would be happening to him soon enough. He’d been going to Columbus for chemotherapy, where he’d seen people much younger battling the same disease.

“He felt bad for them,” says Mike Wells, who covered the Pacers for the IndyStar from 2005-13, becoming close with Benner then, and becoming even much closer after Wells left the Pacers beat to cover the Colts for ESPN. “He told me, ‘I’ve lived a hell of a life. I’ve traveled the world and had an incredible life.’ He felt bad for the 20-somethings who hadn’t had the chance to do that.”

David Benner had a heart, but he kept that part of himself under wraps as best he could, unless you were on the inner circle. Very few people got inside there. Lucky me, he let me inside about six months ago before putting up the wall again. He was dying, see, but that was his story. And he wasn’t going to open his book for just anyone.

More:David Benner, the stoic, unflappable Pacers PR guy retires: 'He never sugarcoated anything'

A curmudgeon's curmudgeon, David Benner

Benner had things he enjoyed. That will come as a surprise to those who knew him just a very little bit, and here I’m referring mainly to the media members he kept at arm’s distance – like me, until six months ago – because to us, this is the only thing he seemed to enjoy:

Keeping us at arm’s length.

He was protective of his team, David Benner. He grew up on the Pacers, cheering for them from his home in Center Grove, going to the occasional game, and then crossing over into this strange world of writing for the local paper about the team of your childhood. He wrote about the Pacers for the IndyStar – same job Mike Wells would have, years later – from 1983-91, then covered Notre Dame football in the fall and IU basketball in the winter. That was his work life until 1994, when Pacers media director Dale Ratermann left that role and the franchise offered the job to Benner.

For the next 28 years he protected the Pacers like it was his job, because it was.

Former Pacers coach Frank Vogel was texting with me Wednesday, after the news broke of Benner’s death, and wrote: “He could not have been more supportive of me as a young, first-time head coach. He always kept me laughing with his quick wit … and I leaned on his experience with the media and with the organization heavily.

“He was a dear friend and a Pacers icon!”

From April 2022: David Benner, the stoic, unflappable Pacers PR guy retires

Benner was a wall, stiff and unyielding in his fitted suits. Write something he deemed unfair, and he’d let you know. Ask to speak with someone for an interview he felt was unnecessary, he’d let you know. Understand, I’m not complaining. Not now. Back when I first got here in 2014? It’s possible I complained to people at the Star.

What’s up with Benner?

That’s just Benner, they’d say. And it was. But there was so much more there, if you were lucky enough to get past the exterior. “A curmudgeon’s curmudgeon,” I called him in January 2020, when I wrote a story about attending five games in five gyms in five days, choosing a single anecdote from each arena. The anecdote I chose from the Pacers game? David Benner.

He was in the middle of another cancer fight, and I’d seen something pretty remarkable – well, actually, I’d not seen it – a few weeks earlier when I’d been at a Pacers game and Benner was there, same ol’ Benner: curmudgeonly. And then he was gone, leaving the arena before the game started. Nobody said why. I didn’t know. Turns out, he’d undergone chemo earlier that day. Didn’t tell anyone. Well, he didn’t tell me. I was on the outside.

The anecdote I wrote about Benner in 2020, it showed him a different side of me. Hey, he’s not the only person who can put up a wall. To me he was Benner, writer-turned-PR guy, and that’s how I treated him: Respectful, but keeping him at the same arm’s length he kept me. His arms are a little longer, probably.

But he saw that story, saw in the words I wrote how much I really liked him – something I’d never told him, because he’s Benner, and you don’t tell Benner that – and that’s how I broke through. All the way inside? No, wouldn’t say that. But every time I came back for a Pacers game, Benner and I were different, better, warmer.

He retired in April 2022, choosing to spend more time enjoying the things he enjoyed. Turns out, he enjoyed the Dave Matthews Band. And NASCAR. His dog Baxter. The golf at Hickory Stick in Greenwood; he could see the fourth hole from his house. And the coffee at Strange Brew on Smith Valley Road.

At some point he sent me a text message, wanting to get together. I still have it. It’s dated Nov. 10, 2022:

Sir: now I’m retired, plenty of time on my hands, unlike yourself recently. Want to know if you would like to have lunch sometime. No intent, just good conversation. At least from your end.

Imagine getting that note from David Benner. And imagine seeing the way he signed off: With a smiling emoji.

I'm not crying, you are

Benner liked the Cherry Limeade from Sonic. Mike Wells brought him one last week. Benner was about to start his third week in hospice, so obviously the end was coming, but Wells had an idea just how close it was when he saw Benner take two sips and put down his favorite drink.

Wells had another inkling when he left his friend for the final time, and Benner gave him a fist bump and told him, for the first time, “I love you.”

I’m not crying. You are.

Benner hated that I’d do that, by the way. He didn’t like the way I’d put words like “I” and “me” in my stories. He was an old-school journalist, and in the 1970s and 80s, you didn’t write in the first person. Things have changed over the years, as social media has broken down what wall existed between journalists and readers. We’re all in this together, is my feeling, so I’ll chat with you directly, and take you with me to show you the sights.

Benner wasn’t crazy about it, and I’m not sure how to feel about this, but apparently he and Wells discussed me, for a moment, during one of Wells’ near-daily visits to hospice.

“You know,” Benner told Wells, “I’m not a big proponent of the ‘I’ and ‘me’ in his columns, but Gregg away from his columns is a guy I like a lot.”

I’m not crying harder. You are.

Benner and I had coffee on Nov. 14, by the way. He knew I lived near the Greenwood Mall, so he suggested The Mocha Nut Coffee Shop near Southport and Madison. He said we’d go to his home turf next time, to Strange Brew on Smith Valley, but it never happened. And I tried. Well, a little.

For weeks after that coffee he’d send me the occasional note, saying hello or asking about my recently adopted dog. On Jan. 4 I sent him something blunt, because Benner liked it blunt:

We eating lunch tomorrow?

He said no. Suggested we try in a couple weeks. Said his hip was bothering him, that he was using a cane, that the pain killer wasn’t doing much. I said to him, and I quote because these are the last words I ever wrote David Benner:

I’m sure you have lots of people who want to get together with you, but I’ll pester you again here in a few weeks.

That was Jan. 5. Seven weeks ago. Never did pester him again. Think that hurts?

Along the way, I’m learning now, he was in the ICU for a week, then in hospice for three weeks, and then came Wednesday morning and a text from Mike Wells, telling me David Benner was gone. So I’m calling Wells, wanting to know more – for me, and for this story – and he’s telling me about their final get-together before Benner went into ICU.

They met at Strange Brew. It was Jan. 6, one day after Benner had kept me at arm’s length, telling me he needed a few weeks. He was dying, see, and he wasn’t going to share that with me. Only a few people were inside that circle, and that included Wells. They’d bonded back in 2010 when Wells’ mother was dying – from cancer – and Benner was being supportive, reaching out, checking on Wells not as a beat writer, but as a friend.

Benner and Wells became ever closer over the years, and in recent months, when the weather cooperated, Benner would ride along in the golf cart as Wells played Hickory Stick. Sometimes Benner would join him on the green to putt, if he was feeling up to it. But on Jan. 6 in the parking lot of Strange Brew, Benner did something he’d never do: He asked Wells to help him into the car.

Wells picked up Benner’s legs and slid them into the driver’s seat, and begged him: Let me drive you.

“Nope,” Benner told him, “I want to drive myself. I want to enjoy life.”

To me, Wells says: “I think he knew.”

One thing Benner doesn’t know, will never know: From a distance, Mike Wells followed him in his car Jan. 6. Just to make sure he got home OK.

Benner’s home now.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at  www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.

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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: David Benner, a legend at the IndyStar and then the Pacers, dies