Actually, I Was A "B" Student

Ball State's most famous alum, except for this guy, has finally let his alma mater show him off.

The new $21 million communication building will be dedicated to David Letterman. (Here's more from the Indy Star.)

The year I graduated from Ball State's College of Communication, Information and Media, they had just announced this sparkling structure.

Al Neuharth came to get us pumped up. Hundreds of us piled into Emens Auditorium to see the founder of USAToday speak.

The old journalism building was in the Middle of Nowhere (West Quad), and unless you were a journalism student you couldn't even find it.

They opened parts of the new building a few years ago and I toured it along with some other classmates of mine for a Ball State Daily News reunion. We looked around bitterly at the food court, the pimped out classrooms and the fancy new DN offices (plural)! But mostly we were bitter about the coffee shop located just inside the atrium. A coffee shop! In an atrium! Those kids don't even know how rough we had it.

Anyway, good for Ball State. And good for ol' Dave for putting us on the map.

A Top Ten List from the Indy Star to celebrate the occasion:

"The Top Ten reasons Ball State named its new communication and media building for David Letterman."

10. Even "C students" need love.

9. The football team can now find inspiration without the funny man appearing for a pep talk.

8. It was either this or risk getting turned down by fellow alum and "Three's Company" star Joyce DeWitt.

7. The dean of the communications school promised to stop hitting up "Late Show" staffers for tickets to the show.

6. College kids should know there's more to late-night than "The Daily Show."

5. Football stadiums (a la "Dave Letterman Stadium") can't hold a candle to communications buildings.

4. It softens the blow of being beat out for funniest graduate.

3. The communications school's publicist can now fully retire.

2. Letterman's mother drove through a snowstorm to take him back to campus one year.

1. It brings his 2001 list of "Top Ten Good Things about Having a Degree from Ball State University" to 11.