Nancy Leonard always said goodbye with two words, and no, those words were not ”good” and “bye.” Talk to Nancy Leonard on the phone, and it didn’t matter if it was your first call with her or your last. This is what she’d say, always, at the end of the call:
Love you.
That was Nancy Leonard, matriarch of the Indiana Pacers and widow of Pacers Hall of Fame coach Bobby “Slick” Leonard. Nancy’s enormous heart, which for decades beat so loudly for her husband and five children – and for the Pacers, and for the city of Indianapolis – went silent Tuesday night.
The family has announced her death, at age 93.
News: Nancy Leonard, matriarch of the Indiana Pacers, has died
Nancy Leonard was the smallest giant in city history, just this tiny ball of love and energy and devotion to the things that mattered most to her: Her family, her Pacers, her city. She was historic in so many ways, the first woman to serve as an NBA assistant general manager. Bobby was the coach and GM. Nancy was his assistant.
This was no empty title.
“She ran it!” Bobby would shout, gleefully, when you talked to him about his wife’s role with the Pacers in the 1970s, when the franchise won three ABA titles in four years from 1970-73. “She could do anything. It was her and I with the Pacers. Nancy ran the business side, and I was responsible for the coaching.”
What a legacy. But it’s not her legacy – not the most important part, anyway. Wife, mother, friend … that’s her legacy. But if we’re talking about Nancy Leonard’s impact on the rest of us, her role as an NBA trailblazer isn’t the history that matters most.
This is:
In 1977, Nancy Leonard saved the Pacers for Downtown Indianapolis. Without the Pacers, do the Colts come here – to a city that had lost its only major sports franchise – in 1984? Probably not, no.
Play that forward. Without the Pacers, without the Colts – without a vibrant NBA arena and NFL dome laying the foundation for the most perfect sporting Downtown in the country – does the NCAA come here in 1999? How about all those college basketball Final Fours?
The Super Bowl in 2012?
“Downtown would be very different,” David Frick, deputy mayor to then-Mayor William H. Hudnut, told IndyStar in 2000. Without the Pacers, Frick said, downtown Indy never gets the Colts, the RCA Dome, Circle Centre mall or White River State Park – home of the NCAA.
A quick recap of the way Nancy Leonard saved the Pacers for our city:
Indianapolis, home of the dominant franchise in the ABA, was allowed to keep the Pacers after the NBA-ABA merger of 1976 – but at a cost the team couldn’t afford: A buy-in of $3.2 million that left the franchise in debt, unable to meet two consecutive payrolls and losing season ticket-holders after a dismal 36-46 NBA debut season in 1976-77.
After the 1977 season the team had roughly 72 hours to raise nearly $2 million. Nancy did the math, and came up with an idea: The Pacers would hold a telethon, of all things, with a goal of selling 8,000 season tickets. That would equal $2 million.
The telethon was held July 3, 1977, with the affable, lovable Slick Leonard serving as emcee. In the final hours of the event, Nancy grabbed the microphone and told her husband and the crowd:
“Bob,” she said, “we’re at 8,028.”
That was Indianapolis. And that was Nancy Leonard – wife, mother of five, former school teacher in South Bend, former head of the business department at Kokomo’s Taylor High. She was a formidable leader.
And she was a beautiful human being. She stayed by her husband’s side since 1950 when they started going steady at Indiana University. Bobby Leonard was the freshman star for the IU basketball program. Nancy Root was a freshman in his health class. Bobby Leonard was a basketball savant, but so painfully shy.
“Withdrawn,” he told me in 2018.
“Fragile,” Nancy added, sitting next to her husband in his Westfield rehab center.
Doyel in 2018: Adorable start to Bobby and Nancy Leonard’s love story that saved Pacers
Bobby was in that rehab center because he’d fallen and broken his wrist. Nancy was there because she stayed by her husband’s side. His heart attack in 2003. Cardiac arrest in 2011. Broken ribs suffered in a fall outside Larry Bird’s home a year later.
After Bobby fell in January 2018 and broke his hip, the family put a hospital bed in his living room, next to a leather recliner. The bedroom was upstairs. Bobby couldn’t make it up there.
Nancy didn’t even try.
“Nancy slept every night for almost five months in that recliner,” Slick says. “She would not get up and leave me.”
When Bobby became a beloved Pacers radio analyst, Nancy accompanied him to the arena. She’d have dinner in the CareSource Courtside Club, the restaurant closest to the court, sitting at the same table by the main walkway, being greeted by fans and friends and strangers. She’d sit courtside for games, for years sitting with Michelle McMillan the wife of then-Pacers coach Nate McMillan. Security was ready for the crowds. People wanted to see Nancy Leonard, thank her, hug her.
After Bobby died in 2021, Nancy kept coming to games. Same dinner. Same courtside seat. Same love for the Pacers, expressed in her unique way, as the Pacers made that remarkable run to the 2025 NBA Finals.
Doyel in 2021: Basketball savant ‘Slick’ Leonard’s greatest gift was making you feel special
Doyel in June: Herb Simon, ‘a reluctant receiver of attention,’ on HOF and NBA Finals roll
“I’m so thrilled Herb is here to watch this marvelous NBA Finals run,” she told me in June. “He has been a dream owner, most respected amongst all the NBA team owners. Herb has turned the franchise over to our basketball people, and then stepped aside to give not only his financial support, but his moral support. And the team and coaches love him.
“Kudos for both Mel (Simon, his brother) and Herb, plus Stevie (Herb’s son) for their faith and love of Indiana and our fan base. We are indebted to all three!”
And to you, Nancy Leonard.
Forever to you.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Threads, or on BlueSky and Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar, or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar. Subscribe to the free weekly Doyel on Demand newsletter.