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60 Minutes - Season 58 - Episode 12: Germany Rearms; The Price of Life; Hoosier Hysteria
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00:07This past month, we were invited by the Bundeswehr, the German military, to observe basic training
00:13as a squad of recruits ran punishing drills, honing the skills they would need to defend
00:18against an enemy assault.
00:22Everything we are training here for could be one day real.
00:26We don't hope that, but we're preparing exactly for that.
00:30Because of the war in Ukraine?
00:31Yes, of course.
00:35A new class of drugs can save the lives of children like Maisie.
00:40Trouble is, one dose costs millions of dollars.
00:45It was cheaper for her to die.
00:49They were banking on her dying.
00:52Neither health insurance nor government has figured out how to pay for the next wave of miracle medicines.
01:00I liken it to a coming tsunami, which is basically going to overwhelm the employer-sponsored insurance system.
01:08Indiana entered this season as the losingest program in major college football history.
01:13More than 700 defeats.
01:20So imagine the astonishment last weekend when the Hoosiers took down the defending national champions,
01:26unbeaten Ohio State, to win the Big Ten title.
01:29How'd they do it?
01:31You gotta adapt, adjust, and improvise.
01:33Take what the defense gives you.
01:35Attack at all times.
01:39I'm Leslie Stahl.
01:41I'm Bill Whitaker.
01:42I'm Anderson Cooper.
01:43I'm Sharon Alfonsi.
01:45I'm John Wertheim.
01:46I'm Cecilia Vega.
01:47I'm Scott Pelley.
01:49Those stories, and in our last minute, reaching a new high, tonight on 60 Minutes.
02:03This past week, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky reasserted he doesn't want to surrender
02:10any territory in exchange for peace with Russia, a declaration that followed earlier warnings
02:16from Russian President Vladimir Putin that if Europe engaged in a wider war, it would be
02:22defeated.
02:23Nearly four years in, the conflict continues to send shockwaves through the Western alliance.
02:29European nations are beefing up their defenses.
02:33Nowhere is the impact more profound than in Germany.
02:37Scarred by their country's Nazi past, Germans embraced pacifism after the Cold War.
02:43Defense spending collapsed, to the point some soldiers were buying their own gear.
02:48But Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, combined with persistent pressure from President
02:54Donald Trump for Europe to shoulder more of its own defense, transformed the landscape.
03:00Today, Germany is racing to rearm.
03:06This past month, we were invited by the Bundeswehr, the German military, to observe basic training
03:13at the Munster Army base in northwest Germany.
03:19A squad of recruits ran punishing drills, honing the skills they would need to defend their position
03:28against an enemy assault.
03:32The major in charge has been training troops since 2018.
03:39The Bundeswehr won't reveal his name to shield his identity from hostile actors.
03:45So, have you seen a difference in the recruits of today versus years past?
03:54Yes, I think there's a huge difference.
03:56They know what they're here for, and it's getting more clear to them that everything we are training
04:01here for could be one day real.
04:04We don't hope that, but we're preparing exactly for that.
04:08Because of the war in Ukraine?
04:10Yes, of course, yeah.
04:13The war in Ukraine has shaken Germany's sense of security.
04:19But the country is also shaking off the shadows of its brutal military past.
04:25This Holocaust memorial in Berlin, a stark reminder of that history, stands close by the Reichstag,
04:32where the national parliament is moving to restore Germany's military as Europe's most powerful force.
04:38Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has overseen a 23 percent uptick in enlistments over last year.
04:46How is the war in Ukraine changing Germany's view of its own security?
04:53I grew up in the Cold War, and since February 2022, we all experienced in Germany and in Europe that
05:02the war is back.
05:03We never expected that, and we were so hopeful that it would never happen again.
05:08But it does, and we have to do everything to be able to deter and defend.
05:13Pistorius was appointed defense minister in 2023, almost a year after Russia's large-scale assault on Ukraine.
05:21When conservative Friedrich Merz became chancellor this past May, he kept Pistorius, the blunt-talking social democrat, in his post.
05:31I mean, you have to be clear on what you want, what you are standing for.
05:34We met him at the Bendler bloc, the Berlin building complex once housed the Nazis' army high command.
05:42Today, it's Germany's equivalent of the Pentagon.
05:45When we spoke with Pistorius this past month, he didn't pull any punches on Russian President Vladimir Putin's ambitions.
05:54There is not only the war against Ukraine.
05:56This is a war against a rule-based international order, and at the same time, he does not stop stressing
06:05what he's really longing for, like a renaissance of the Soviet empire.
06:11He wants to be the dominant power in Europe, and he wants to be the third of three world powers
06:18like China and the U.S.
06:19This is what he is heading for.
06:23Pistorius warns Putin is rapidly rebuilding Russia's military, and he told us Russia could be in position to attack the
06:30West by the end of the decade.
06:33When does Germany need to be ready for war?
06:37We should do everything to be that in 2029.
06:41This is our objective.
06:42This is still a way to go.
06:44Three days after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, the incursion marked
06:55a Zeitenwende, a turning point for Europe.
06:58He announced a special 100-billion-euro fund to kick-start Germany's military build-up.
07:04Three years later, in the run-up to his election as chancellor, Friedrich Merz said he was troubled as well
07:12by President Trump's threats to pull back from NATO.
07:17My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really
07:24achieve independence from the USA.
07:27You're gambling with World War III.
07:29After this contentious Oval Office meeting with President Zelensky this past February, Friedrich Merz posted,
07:37we must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war.
07:41And he pushed parliament to exempt defense spending from Germany's debt break, the constitutionally mandated spending cap.
07:50The money started flowing.
07:52The defense budget is projected to rise almost 80% by 2029.
07:57How big should the German military be?
08:01Germany is the third biggest economy in the world, and the biggest one in Europe, of course.
08:07So everybody in Europe expects us to be the strongest ally in NATO in Europe.
08:16With the surge of federal funding, the long, moribund German defense industry is springing back to life.
08:23The drones are the future of warfare.
08:26We met Sven Krug in Berlin.
08:29He is co-CEO of drone manufacturer Quantum Systems.
08:34The company, with factories in Germany and Ukraine, just landed a 25 million euro contract with the Bundeswehr
08:42to produce up to 750 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones, ISR for short.
08:49We have now more than 1,500 at the battlefront, day by day in use.
08:541,500 drones?
08:571,500 drones in use in Ukraine, day by day, night by night.
09:00Drones, including Quantums, have helped reshape the battlefield.
09:05A few months after the 2022 invasion, Russian forces tried to cross the Donets River in eastern Ukraine.
09:12Explosions and smoke obscured their movements.
09:16A quantum drone equipped with a thermal camera helped Ukraine see, target and stop the advance.
09:23And this actually was our moment where everybody has seen quantum systems and especially ISR drones can make a difference.
09:33Krug told us Germany isn't investing enough in cutting edge technologies.
09:37But we saw evidence the defense ministry is thinking outside the box, way outside the box.
09:44It's funding tests to see if these giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches can be repurposed from repulsive pests to miniature battlefield
09:54assets.
09:55This is the left turn and this is the right turn.
09:58Steffen Wilhelm's year-old startup, Swarm Biotactics in central Germany, is working with the Bundeswehr to develop technology that can
10:07steer the creepy critters autonomously and send them on reconnaissance missions.
10:12He let me take control.
10:16Wow.
10:17They're super resilient and as you can see, I mean, they can crawl through tiny spaces, can go up the
10:23wall into pipes like underground and rubble.
10:26You know this is really bizarre.
10:29Is it?
10:32Swarm's insect neuroscientists attach electrodes to the roach's antenna.
10:37They insist this doesn't hurt, stimulating their natural ability to navigate.
10:42The electrodes are hidden in these bug-sized backpacks, along with a battery and microchips.
10:49They're working to shrink the technology to soon look like this.
10:55Swarm's AI-generated video shows how they might be deployed, carrying cameras, microphones and Doppler radar into war zones.
11:05Right now we're hearing that Russia is rearming itself.
11:09They've got more tanks, more armaments.
11:12How does this compete?
11:14We have to be smarter.
11:16We have to use intelligence.
11:17We have to use autonomy because we wouldn't have enough personnel or enough equipment if you look at what Russia
11:23produces right now.
11:24So I think this is a shift we see in the German startups.
11:28Still, Germany is placing a big bet on its biggest defense contractor, Reinmattal.
11:35A major arms supplier to German troops in both world wars, Reinmattal and its subsidiaries have won a commanding share
11:43of recent government contracts.
11:45We are the fastest growing defense company in Europe at the moment.
11:49Armin Popperger has been CEO since 2013.
11:54Pragmatic, forceful, strategic, he built Reinmattal into a pillar of NATO rearmament.
12:00Reinmattal was an ammunition company.
12:03It's going from ammunitions to vehicle platforms.
12:07But now we go to digitization.
12:09We go to satellite business.
12:10We go to naval business.
12:12His company's success and support of Ukraine made him the target of a Russian assassination plot.
12:19But that didn't slow him or the company down.
12:23Reinmattal is building and expanding 13 arms factories across Europe.
12:28We educated two generations.
12:31If something happens in the world, we call Washington and Washington will help us.
12:36That changed.
12:37President Trump said it very clear.
12:39America has her own problems.
12:41The Europeans have to help themselves.
12:43And now, with the Ukrainian-Russian war, it's very clear about that, that we have to do more.
12:50In 2024, Germany began sending its 45th armored brigade, 5,000 troops, to Lithuania, once brutally occupied by the Nazis.
13:01Lithuania now welcomes German troops bolstering NATO's eastern flank.
13:05Germany's first permanent deployment of a combat-ready brigade abroad since World War II.
13:13Despite the uptick in enlistments, the Bundeswehr faces a manpower challenge.
13:18It wants to add about 75,000 active-duty troops to its all-volunteer force by 2035.
13:26History weighs on recruitment.
13:28The issue still sparks protests.
13:31A recent poll found an overwhelming majority of 15- to 25-year-olds would not take up arms.
13:40If volunteer numbers fall short, the government may reintroduce the draft.
13:46Soldiers we met in basic training told us they find the reluctance of their generation to volunteer troubling.
13:53I think a lot of it must have to do with the history of World War II.
14:00Yes, of course.
14:02Private Lasse told us he's proud to serve.
14:07Nobody wants to go to war.
14:09But if it happens, you have to be there to defend your country.
14:16The week before we spoke to Defense Minister Boris Pistorius,
14:21he presided over a public swearing-in of new recruits in Berlin.
14:25Deutschland, they shouted.
14:33The world hasn't heard Germany assert itself like this since World War II,
14:37but times have changed.
14:40When you talk about rebuilding the German military,
14:45there are many people who recoil at that thought.
14:49I try to explain to them,
14:51if you want to live in peace, in freedom, security,
14:56with a right to go on the street and to demonstrate against or for whatever you want,
15:01to love however you want,
15:03and to believe in any God you want,
15:05then you need to be willing to defend it,
15:08because otherwise there might be people like Vladimir Putin
15:11who will take that kind of living away from us.
15:21A new class of drugs is saving the lives of children who once had no hope.
15:28These high-tech medicines can replace defective genes,
15:32but there's a catch.
15:34Many cost millions of dollars for a single dose,
15:39and American health care hasn't figured out how to pay.
15:42We wondered how medicine could be priced so high,
15:46and how insurance plans could refuse a life-saving treatment.
15:51So we asked the people you're about to meet.
15:54A drug maker whose company charges $3 million for its medication,
15:59a CEO whose insurance plan won't pay,
16:02and a mother named C.G. Green.
16:05C.G. was overjoyed that a new drug could save the life of her daughter, Mazie,
16:12until she found no one would pay the price of life.
16:18Tiny Mazie was born in 2017.
16:22C.G. Green says that from the start,
16:25her daughter was mysteriously ill.
16:27So when you brought Mazie home, what did you begin to notice?
16:32Initially, she just sounded like she had a cold all the time.
16:36She just sounded really congested.
16:39And after, I'd say, like, two weeks,
16:43I noticed that Mazie, like, wasn't holding her head at all.
16:46She was just, like, jello.
16:47Her head, like, neck was, like, jello.
16:48And her head would just flow.
16:51C.G. had a feeling something was terribly wrong,
16:55something doctors couldn't name,
16:57until one took a blood sample
16:59to test for spinal muscular atrophy, SMA.
17:05And she left with the blood,
17:07and she came back, and she goes,
17:08you heard me when I said we're testing for SMA.
17:11And I said, yes, I heard.
17:14And she goes, do you know what that is?
17:16And I go, no.
17:20And she put her hand out.
17:23And I said, please don't touch me.
17:25Please don't touch me,
17:26because I knew everything I had been feeling.
17:31Please don't touch me.
17:33I said, what can we do?
17:35What can you do?
17:36And she shook her head.
17:38She said, love her and squeeze her.
17:41A missing gene caused Mazie's muscles to waste away.
17:46SMA is often fatal by age two.
17:50Then, just in time, in 2019,
17:54something like a miracle was approved by the FDA.
17:58Just one dose of a drug called Zolgensma
18:02can replace the gene to stop the disease.
18:07But the dose is $2 million.
18:10Mazie was on her state's Medicaid.
18:13The insurance company that managed Medicaid said it would not pay.
18:18I became very angry to know that there was something that could help her.
18:22And I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, I was burying my daughter before she was two.
18:27It was cheaper for her to die.
18:31They were banking on her dying.
18:34Mazie's story is a view on what's coming to American health care.
18:40Because today, there are more than 300 high-cost genetic therapies in clinical trials,
18:48some for diseases suffered by millions of patients.
18:51I liken it to a coming tsunami,
18:54which is basically going to overwhelm the employer-sponsored insurance system.
18:59Few know health care finance, as well as Jonathan Gruber.
19:03He's chair of economics at MIT and an architect of the Affordable Care Act.
19:09What happens when you have genetic cell and gene therapies
19:12that treat cancer or heart disease, which are much more common,
19:16that's when the tsunami hits and we're threatened to be underwater.
19:19What problems are the high prices already causing today?
19:24The first problem is that many companies in America are what we call self-insured.
19:30They pay their own medical bills,
19:32about two-thirds of the insured in America in such arrangements.
19:36They can't afford to pay this,
19:38so they're facing a difficult financial decision,
19:41which is, do I cover this drug and potentially go bankrupt,
19:45or do I not help my unlucky employee?
19:48That's the painful question Mike Poore faced.
19:53It should not be that only the rich can afford the best care.
19:59Poore is CEO of Mosaic Life Care,
20:02a nonprofit hospital system in Missouri with about 5,000 employees.
20:08In 2023, Mosaic decided not to cover gene therapies
20:13because Mike Poore told us employee premiums would jump $125 a month.
20:21But a few months later, an employee had twins with SMA, like Maisie.
20:28And the gene therapy for the twins would be $4.2 million.
20:33Yes.
20:35Denied coverage, the family went public and blamed Mosaic.
20:40I got death threats.
20:42My family was threatened.
20:44What did you do to protect your family?
20:47Actually sent them away and decided to, you know, stay on at the hospital
20:54and then just work to make sure that the children got the care they needed.
21:00From the moment his health plan denied the claim,
21:03Mike Poore appealed to philanthropists and legislators.
21:08Finally, state Medicaid paid to treat the twins.
21:12What's really important here is to understand that this is one situation,
21:19but it is a bellwether of what is to come.
21:25Every new gene therapy breaks a record for the most expensive drug ever.
21:30You seem to be saying there's a storm coming.
21:33It's definitely a storm coming.
21:35Who charges millions for a drug?
21:38Doug Ingram is among them.
21:40The CEO of Sarepta Therapeutics took us into a freezer at 4 degrees below zero
21:47where he stores a Levitus, which costs $3.2 million for one dose,
21:54which may be all that is needed to slow Duchenne muscular dystrophy,
22:00a muscle-wasting disease that confronts parents with this prognosis.
22:06They're always told, your boy has Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
22:10There's nothing we can do about it.
22:13Go home, love him, because this disease is going to steal him from you bit by bit, day by day,
22:20and he will die, and you've got to get used to that.
22:23People hear $3.2 million for your drug, and they think greed.
22:31Here's what they should think.
22:33So first of all, if the question is, is this the right price or only price, and can society afford
22:41this,
22:42you're going to hear me say that it absolutely is, and society absolutely can afford it, and we'll go into
22:47that.
22:48If you're asking me whether this is the sort of price that we should be happy with and satisfied in
22:55the long term with gene therapies and genetic medicine,
22:58I'm going to tell you absolutely not.
23:00Ingram's company uses an engineered gene that instructs the child's cells to make a protein to protect the muscles.
23:09A modified virus carries the gene to the cells.
23:14Development took 18 years.
23:17So the first question is, could you even do this and do this safely?
23:21The second question that was obvious is, if you could, you have to manufacture this stuff.
23:27And at the moment in time we did the calculation, you needed more gene therapy manufacturing capacity
23:33than all of the capacity that exists on the planet Earth at the time.
23:39Every company, every research facility, every university.
23:43And we'd never made a vial of anything that looked like a gene therapy at that moment.
23:48And the next thing, you'd have to raise billions of dollars.
23:51You'd have to go to investors and paint a picture of the future and literally raise billions of dollars to
23:57do this.
23:57We didn't have billions of dollars.
24:00It took $3 billion to create a Levitus, according to Ingram.
24:04One of his challenges now is recouping that investment in a rare disease
24:09that has only about 15,000 patients in the U.S.
24:14Ingram says the price will come down with manufacturing experience, future competition,
24:21and, in his view, streamlined federal regulations.
24:25Today, on average, it takes more than 10 years to develop a therapy.
24:31It costs nearly $3 billion on average to make a therapy.
24:36And at the beginning of that journey, the probability of it being successful is nearly zero.
24:42And in the context of that, of course, therapies, when they're eventually approved, are going to be very expensive.
24:48So what we need to do is fix that.
24:51We've had 60, 70 years of layering and layering and layering of requirements,
24:56all for the laudable goal of ensuring that the therapies that are approved in the United States are both safe
25:03and effective.
25:04We have to do the hard work of getting under that and stripping it down to those things that are
25:10absolutely necessary,
25:13informed by the science that we have today, not the science we had in the 60s,
25:17and find a way to make therapies less than $3 billion with a higher probability of success.
25:23Despite mixed results, the FDA approved Elevitus.
25:27About 1,100 patients have been treated.
25:30Two died of liver failure.
25:33About half of the patients were covered by Medicaid.
25:36It's too soon to fully evaluate how well Elevitus is working.
25:41But the vial Doug Ingram showed us was made for a boy named Leighton.
25:46And months after his treatment, Leighton's parents told us he is, quote,
25:52thriving, stronger, and more independent.
25:56Is there a bad guy in this equation?
26:00Employers who won't pay, drug companies that are charging enormous fees for these drugs.
26:07The manufacturer is not the bad guy.
26:09The company is not the bad guy.
26:12Really, there's no bad guys here, Scott.
26:14We just have to recognize as a society that something's changed.
26:18We have a new, miraculous, and expensive mode of treatment.
26:23And we as a society need to recognize that we need to act jointly to absorb those costs.
26:28Economist Jonathan Gruber says, in his view,
26:31absorbing those costs will require government support and negotiated prices.
26:37Until then, parents, including C.G. Green, must improvise.
26:43Green pursued philanthropy for her daughter, Maisie, set up a GoFundMe page,
26:49and demanded a meeting with the insurance company.
26:53You wanted them to look her in the eye.
26:56Yes.
26:57I wanted them to look her in the eye and say,
26:59we're the reason you're going to die.
27:02The insurance board blinked.
27:06Maisie received the genetic therapy drug Zolgensma in 2019.
27:11One dose, one hour, and the effect was what?
27:16You can't even describe it.
27:18Amazing.
27:20Amazing Maisie.
27:21It changed her life.
27:24It changed our life.
27:26It was what she needed.
27:29Can we meet her now?
27:30You sure can.
27:32We'd love to meet Maisie.
27:34Expected to die by age two, she was six when we met.
27:39After a treatment so successful that C.G. has appeared in testimonials for the drug company.
27:46The impairment suffered before the drug cannot be reversed.
27:50Maisie doesn't walk, but she's making straight A's in school.
27:56Hi, Maisie.
27:57Hi.
27:58C.G. told us the progress of the disease appears to have stopped.
28:04And what is the price of that?
28:07A precious little wave.
28:09I'm so glad to meet you.
28:11You feel nice to meet you?
28:12Nice to meet you.
28:14Your own miracle.
28:16My very own miracle.
28:17My very own miracle.
28:30Indiana is the setting for three all-time great sports movies, Hoosiers, Rudy, and Breaking
28:36Away.
28:37And now comes another cinematic underdog story set in the state.
28:42Except this one is unscripted.
28:43Over the last century, defeat has been the near-constant companion of Indiana University
28:49football.
28:49But then arrived a new coach who'd never gotten a shot at the big time.
28:54He brought new players, a new energy, and cue music.
28:57Suddenly, Hoosier hysteria reigns as top-ranked Indiana is the unlikely darling of college football.
29:03The Hoosiers are undefeated, just upset powerhouse Ohio State, and might win a national championship
29:10before the credits roll.
29:15They come from the cities, and they come from the smaller towns.
29:20More than 55,000 fans converging on Bloomington to watch the Indiana Hoosiers.
29:29Built from limestone extracted from local quarries, Memorial Stadium is 65 years old.
29:34But this is a completely new look, home to a football dynamo.
29:40Indiana had always been a basketball school, no longer.
29:44The end zone, touchdown Indiana!
29:47This season, the Hoosiers have won at home and on the road.
29:52Rose to the corner, touchdown Surratt!
29:55They've won in blowouts and won with their season on the brink.
30:00In trouble!
30:02It's out!
30:05Touchdown!
30:05Wow!
30:07This game-winning touchdown against Penn State stands as the play of the year in college football.
30:13And they're hardly doing it with prized recruits.
30:16I think a lot of people on our team, whether it's coaches, players, or staff, have all been overlooked.
30:22You say outcasts and transfers and rejects, you guys are doing pretty well.
30:26Well, I wouldn't say we're, like, for sure, outcasts and rejects.
30:29I think we're all still really, really good football players here.
30:32That's Fernando Mendoza, Indiana's star quarterback.
30:36He's come to embody the team.
30:38A few years ago, he was a middling Miami high school player.
30:41Just last night, he won the Heisman Trophy, the first in IU history.
30:46Can you pause for a second and admire this story?
30:50Human nature is like, wow, like, how did I get here?
30:53And there's a little bit of an imposter syndrome at that point.
30:55Whoa, am I supposed to be here?
30:57I was a two-star recruit.
30:58I wasn't a five-star who's supposed to be in this position,
31:00who's supposed to be on the number one team in the nation.
31:02Talk about your imposter syndrome.
31:04God, does the program still have imposter syndrome?
31:08I think that we believe.
31:10We believe.
31:11The belief has been hard won.
31:13Indiana entered this season as the losingest program in major college football history,
31:18more than 700 defeats.
31:26So imagine the astonishment last weekend when Indiana took down the defending national champion,
31:32undefeated Ohio State, to win the Big Ten title.
31:35The previous time Indiana was conference champion?
31:381967.
31:40Paint the picture of IU football the first 50 years you've been doing this job.
31:45I'd say up and down, except that most of it's been down.
31:5140, 35, down to the 30.
31:53Don Fisher has been the voice of Indiana football since 1973.
31:57This is the greatest turnaround, and I hate that word because I don't think it expresses
32:02really what these last two seasons have been like here in Indiana.
32:05Turnaround doesn't do enough lifting.
32:07It's even bigger than that.
32:07No, it's not a good enough term.
32:10So I'm thinking Peyton Manning wins a Super Bowl like an hour up the road.
32:15I mean, you've got Notre Dame, and football is not an alien sport to Indiana.
32:19Why did it seem so hard to unlock it here?
32:22A big problem for Indiana was we could not recruit offensive and defensive linemen.
32:28Big boys.
32:28The big guys.
32:29We just didn't have very many of them, and football here was not a big sport.
32:33It just hadn't clicked as a football place.
32:36Was there one low moment?
32:37Oh, I don't know if there was one.
32:41Here's one.
32:42It's Indiana legend, but the charismatic coach at the time, Lee Corso, confirms it to us.
32:47In a 1976 game, lowly Indiana took an early 7-6 lead over mighty Ohio State.
32:53So unexpected that Corso burned a timeout for the purpose of commemorative photos.
32:59When the game ended, Indiana still had seven points.
33:02Ohio State had 47.
33:06One diehard fan in attendance that afternoon, John Mellencamp, bard of Indiana,
33:11who's been going to Hoosier games ever since his father took him as a kid.
33:15In the 90s, he funded this indoor practice facility in hopes it would lure recruits.
33:21You've been a fan for like 50 years.
33:24You're not a bandwagon guy.
33:25No.
33:26No, I've been around through thick and thin.
33:29How thin did it get?
33:31Pretty thin.
33:32Indiana Hoosiers!
33:34He says that for years, the tailgates drew more interest than the actual games.
33:39You're going to these football games and the stadium's half full and fans are leaving at halftime.
33:44Whoa, whoa, whoa.
33:45They're not even half full.
33:46Less than half full.
33:47Yeah, less than half full.
33:48I mean, you know, like, if this is the stadium, there's just like a few people up here.
33:53In 2023, yet another dismal season, the team finished 3-9.
33:59And the athletic director, Scott Dolson, set out in search of answers.
34:03What was the hole you had to fill?
34:06I think certainly the right coach is the biggest hole to fill.
34:10As he scoured for candidates, he had some non-negotiables.
34:13We wanted an existing head coach.
34:15We wanted a coach who was offensive-minded, who had developed quarterbacks.
34:19So the slick offensive coordinator at the big school, that's not who you wanted.
34:24No, we really felt having that head coach experience was really important.
34:29Dolson went off the board and settled on a little-known lifer,
34:32who'd won relentlessly but also been overlooked relentlessly.
34:37So two years ago, when Kurt Cignetti's name surfaces as a candidate,
34:41what did you know about him?
34:42Anything?
34:42You've been covering college football for more than 50 years,
34:45and you'd never heard his name before.
34:47Never heard his name.
34:48And when he became the hire, I was surprised by it.
34:51But then I looked him up a little bit.
34:53I Googled it.
34:54I Googled it.
34:55You Googled it.
34:55Yes, I did.
34:56That was a direct order from the new coach.
34:58How do you sell your vision of your culture?
35:00Mere weeks on the job, tired of the who-are-you questions,
35:04Kurt Cignetti dropped his usual modesty and said this.
35:08It's pretty simple.
35:09I win.
35:11Google me.
35:12Here's what Googling would have revealed.
35:15Cignetti pinballed around the country's sidelines.
35:18Once an assistant for Nick Saban at Alabama,
35:21he left the big time to take head coaching jobs at smaller schools
35:25like Elon University and James Madison.
35:28When Indiana called, Cignetti was well beyond the usual sell-by date
35:32for a maiden job at this level.
35:35You've had terrific success wherever you've been,
35:37but at age 62, this was your first Power Four big-time job.
35:42Did you come in here with a bit of a chip on your shoulder?
35:44The chip probably came from when I got here right away.
35:50I detected an atmosphere that you can't get it done here.
35:54You sensed that?
35:55Oh, absolutely.
35:56As soon as I walked in the building.
35:58Facilities that had been neglected.
36:00The stadium banners that looked old.
36:03The offices that looked like they were from 1980.
36:07And then, you know, just the general attitude of the people I met.
36:11The lack of excitement.
36:13Coming from a winning program, he was, well...
36:16I was furious, pretty much.
36:18Because all we did was win conference championships year in, year out.
36:22That's your old school.
36:23Yeah, and, I mean, we win.
36:25And so it was a clashing of two worlds,
36:28and I wasn't going to lower my standards.
36:30It erupted when Cignetti was first introduced to fans
36:34at an Indiana basketball game.
36:36Purdue sucks!
36:42But so does Michigan and Ohio State!
36:46Go IU!
36:48As the kids say, shots fired.
36:50I had to see if the fans were dead or just on life support.
36:56I had to wake them up and set an expectation
36:58and create some buzz and excitement.
37:01Think they woke up?
37:02A little bit.
37:03Get locked in!
37:04Good warm-up!
37:04The irony?
37:05Cignetti is skeptical of anything resembling look at me.
37:09He may be from Pennsylvania,
37:11but his temperament is pitch perfect for Southern Indiana.
37:15He's measured.
37:16He commands respect.
37:17His fallback language is coach speak.
37:21Coaches aren't in the habit of sharing the playbook,
37:23but what is the magic here?
37:26There's no magic here.
37:27It's fundamentals.
37:29You know, I would like to think the leader,
37:31which is me, knows what he's doing
37:32and has a blueprint and a plan.
37:34Create the intangibles on your football team,
37:36the culture, the mindset, the philosophy,
37:38on how you want to play.
37:39Under Cignetti, the program is unrecognizable.
37:43The last two seasons, Indiana's gone 24-2 without losing a home game.
37:48That's the what.
37:49The how is more complicated.
37:52It starts with a coach.
37:54Not just his eye for recruiting talent,
37:56but his ability to develop it once it arrives.
37:59Based on what he's seen from his perch,
38:02a shack atop the stadium press box where he can smoke,
38:06John Mellencamp has his own explanation for Cignetti's success.
38:10He does not show emotion.
38:14He's not emotional.
38:15Not outwardly.
38:17John, I've made my worst decisions being emotional.
38:22I bet you have too.
38:25The poise of Cignetti and the turnaround he's orchestrated,
38:28it makes for a hell of a Cinderella story.
38:31But this is also a story about contemporary college sports.
38:35Indiana's rise has been helped by new rules.
38:40Athletes are now able to enter the so-called transfer portal
38:43and switch schools at will.
38:45Cignetti fortified the roster by bringing 13 players with him from James Madison.
38:51Fernando Mendoza played at Cal Berkeley last season.
38:55Then there's the money.
38:57College players now can be paid for the licensing of their name, image, and likeness,
39:02and starting this year, they can get a cut of team revenue.
39:06Mendoza is reported to be making $2 million this season.
39:09I wrote a paper in high school saying why NCAA athletes should not be able to get paid.
39:14It should not be.
39:15It should not be.
39:16And then now I'm contradicting myself as I'm getting paid now.
39:20There's so many different dynamics that were never there in college football,
39:23and I think that's why you see so many teams either rising or fizzling,
39:27just because of the new structure.
39:29Whether it's people talking about compensation in the locker room,
39:32which is either uniting or dividing the locker room.
39:35Whether it's people going to not only one or two schools, like myself,
39:39going to four schools, I mean, you see coaches leaving mid-season, it is, it's chaos.
39:46In 2024, thanks partially to donors, including IU alum Mark Cuban,
39:51Indiana spent more than $60 million on football alone.
39:55This as the school is cutting academic jobs and programs.
39:59There are people who will say, wait a second,
40:01these are tough times for colleges and universities,
40:03and you've got $50, $60 million being spent on one sport.
40:07That doesn't make sense.
40:08So certainly the market is what the market is, and it costs a lot of money.
40:12But we earn that money, we make it through our revenue streams,
40:15and at the same time, people understand, if we can get football going,
40:20the impact and the consequences for the rest of the university are significant.
40:25You can have all the marketing meetings you want and changing logos and uniforms,
40:31but winning games is what's going to do it.
40:34Absolutely.
40:34And I've joked before, if I'd have known that winning consistently would have that impact,
40:39we should have tried that a long time ago.
40:41Big 10 champion, Indiana Hoosiers.
40:44Now the number one seed in the upcoming college football playoffs,
40:48the Hoosiers' next game is New Year's Day.
40:51But at Indiana, the joy is tempered by a fear this all could vanish as quickly as it emerged.
40:57The school vows to keep spending on football, far more than on basketball.
41:02And in hopes the coach doesn't transfer out,
41:06Indiana recently gave Signetti an eight-year, $90 million contract,
41:09more than 15 times his compensation at his last job.
41:13Been around this sport a long time.
41:15It's a lot different now than it was when you started.
41:19Do you embrace that?
41:20Oh, you have to embrace that.
41:22If not, you have no chance of being successful.
41:24Doesn't matter if you like it or not.
41:25Those are the rules of the road.
41:27You got to adapt, adjust, and improvise.
41:29Take what the defense gives you.
41:32Attack at all times.
41:40Aiden Fisher on the key to Indiana's football success.
41:43The two best words I have for you is Coach Singh.
41:45At 60MinutesOvertime.com.
41:52The last minute of 60 Minutes is sponsored by UnitedHealthcare.
41:57Coverage you can count on for your whole life ahead.
42:04Next week, 60 Minutes reaches a new high as Cecilia Vega treks to Mount Everest.
42:11Her guides were the Sherpas who risked their lives to assist climbers.
42:17Leading the expedition was a 19-year-old Sherpa.
42:21We're really almost there now.
42:22He set a record as the youngest person to climb the world's 14 highest mountains.
42:29Ah, it's windy.
42:30I do not like this at all.
42:32There's little margin for error.
42:34You can't be scared of anything if you do what you do.
42:37Of course, you're scared, but you have to balance it in a way that you can be confident,
42:42you know, when you do things.
42:43What do you tell yourself when you get scared?
42:45Ah, I'm just trying to calm myself down and just realize who I am.
42:52I'm Scott Pelley.
42:53That story and more next week on another edition of 60 Minutes.
42:58And to those celebrating, happy Hanukkah.
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