One Tough Boilermaker

During the pandemic I made many photos of the Boilermaker statue. When things got tough it is where I went. The blog will kind of do that today. If you have watched any Purdue football the last two weeks then you know that things are tough. It is hard to watch. After a couple of weeks of watching it I already had apathy set in. I had no idea when the game was last week, but thanks to Twitter I saw that things were not well. Things started so hi for the Boilermakers. They had a great start to the season against Indiana State. At this point you have to wonder if that was the lone win for the season. With what I do now the wins and losses of the team don’t factor into the outcome of my gallery much. In fact most sales come from the opponent side of things so lots of scores for them is good for me. As someone who has rooted for Purdue in the past I don’t like to see them this way. I don’t have the answers. People who do get millions of dollars because they do. Right now things around the program have a familiar feel to them. It was fall and we travelled to Champaign to see Purdue play. With a loss we were sure that it would be the end of the current coaches tenure. That ended up being a great day with Purdue pulling out the win and having a beautiful celebration with the cannon on the field at Illinois. Of course things didn’t go according to plan after that and that coach only extended his tenure by one week. I still remember being in the pumpkin patch with my family when my phone started blowing up with the news. So here we are with Purdue headed to Champaign this week and a pumpkin patch visit scheduled for the following weekend.

Seeing The Whole Picture

When things get tough in sports the first thing that the fans do is to start calling for people to be fired. For a couple of weeks now I have seen those calls on social media. I have seen the Purdue head coaches name come up in those posts. Watching his press conference on Monday I saw what you expect to see. As a fan you think that nobody wants the team to win more than you. I saw the frustration that coach has with how things are going. As a fan the team can be part of your life. For the coach his livelihood depends on how the team plays. Nobody wants to see this thing turn around more than this coaching staff. I cannot imagine what has gone on in the meetings this week and in weeks past. I cannot be fun right now around the program. I would like to see the fun return, and this staff to find the answers that they are looking for. This game probably will always have a little extra meaning for coach as it is where he came from. Last year Purdue stuck it to Illinois for a great win. It feels like this year the game has a little extra on top of that for Purdue. We are to the point in the season where I am not even looking for a win. I am looking to see this team compete for four quarters. That is not a high bar, but hopefully one that can be accomplished this week. With all of the money that programs need to generate for everything now it seems like the stakes get high for coaches very quickly. I would love to look back at these games and laugh someday when the tables are turned and we are hoping that Coach Walters is going to turn down a lucrative offer to leave. It would be nice to have someone come in and build something here and stick around to see it through. I think that coach is the guy to do that. This whole rambling post is my way of working through what I have seen this season. Nobody can sugar coat what has happened. Right now they have me apathetic about the program. They don’t care about me. Hopefully the cash cows that they depend on are still engaged, and they can see something on the field that is worthy of their money.