A Mere Decade
This week marks a significant milestone. It’s about how much things have changed over the years. How angry old people have taken over the landscape and unapologetically cast shade everywhere, sparing no one.
I’m talking, of course, about this week being the tenth anniversary of the launch of Boiled Sports.
Boilerdowd, Tim (miss you, Tim) and J all left Purdue in roughly the same timeframe. That timeframe was the glorious 1990s. Jeans fit different, social media wasn’t a thing (I only really got to be friends with the clowns on my wing of Cary – and I remain stuck with them) and Purdue basketball would get everyone excited and then let them down in March (oh, wait).
In those early years after leaving college, the guys would do the ol’ “reply all” conversation via email with a group of friends. Sure, message boards existed, but they were thick with argumentative trolls (oh, wait). So we stayed within our friends and continued debating Purdue sports via email trails that stretched on for months.
Eventually one day we discussed simply putting our opinions online. Who would read it? I don’t know, maybe just our friends. Maybe some Purdue fans. Who knew? But the thought going into some of the opinion being written was noteworthy, in part because it wasn’t really happening anywhere else. The mainstream media barely covered Purdue, the BTN didn’t exist yet (and still doesn’t know that Purdue does) and when it came to Purdue opinion and analysis, the Morgan Burke/Tom Schott gestapo had a lid on any of that nonsense. And since we like to poke bears with sticks, we got to work.
Our initial intent was an outlet for our sports fandom, primarily from a “Purdue-centric” perspective. We might write about non-Purdue stuff sometimes but it would be coming from some guys spread out across the country who really lived for Purdue’s success. As the years went on, we barely wrote about anything but Purdue and of course got to be even more disillusioned and bitter than we were at the beginning. Perhaps this comes from getting old, too.
We decided a while back to allow some new writers into the fold. Teddy Huff came on board as did the Panda. They moved on to greener pastures and we then were able to acquire Michael Henry high in the draft. We were able to get Aneesh off waivers. Dave was signed to a lucrative free agent to be the David Ross of our group – grizzled, sage, old…but capable of a key home run.
Oh, we also brought on a young lady briefly. In the thousands of posts, I believe the one she put up that was kind of obnoxiously critical of a recruit’s grammar was the only one we’ve ever deleted. We mea culpa’ed and moved on.
While we rarely shared a lot about our personal lives, once in a while we broke that fourth wall and did so. This post from perhaps the scariest night of Boilerdowd’s life (aside from nights spent in the same room as me) is one that I think is among the best things ever written on BS:
When you're fearing you might lose a child and you can't help but breaking into tears multiple times each day, you need every bit of caring and prayer you can receive just to get through. Our friends lifted us up with the prayers, and the great people working at IU's Riley hospital gave us further reason to believe, along with our faith.
Far more often, of course, we were smart-asses. Perhaps nothing represented that better than our multi-year surreptitious running of the Hopeful Danny twitter feed:
As with the origins of this site, we mainly did it to entertain each other and perhaps a few friends, but then it quickly began growing into something that those with (we like to think) smart senses of humor really began to enjoy. I often thank you readers for the compliments we get and the HopefulDanny feed was no different -- in fact, we were referred to as "genius" far more often for a phony twitter feed than we ever have been for our work here.
One of my favorite things to do – and really, it wasn’t mine alone – was to go after Purdue’s athletic department. Their secrecy, open disdain for anyone who might ask a question and 1960s mentality on so many topics made them an easy target. When we felt like taking potshots, it was easy. But then there were things that – like the Ryan Cline saga recently – actually bothered us genuinely since this is our University we’re talking about. It’s the place where we went to school, got our diplomas and proudly represent. So when news surfaces that Purdue has one of the most lax drug programs in the nation, well, that’s cause to take issue:
Purdue is among only four universities from the automatic-qualifying BCS conferences that do not suspend a football player after two positive drug tests. In fact, at Purdue, you only get suspended one game after your third positive drug test (at more than half the other schools, you get dismissed from the team at this point). And that's only if you fail three drug tests in 18 months; if you go 18 months without a positive test, your slate goes back to zero. Yes, that's right... you can fail a couple of drug tests every year and a half and never serve time for it.
Perhaps the post I’m personally most proud of, though, was something I wrote during a dark 2011 period when Purdue football was (stop me if you’ve heard this before) not very good. I decided to hammer out some of the many things that most Boilermakers love about Purdue. It got some super positive feedback and I’ve always been appreciative of that. I called it Being a Purdue Fan:
Purdue fans are people who spend years on campus. They ate at the campus grills. They had beers at Harry’s. They went to Breakfast Club. They ran through the fountain…. They’ve lost their voice in Mackey. They’ve walked what feels like ten miles – uphill – to get to a football game. They’ve gotten sunburned and frost-bitten at Ross-Ade in the same season. They have driven around blocks for 45 minutes waiting for a parking spot to open up. They’ve enjoyed the “Drew Brees” or the “Duane Purvis” at Triple XXX. They know Triple XXX is spelled just that way, even though that’s kind of redundant. …They know nobody at Purdue gets their number retired. They know it’s just called the “Co-Rec.” … They know the mascot is the Special, not Pete. They never, ever forget the athletes who clearly LOVED representing Purdue. … They remember that the area between Owen and Cary – now a massive mess hall – used to be a field referred to by many as the “DMZ.” They called Hillenbrandt “the Hilton” when it was new and scoffed at how soft the people were who lived there. They remember the dry “nightclub” at Purdue West. They remember “Kazoos.” They remember Alfano’s stuffed breadsticks. They’ve walked to the levee to play basketball under the lights. And that’s just a few things that make Boilermakers….Boilermakers.
There are many other posts and moments I could highlight, but the trip down memory lane isn’t really what we’re about. We’re about the now, the vibe for Purdue, the current prevailing opinion and what we think should be getting said about Purdue, even if it hurts a little bit. After all, being loyal to your program isn’t just about being blindly loyal in our opinion – it’s a little like parenting. Sometimes tough love is what’s needed.
For those who have stuck with us from the beginning, thanks… and jeez, don’t you have anything better to do? Kidding, of course. We love you all. Even you. Yeah, you, the dumb one. It’s been a fun ten years (except for all the losing) and we’ll see you all at Aneesh’s place for the kegger next Friday night.
