Making the most of the moment is what it’s all about for Rob Blackman, the voice of Purdue men’s basketball.

Choosing words succinctly and wisely is an art form. That’s how one becomes 2025 Indiana Sportscaster of the Year, an honor Blackman earned in late January.

When Fletcher Loyer dribbled across halfcourt and lofted the basketball skyward as time ran out at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena on March 31, 2024 — sealing Purdue’s win over Tennessee and a trip to the Final Four — Blackman, after calling the play, paused to humbly pay tribute to former broadcast partner Larry Clisby, who had passed away three years earlier.

“The first thing that came out of his mouth was Cliz,” says Purdue coach Matt Painter, who later heard Blackman’s broadcast. “That says a lot about Rob, that he would take that moment to pay respect to Larry. He also paid tribute to several others around our program, like (longtime supporter) John Nine, and that meant a lot.”

Blackman gets treated like family around the men’s basketball program because he is family. He started his basketball work with the Boilermakers the year Painter became head coach, 21 seasons ago.

“He’s one of us, and he’s done a great job; he’s like another staff member,” Painter says. “You kind of make your bones by how you feel when we lose. That sounds crazy, but if you hurt when we lose, you’re one of us.

“He has worked really hard to be in this position and to be loyal to Purdue, and it’s just a great fit. We are very fortunate because we had a great fit with Cliz, and having someone like Rob is very, very similar. It’s unique. I think that’s what makes Purdue special — having guys like Rob in your corner.”

For 15 years, Blackman sat to the right of Clisby, the legend of Purdue men’s basketball radio, but when Clisby was saddled with cancer, the bittersweet reality stared Blackman in the face. Were the circumstances surrounding the eventual change of the guard as imagined? Of course not; however, the choice to fill the role was never in doubt.

“You have to earn your stripes and wait your turn,” says Blackman, who stepped into his role after Clisby retired due to illness. Those stripes he referred to were earned, and in plenty. To receive them, one had to excel at the job, and Blackman’s upbringing and prior professional opportunities prepared him well.

And the result? Carving his own successful footprint in the Purdue Athletics community.

“I have been so lucky to have so many great mentors, great people that came before and supported me,” Blackman says.

That started at his boyhood home. He grew up on a farm in northern White County, five miles north of Monticello, Indiana, as a Purdue fan. “It is clear that Rob got his work ethic from his upbringing,” says his wife of nearly 28 years, Stephanie. “I hit the in-laws lottery when it comes to great families, and the Blackman family clearly knows the value of hard work and effort.”

Stephanie also tells a story passed down about her husband’s childhood aspiration to become a broadcaster.

“They have very grainy videos — videos nonetheless — of him recreating basketball games after coming home from a high school game on a Friday,” Stephanie says. “He would recreate the game, announce it and pretend like he was the players at the same time.”

Priceless stuff.

Honing skills

The first in his family to attend college, Blackman played wide receiver at the University of Evansville, graduating in 1993, four years before the Purple Aces dropped their program.

While on the Evansville campus, Blackman garnered experience at the campus radio station and got a lucky break when a sports-minded station manager, Len Clark, paved the way for more experience.

Clark, also from northern Indiana, appreciated Blackman’s enthusiasm for the craft and his ability to manage time as a student-athlete and broadcaster.

“From his farming background, he knows what hard work looks like,” Clark says. “I don’t like the term ‘paying your dues,’ but he has carved his own path to get where he wants to be.”

After his days in the Pocket City, Blackman was hired at WRBT in Mt. Carmel, Illinois, just an hour or so up the Ohio and Wabash rivers from his college home. He even found time to coach the freshman football and basketball teams at Mt. Carmel High School from 1994-98.

But radio was his day job — and his passion, and it showed.

“Rob always treated broadcasting as community service,” says Scott Allen, who was Blackman’s boss at WRBT. “He understands the importance of bringing local moments to people who rely on radio, and he hasn’t changed that even after spending time at Purdue.”

Rick Johnston, the Mt. Carmel basketball coach for the coincidentally named Golden Aces, could tell early on that Blackman would someday outgrow the town despite being a perfect fit for the community of about 8,000 residents.

“Rob was way ahead of his time,” Johnston says. “He did things for our program that others weren’t doing, especially in a high school setting: weekly shows, coaches’ shows. It was a great thing for our program, and Rob was the impetus behind it all.”

Johnston, who had coached basketball in Indiana, had Lafayette-area ties and was a Purdue fan, encouraged Blackman to aim high at an early age. When he asked Blackman where he was headed in his career, the broadcaster’s answer was straightforward.

“Without flinching, he said, ‘I’ll be working on the Purdue network broadcasting team,’” Johnston says. Blackman wasn’t bragging; he just had that wonderful attribute: a clear vision of where he was headed and wanted to be.

Blackman began working with the Purdue radio network on the football postgame call-in show in 2004 and worked his way to the studio-host position he now holds, alongside Tim Newton and Mark Herrmann. He has also broadcast Boilermaker baseball for nearly a decade (sharing duties with Kyle Charters) and is the host of the fledgling “For Pete’s Sake” podcast with comedian Joey Mulinaro.

No substitute for preparation

Blackman’s versatility has also expanded to auto racing, working on the Indy 500 radio network. It was a sport he knew only from a fan’s perspective, but it played a role in him getting the opportunity. Blackman’s tireless preparation impressed the voice of the 500, Mark Jaynes, when Jaynes was looking for another pit reporter.

“He came to the interview with seven pages of notes and admitted he didn’t know much about auto racing,” says Jaynes, who has spent 30 years as the lead on the Indy 500 radio broadcast team. “My response was simple: ‘You’re hired.’ He could probably make a game of tic-tac-toe sound exciting, but the thing is it is so genuine. What I’ve also grown to respect about him as a co-worker and a friend is that Rob doesn’t use ‘I’ and ‘me’ much. Rob uses ‘we.’ That connects him with the audience.”

Blackman’s sidekick on the Purdue basketball broadcasts, Bobby Riddell, is impressed with his partner’s diligence.

“He does a tremendous job of preparation,” says Riddell, who has been the color analyst since the 2020–21 season. “He has a laundry list of things he puts together for every game: rosters, talking points, matchups. It makes it easy for me because I feel we are always ready.”

Not leaving much to chance while still sounding authentic is a key attribute. Also, just having fun with the broadcast and realizing you are living the dream serves Blackman well.

“There are few people who get to do a job they have dreamed of doing,” Blackman says. “I am humbled by the Broadcaster of the Year Award, as so many people had so much to do with it.”

Don Fischer, the voice of Indiana for 53 years, delivers the ultimate “it takes one to know one” comment. Fischer, who has won the Indiana Sportscaster of the Year Award 28 times, is effusive in his praise of his “rival” colleague. “Rob is a terrific broadcaster, very much a pro, very professional, and does a great job on the air,” Fischer says. “He is one of those people, not just on the air but off the air, that you could really relate to, because he’s just a great person.”

Written by Alan Karpick, publisher of GoldandBlack.com since 1996.

Andrew Kinder, a senior in business, finds hope and support as a cancer survivor

More than six years after Tyler Trent showed campus and the world what it means to stand up to cancer, his story still touches the lives of so many.  

People like Purdue senior Andrew Kinder and cancer researcher Nathaniel Mabe, and everyone at the Purdue research center that bears his name: the Tyler Trent Pediatric Cancer Research Center. It’s part of the Purdue Institute for Cancer Research (PICR), one of the university’s leading research centers. 

Kinder, who is on track to graduate this year from the Mitch Daniels School of Business, and Mabe, a PICR member and an assistant professor of medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology in Purdue’s College of Pharmacy, are also connected by something else: They are both survivors. 

Though these two individuals have never met, their paths have both been inspired by Trent’s resilience and passion for Boilermaker athletics and philanthropy.  

For Mabe, the lightning bolt to commit his life’s work to cancer research came in 2018: As a football fan and Ohio native, he happened to watch the ESPN “College GameDay” episode highlighting Purdue superfan Trent’s story, about two months before the 20-year-old Boilermaker student passed away following a five-year battle with osteosarcoma. 

“I didn’t know Tyler and didn’t have connection to Purdue, but his story really spoke to me and was a motivating factor for why I wanted to go into pediatric cancer research,” he says. 

That spark –– that unexpected connection to Tyler that so many shared –– was also a major reason he joined Purdue.  

Kinder too felt kinship with Trent, as a Purdue freshman undergoing oral chemotherapy in 2021. “Tyler was exactly what a Boilermaker is. His mindset really is also something I look at as motivation. Like you’ve always got to keep going,” he says. 

The senior comes from a family of proud Boilermakers, including his parents and two older sisters, and he attended the now-famous Boilermakers’ 2018 upset win over Ohio State where Trent made his last appearance at Ross-Ade Stadium. “I think a lot of what I modeled after him is, I just wanted to be the most normal that I could be,” Kinder says.  

Mabe’s commitment to patients 

Mabe is one of many individuals at the PICR and the Tyler Trent Pediatric Cancer Research Center working to make a difference in the lives of students like Kinder and Trent.  

“Our role in this is to be the scientist to help to make new therapies, not just to help treat cancer but to make them safer and better tolerated,” Mabe says.  

He’s motivated by the struggles of young patients and their families — and by his own story, too. In 2014, while he was a PhD student and just 24 years old, he was diagnosed with testicular seminoma. Although treatable, the cancer diagnosis changed his academic trajectory.  

Prior to his diagnosis, he wanted to study cardiovascular disease. But, Mabe says, “I decided that I wanted to be part of the scientists that were finding new treatments that could make cancers curable for everyone and not just for people like me.”

Our role in this is to be the scientist to help to make new therapies, not just to help treat cancers but to make them safer and better tolerated.

Nathaniel Mabe
Assistant professor of medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology, Purdue Institute for Cancer Research

He studies neuroblastoma, a malignant cancer that originates in a child’s nerve tissue. He says, “One of the challenges that we want to tackle is helping to increase the therapies available for these really young kids.” 

As a part of this effort, he studies the possible drivers behind this type of cancer, including epigenetics. “Every cell in the body has the same DNA –– whether it’s a heart or a brain or skin cell, they all have the same DNA, but the cookbook for making a human, all the different kinds of organs, is what’s called epigenetics,” Mabe explains. “That is, it tells a cell, ‘You’re to become a heart cell; you’re to become a brain cell; you’re to become a skin cell.’” 

It’s during this process that childhood cancer commonly develops in the tissue. By digging deeper, Mabe and his collaborators seek to target cancer cells that aren’t developing properly as tissues and use drug therapies to manipulate the cancer cells to resemble healthy tissues. He says, “That doesn’t turn them into healthy tissue, but it prevents them from continuing to grow.” 

This research, which he hopes to take to the clinical-trial phase, is part of a larger nationwide effort, including at Mabe’s previous institution, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The collaborators are currently in talks with pharmaceutical companies, clinicians and scientists, all with the aim of developing a new drug that could help kids with neuroblastoma.  

Mabe strives to innovate in this area, and it’s his interactions with patients –– like Kinder –– and their families that keep him going. “We’re in the lab most days,” he says, “but certainly seeing their energy and commitment to the cause energizes us to work harder and to work smarter so that we can make as many differences as fast as we can.” 

Kinder finds his purpose 

Kinder chose Purdue with his parents’ help, because he knew the campus well and trusted that it would provide him with the sense of comfort and normalcy that he craved during his treatment for leukemia.  

He benefited from a few stabilizing forces. One of his older sisters, Claire, was a senior at the time and living on campus in West Lafayette, which was a big relief in case he ever needed help.  

Also, the Riley Hospital for Children, where Kinder received regular chemotherapy treatments, was roughly an hour’s drive from where he lived. And Purdue’s Disability Resource Center helped coordinate with his doctor at Riley, eliminating some of the stress when he needed to miss classes. 

Like Trent, Kinder was highly motivated to contribute something meaningful to Purdue –– a place they valued so much –– and be unrelenting in those pursuits.  

One of the ways Kinder worked toward this goal was by joining the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. During his sophomore and junior years, he became heavily involved in the organization’s philanthropic efforts in connection with the PICR and Tyler Trent Cancer Research Endowment.  

Tyler was exactly what a Boilermaker is. His mindset really is also something I look at as motivation. Like you’ve always got to keep going.

Andrew Kinder

Purdue senior in business

Each fall around the Hammer Down Cancer football game, members from Beta Theta Pi shave their heads and donate the sponsorship proceeds to cancer research at Purdue during an event called “Buzz-A-Beta.” Kinder estimates that he raised around $15,000 through this.  

For him, this philanthropy is incredibly fulfilling. “As a Boilermaker, you always keep pushing. You can’t let anything really stop you,” he says.”  

The mission behind cancer research at Purdue 

The Purdue Institute for Cancer Research was established in 1976 and became a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center in 1978. It’s one of only 73 NCI-designated cancer institutes, which are found in 37 states and the District of Columbia. 

“NCI designation is the gold standard of quality in cancer care and in cancer research,” says Andrew Mesecar, the Robert W. Miller Director of the PICR.  

He explains that Purdue’s, and particularly the PICR’s, biggest strengths are its interdisciplinary nature and renewed focus on pediatric cancer research with the Tyler Trent Pediatric Cancer Research Center, which was established in 2023 with support from the Tyler Trent Cancer Research Endowment. 

Mesecar says, “I wanted to create a model where we were not just a cancer research center, but an institute, where we can create centers focused on specific areas like pediatric cancer, and fulfill our academic mission of training students and training postdocs as the next generation of cancer researchers.”  

This model draws on Purdue’s unique scientific expertise and technological capabilities. It also brings together biologists, pharmacists –– like Mabe –– biochemists and engineers, for example, to analyze and better understand what’s driving a specific cancer and develop effective therapeutics and delivery methods. 

The institute has a proven track record of excellence in these areas for adult cancers, including three FDA-approved drugs and agents, and patents and licensed technologies. And now, Mesecar hopes to translate these strengths into advancements in pediatric cancer, an area that requires more funding and research. 

The Tyler Trent Pediatric Cancer Research Center and the recruitment of new faculty like Mabe are essential leaps toward this objective.  

Mesecar wants patients and their families to know that they’re not alone. “Purdue exists and it’s doing something about cancer,” he says.   

At Purdue, we tackle the world’s toughest challenges through timely research and innovation. Andrew’s story is just one of many incredible examples of how this pursuit continues to enhance the lives of those in our community and beyond. 

Learn more https://www.purdue.edu/campaigns/next-giant-leap/

How Purdue helped one Indiana farm family keep growing

When the crowd leaps to its feet in Mackey Arena, thousands cheer with one thunderous voice — farmers, engineers, scientists, alumni and first-years, families who drove in from rural counties and fans who simply love Boilermaker basketball. 

Bethany Gremel (BS organizational leadership and development ’06) is right there with them. She’s in the crowd often every season. Her story is packed with experiences that evoke loud, wholehearted cheers for Purdue: decades of Indiana farmland, seasons of uncertainty and the knowledge that research — practical, in-the-dirt Purdue research — helped six generations of her family’s farms survive when survival was never guaranteed. 

“I grew up knowing farmers are the ultimate risk-takers,” Gremel says. “You don’t survive unless you’re resilient. Risk and resilience go hand in hand.” 

Gremel was raised on a network of family farms in Howard and Grant counties — grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins; many acres planted in corn, soybeans and wheat; and a couple thousand hogs. Weather forecasts, commodity reports and faithful prayer were daily rituals. The future was always discussed in terms of decades, not seasons. 

Gremel watched her parents navigate growing a family business amid inflation, drought and debt pressures that blanketed the agriculture industry in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Raised by “truly remarkable” God-fearing parents who taught her strong values that she carries today, she also learned that the future of agriculture requires more than dogged determination. 

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevancy a lot less,” she says. “You’re either growing or dying. Staying stagnant is choosing death. So you might as well grow, and that takes research, innovation and being willing to adapt.” 

For Gremel, Purdue represented a tangible, high-impact path to success. Seeing how Purdue helped her family farm shaped her choices. When she left for college, she chose Purdue — but not agriculture. 

“I was very committed to not being in agriculture,” she says. “I’d seen how hard it was.” 

Yet choosing Purdue itself felt inevitable. “It was a no-brainer,” she says. “The reputation, the relationships — the people.” 

Gremel began in pharmacy, shifted to health sciences and eventually landed in Purdue’s College of Technology, earning a degree in organizational leadership and development. Advisors helped her pivot without losing momentum. 

“They worked together to help me figure out how I could graduate in four years and still enjoy what I was doing,” she says. “That’s Purdue.” 

Gremel came to believe that research equals sustenance. And connecting research to real life is exactly what Purdue does, says Samantha Shoaf Miller, director of corporate business development for Purdue’s College of Agriculture, who works to connect Purdue researchers with companies like Beck’s Hybrids, where Gremel works today.

If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevancy a lot less. You’re either growing or dying. Staying stagnant is choosing death.

Bethany Gremel (BS organizational leadership and development ’06)

Director of culture and brand experience at Beck’s Hybrids

“Our extension mission is baked into Purdue’s DNA,” Miller says. “We exist to make science usable for communities.” 

Miller points to decades-long relationships with farm families — from winter short courses to today’s student internships and industry-research collaborations. “The partnership with Beck’s isn’t one press release,” she says. “It shows up in lots of ways across campus.” 

After graduation, Gremel launched a successful corporate career in supply-chain leadership at Target, thriving a world away from tractors and grain bins. 

Then came the phone call. 

Sonny Beck, president of Beck’s Hybrids, left a voicemail while Gremel was living in Kansas. He wanted to talk about building an HR department at his growing family seed company. Her family had a long history with Beck’s, having established a Beck’s dealership in 1976.  
 
Even so, she admits that she nearly ignored the call. “I was young, single and doing well,” she says. “Target was so good to me.” 

She agreed to talk anyway, and once the phone conversation got underway, it felt familiar in all good ways. “It was like talking to my dad or my grandfather.” 

Next came an offer from Beck’s that carried some risk with the return to small-town living and a family-owned business. She accepted the job but immediately questioned her decision. 

“I hung up and thought, ‘I just threw away my youth,’” she laughs. 

Seventeen years later, Gremel remains happily at Beck’s, serving its leadership team as director of culture and brand experience — and she smiles, thinking back to that fateful decision she once questioned. “That quiet inner voice was louder than my head,” she says. “And it was right.”

Her life now sits at the intersection of multiple forces: her family farm, her faith, Purdue University and Beck’s. She has big hopes for the farm’s future as the family’s seventh generation starts to take on farm responsibilities. Her daughter, son, niece and nephews, whom she hopes will become Boilermakers when their time comes, are part of that next generation.  

Gremel believes Purdue helped redefine agriculture for her — not just as a struggle, but as a field driven by science, data and possibility. 

“Our farm built my values. My faith equips me to begin each day with a positive attitude and a strong work ethic. Purdue showed me what was possible and Beck’s lets me live that every day,” she says. “Fewer than 1% of people farm; and Purdue still invests in family farms through research, education and extension. That creates opportunity for the next generation.” 

Miller sees that same cycle at work. “Bethany reflects Beck’s values — teamwork, integrity, innovation,” she says. “She’s helped preserve that authenticity as the company grows.” 

Miller says she sees the same philosophy reinforced by Purdue research. 

Standing inside Mackey Arena, surrounded by fans whose lives have been shaped in countless invisible ways by Purdue discoveries, Gremel feels gratitude more than nostalgia. 

“I’m incredibly blessed,” she says. “Very grateful to Purdue.” She pauses. “And for the way I was raised on our family farm.” 

For Purdue, that is the measure of impact from Boilermaker research that continually leaps out of laboratories and journals and into Indiana corn and soybean fields. It’s present in generations of families determined to be farming decades from now. 

Everyday Boilermakers who cheer loudly benefit from giant leaps made close to home. 

Purdue tackles the world’s toughest challenges through timely research and innovation. Bethany’s story is just one of many incredible examples of how this pursuit continues to enhance the lives of people in our community and beyond.

Learn more https://www.purdue.edu/campaigns/next-giant-leap/

I grew up knowing farmers are the ultimate risk-takers. You don’t survive unless you’re resilient. Risk and resilience go hand in hand.

Bethany Gremel (BS organizational leadership and development ’06)
Director of culture and brand experience at Beck’s Hybrids

2-year-old Callie’s life has changed thanks to cochlear implants from Purdue’s audiology clinic

Callie Cochran’s world was mostly quiet for the first two years of her life. 

The 2-year-old has struggled with hearing loss since birth –– likely worsening after her first birthday due to a string of ear infections –– and was diagnosed later than most children her age, according to her mother, Kayla Cochran. 

“We didn’t really have a blueprint of what to expect in comparison to other families and other kids because we don’t really know when exactly she became as deaf as she was,” says Kayla, a Purdue alumna (BA sociology ’19). 

But after getting connected with Purdue’s cochlear implant clinic last year, Callie was able to receive transformative cochlear implants. And now for the first time, she can hear her parents’ voices clearly. She’s also starting to talk, saying “Mama” and “Dada.”   

Thinking about her daughter’s journey, amazing progress and Purdue’s vital intervention makes Kayla emotional. 

“You could just tell the world was quiet for her before that, so everything just got brighter for her. She was much happier,” she says. “She woke up to the world.” 

Callie’s journey to Purdue 

Since Callie was 1, Kayla and her husband, Jackson, have tried to understand their daughter’s hearing loss. This was initially difficult, however, because her hearing loss wasn’t caught at birth.  

Callie technically passed her infant hearing test but was still falling behind on important speech milestones. 

For months after Callie turned 1, her parents searched for answers and ways to help her. In June 2025, she was seen by a specialist at Lafayette ENT, where she was diagnosed as deaf in both ears. She was then referred to an audiologist at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis who conducted a sedated auditory brain stem response test — a standard test that identifies hearing loss — which confirmed the diagnosis.  

Due to the severity of her hearing loss, Callie needed cochlear implants, or surgically placed electronic devices that enable critical improvements in hearing. But first, she would need to be fitted for hearing aids to be eligible for implants.  

The audiologist, a Purdue graduate named Theresa Nelson, referred Callie and her family to Purdue’s cochlear implant clinic in West Lafayette.  

Kayla and Jackson also attended Purdue, so they knew that they could trust the institution in their family’s time of need.  

The parents were happy to connect with something familiar. “They are willing to spend as much time with you as possible in your appointments until you feel comfortable and ready to go,” Kayla says.  

Working with Riley, Purdue’s audiologists fast-tracked Callie, who got her first hearing aids in August –– her first access to sound –– and then cochlear implants in October, to accelerate her development. The implants were activated a week after the surgery.  

And in just two months of working with Purdue and a listening and spoken language-focused speech therapist, Callie went from a newborn level of expressive speech and communication to a mastery of 12-to-15-month skills. 

She woke up to the world.

Kayla Cochran

Callie Cochran’s mother

North central Indiana’s audiology hub

Callie’s progress excites Jillian Hubertz and Shannon Van Hyfte, clinical faculty in Purdue’s Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences — the audiologists who changed the Cochrans’ lives for the better.  

They’re passionate about leading Purdue’s cochlear implant clinic, which is unique to the area as it provides evidence-based care to people throughout north central Indiana.  

Van Hyfte established the clinic in 2016, with Hubertz joining in 2020. They see patients ranging in age from infants to adults. They confirmed that Callie’s deafness was diagnosed at a later age than usual.  Hearing loss in infants is usually identified by six weeks old.  

They also provide clinical education to Purdue audiology graduate students, who assist with hands-on care to patients and utilize the latest intervention methods and industry innovations. 

Cutting-edge technologies are particularly important to Van Hyfte and Hubertz because they can improve the quality of care. This was especially true in Callie’s case and part of the reason her progress was so rapid. She benefited from new cochlear implant technology called the Cochlear Nucleus 8 Nexa implant system. 

 And with advances in clinical practice, Callie’s implants could be activated sooner. 

Cochlear implants work by sending an electrical signal that stimulates the cochlear nerve –– the auditory nerve that essentially tells the brain to process sound. This process bypasses the inner damage to a patient’s ear and enables hearing.  

Beyond their roles at Purdue, Van Hyfte, Hubertz and their colleagues present their clinical findings at conferences across the country. They’re dedicated to sharing their model, patient protocols and benchmarks for success with other universities, especially those without access to an in-clinic surgeon. 

It’s this engagement, and patients like Callie, that drive their work. 

“When you identify hearing loss, it’s a very hard day for those families,” Van Hyfte says. “What’s rewarding about cochlear implants is that there are more tears shed — happy tears in this specialty clinic –– than in the majority.” 

Hubertz says, “Callie’s mom would send us little videos, and that was pretty special of her, like clomping in the leaves because she was hearing leaves, and saying ‘apple.’  

“We don’t ever ask for that. But oh, that just makes you smile,” she says. 

Callie’s progress 

Van Hyfte and Hubertz continue to support Callie and collaborate with her speech therapist and implant surgeon as she hits development milestones. This is key to her success.  

Callie now runs up to the audiologists whenever she sees them. “She loves talking to them so much. It’s so cute,” Kayla says.  

Four months after receiving cochlear implants, the 2-year-old is making rapid progress and catching up on milestones. She’s advocating for herself and doesn’t shy away from telling her parents and older brother, Beau, “yes” or “no.” She also loves to listen to music and sing. 

Kayla is forever grateful for Purdue’s intervention because it finally gave her daughter the gift of sound. 

“It felt like we were in the right place from the get-go,” she says. “And just the kindness and atmosphere –– it makes a world of difference.” 

At Purdue, we tackle the world’s toughest challenges through timely research and innovation. Callie’s story is just one of many incredible examples of how this pursuit continues to enhance the lives of those in our community and beyond. 

Learn more https://www.purdue.edu/campaigns/next-giant-leap/

Jack McKenna makes it to 6th place on ‘Beast Games’ with MrBeast

John “Jack” McKenna can breathe easily now, at least until finals week. The electrical and computer engineering junior at Purdue — and sixth-place finisher on the Prime Video reality show “Beast Games” — got a rare education in high stakes, long nights and relentless challenges. 

McKenna was chosen from 400,000 applicants to be among 200 contestants on the second season of “Beast Games,” which ended Feb. 25. Given the moniker “child genius” for his youth and smarts, McKenna is now celebrating a highly successful run and winnings of $45,000.  

During the season, McKenna answered some questions from his room at the Sigma Nu fraternity house.

Q: What questions do you get most about your experience on the show? 
 
A: I get constant questions — “How much money did you make? Who did you meet? How far did you go?” — and I’m dying to tell them, but I can’t. I went the entire fall semester without anyone knowing I was on the show. I told people I was doing a medical research study.  

Q: How does the show keep a lid on things with hundreds of contestants? 

A: They don’t call it “Beast Games” in any of the emails once you get cast, they call it “summer camp.” So, my emergency contact — my parents — would get texts every day during the show’s filming, saying, “Your camper is still at summer camp. They’re alive, they’re well, and we’ll give you another update in a few days.”  

Q: You were filming for over a month. What was it like being there for so long?  

A: You don’t have access to the outside world — no phone, no contact, no idea what day or time it is. This is your entire world. You spend every waking moment with the same people. The relationships you build in two weeks can rival relationships that take years in real life. It’s like being in a tiny simulation. You don’t see much production — it’s just you and the other contestants.   

Q: What did you learn about yourself through this experience? 

A: Perseverance. I faced moments on the show that felt devastating — like failing a final, times a thousand. But you learn it’s not the end. You regroup; you come back stronger. That mindset applies directly to engineering. You’re not always going to ace every exam, but what matters is how you respond. 

Q: What made the experience ultimately rewarding for you? 

A: Just being there. Over 400,000 people applied and only 200 made it. To experience something like that at my age — to test myself physically, mentally and socially — is something I’ll never take for granted. It was intense, exhausting and unforgettable. 

Q: Doing the show took a lot of courage. Has it changed how you view bravery? 

A: Honestly, applying for the show was the bravest part. Putting yourself out there — being authentic on camera — is scary. But I didn’t want to look back and feel like I wasn’t myself. Purdue helped me build that confidence. I wouldn’t have been the same person on that show without what I’ve learned here.

When it comes to academics, McKenna earned his ‘beast card’ long ago

McKenna’s dream is to work in the aerospace industry, a dream that began in his childhood and flourished as he excelled in school. In high school, he was among the highest academic achievers, even getting accepted to Mensa at age 15. So, majoring in electrical and computer engineering at Purdue is keeping his dream alive and on track.  

Q: “Beast Games” put you under huge pressure. Did Purdue help you with that? 

A: Purdue engineering is intense — and that’s a good thing. You go through long nights, difficult projects and stressful exams. You learn how to handle stress because it’s guaranteed here. On the show, with millions of dollars on the line, people cracked under pressure. I kept thinking, “This isn’t the most stressful thing I’ve ever done.” Finals week prepared me for that. 

Q: Teamwork plays a huge role both in engineering and in the game. How did that translate? 

A: You can’t win “Beast Games” alone. Purdue (engineering) really emphasizes teamwork — learning how to rely on others and how to be reliable yourself. I went into the competition knowing that alliances and trust mattered. Everyone has weaknesses. If you find a team that complements yours — and you do the same for them — you become really hard to stop. 

Q: You had options when choosing a college. Why Purdue? 

A: Academics were the biggest driver. I’ve always pushed myself to be at the top of my class, and Purdue kept coming up again and again as a place that would challenge me. Everyone I talked to who had gone to Purdue — alumni, family and friends — spoke incredibly highly of the education and the experience. They didn’t just talk about classes. They talked about basketball games, campus traditions and friendships. That stuck with me. 

Q: Has Purdue lived up to that reputation? 

A: It’s exceeded it. These have been three of the most transformative years of my life. I came in quieter, more reserved. Purdue pushed me out of my shell. The people, the classes, the campus atmosphere — it’s been everything I hoped for and more. I honestly wish I could start over as a freshman again. 

Q: How key is Purdue to who you are today? 

A: Being a Boilermaker is a huge part of my identity. Boilermaker grit is real. The lessons I’ve learned at Purdue are ingrained in me. I truly don’t think I would’ve performed the same way on “Beast Games” without Purdue shaping me first.

As her career comes to a close, Madison Layden-Zay is in a reflective mood. The fifth-year on the Purdue women’s basketball team is grateful for the opportunity and emphasizes the great experience of her last season.

Throughout this final year, Layden-Zay has become the program’s all-time leader in 3-point field goals and is now one of two players in Big Ten history to reach six different career statistical benchmarks. The other? Former Iowa superstar and current WNBA standout Caitlin Clark.

There’s an appreciation of what this season means to Layden-Zay, who left the program following the 2023-24 season, opting out of playing in the postseason that year. She returned for one last ride with her younger sister, McKenna, coach Katie Gearlds, and a team she calls her favorite during her Purdue career. She prefers more victories, but Layden-Zay has enjoyed the journey and soaking up the moments, both individually and team-related, knowing the end is in sight.

“I’m super grateful and just glad that I’m back,” Layden-Zay says. “I’ve told the coaches, and I’ve told the team too, this is my favorite team I’ve ever played with at Purdue. I love all of them and the coaches as well. No regrets coming back and being here with them. They’ve made it a great experience.”

However, the Purdue experience might not be over.

From a playing standpoint, Layden-Zay is out of eligibility as this season was an extra year following COVID. But Layden-Zay and Gearlds have discussed the possibility of adding the Kokomo native as a graduate assistant to the program. It makes sense. Layden-Zay brings a high basketball IQ, not only understanding her role but also knowing where others should be and seeing the big picture of the game.

Her mom, Kathie, is a five-time state-championship coach who won nearly 400 games at Tri-Central, Western, and Northwestern in Indiana. Her dad, Jeff, served as an assistant coach.

Her background equals a basketball coach. It’s a matter if Layden-Zay wants to act on it.

“She’s got a coach’s mind,” says Gearlds, who’s in her fifth season with the Boilermakers. “She understands how the game is supposed to be played. She’s done a really good job of leading a young group and trying to translate everything that I’m saying.

“She’s got a good demeanor. If she wanted to pursue coaching, and I think she goes back and forth, but some days I’ll tell her, ‘You’re crazy to chase this profession.’ I think she’d be really good at it.”

Layden-Zay does go back and forth, still undecided about what’s next after the season ends. She has another year remaining to finish her master’s program, but admitted she’s intrigued by the idea.

“It’s something that I’ve been interested in, and I’ve thought about it for a while now, and just still trying to figure it out,” Layden-Zay says.

“I’m back”

Her decision to leave the program at the end of the 2023-24 regular season was a surprise, with the post-athletic phase of her life on the horizon.

She was engaged to marry Rees Zay, a former practice player with the program. The wedding ceremony took place in September 2024. She began her new 8-to-5 routine and her personal responsibilities. The couple was living in Carmel, set to embark on life’s journey.

But she remained close to the program, attending games to watch McKenna play last season. The more she watched, the more the idea of playing basketball again rekindled a spark inside her.

After the season ended, McKenna Layden mentioned to Gearlds that her sister was interested in a possible return. How would Layden-Zay be received after leaving the program? Was there room on the roster, knowing Gearlds and the coaching staff needed to take another deep dive into the transfer portal following the departure of several players? Gearlds and Layden-Zay had several conversations trying to determine if coming back was the right move for her and the program.

On March 26, Layden-Zay made it official with a social media post: “I’m back.”

At Big Ten Media Day in October, Layden-Zay admitted that “I wish I had played” in the postseason tournament following the 2023-24 season. She wasn’t in the best “headspace at that time” and preferred the remaining players have the opportunity to grow and experience the postseason, knowing Layden-Zay wasn’t going to be part of the team the next season.

Once Layden-Zay decided to return, she had to get to work.

She started individual workouts on her own, focusing on shooting and lifting weights. She began working out at Compete Training Academy, owned and operated by Jordan and Courtney (Moses) Delks. Courtney played for the Boilermakers and scored over 1,600 points.

Gearlds summoned Layden-Zay to Cardinal Court, the team’s practice facility, to gauge her progress and determine whether this was going to work. Layden-Zay was under the microscope.

She was nervous going through a tryout with plenty of eyes watching her every move. Gearlds and the coaching staff liked what they saw and started the process of bringing Layden-Zay back.

On March 14, Layden-Zay submitted her name to the transfer portal. She started receiving interest from other programs. Nothing, though, was going to pull her away from the Boilermakers.

“I knew I wanted to be here, be with McKenna, and finish out the year better than what I did,” she says.

Layden-Zay didn’t know many of the players on the roster since there was a lot of turnover. Only her sister remained on the team since Layden-Zay last played. Lana McCarthy and Kendall Puryear signed with the program when Layden-Zay was on the team, but didn’t play together until this season.

“Honestly, I’ve never played with anyone like her,” McCarthy says. “She’s not only skilled with her shooting and her defense, but I feel like it’s a lot of her knowledge of the game. She is always making the right pass, making the right calls, drawing up the right play. She is such a leader. I think that brings so much.”

Program record, milestone moment

The 3-point record was well within reach at the start of the season.

Layden-Zay needed 39 to pass Karissa McLaughlin’s total of 244. She moved to the top of the list in January during an overtime victory over Washington, which was ranked No. 23 at the time.

Career 3-pointer No. 245 started a late-game surge that put the Boilermakers in position to knock off the Huskies, ending the program’s 23-game losing streak against ranked teams. Setting the record and helping her team earn a much-needed victory fulfilled two objectives.

Breaking the record was one thing, but sharing the moment with McKenna and seeing her family in Mackey Arena added another layer of emotion.

“It’s obviously super special and being here with McKenna and to have her on the team as well, breaking a record at a school like Purdue, it’s awesome,” Layden-Zay says. “To have my whole family be there and support me, and just the whole taking a year off and coming back, and obviously it’s not normal. I’m just super grateful for the coaches allowing me to do that.”

But her achievement of joining Clark as one of two Big Ten players with at least 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 300 assists, 200 steals, 200 3-pointers, and 50 blocks speaks to her ability to impact the game in different areas.

Layden-Zay has never been a one-dimensional player, relying on her skill set to hurt opponents beyond scoring. The overall contributions became part of who Layden-Zay is as a player.

“I didn’t want to be so offensive-minded,” she says. “I also wanted to be defensive-minded and get the stops and get the steals. I had to be that way because I was guarding so many great players and didn’t want them to have an easy night or an easy game against us. I felt like I had to go out there and do it all and just try my best.”

Her final numbers will put Layden-Zay’s name prominently throughout the program’s record book. Along with holding the No. 1 spot in career 3-pointers, Layden-Zay ranks in the top five in minutes played, top 10 in assist-turnover ratio, top 15 in steals, top 20 in assists, and top 25 in points.

Beyond the statistics, her leadership skills continue to grow.

She learned from teammates Cassidy Hardin, Abbey Ellis, and Jeanae Terry before assuming a bigger role after older players left the program. Layden-Zay has taken on a bigger role this season, with numerous transfers and many new faces on the roster.

“I think about her sophomore year, and how we tried to really empower her to take over, but she just wasn’t quite ready for it,” Gearlds says. “She was in a really good spot because she had Cass to really lean on. And Janae and Abbey were older people, so she didn’t have to lead.

“Now, to watch her and take ownership of that, whether it’s in conversations with us, or me, or her team, everybody looks to Madison. It’s no secret; when Madison is having a really good day, it lifts everybody’s spirits.”

Layden-Zay has tried to express herself more vocally and take on a bigger leadership role this season, compared to the past, when she preferred her actions set the example.

“I still lead by example, but I would say I’m more vocal and try to show more expressions that I have in the past and be more excited for things,” she says. “I think that’s really where I’ve grown.”

“Cool to watch her grow”

Before the season, Gearlds saw a different vibe around Layden-Zay. Whether it’s maturity, being now married, or just her years of experience showing through, Layden-Zay brought a different level of confidence back to the program. That has stayed consistent throughout this season.

There’s been no regret in returning for her last season.

Along with the record and the significant milestone, it’s been a special year, knowing this is the last time she and McKenna will play on the same basketball team.

They lived together two years ago before Layden-Zay married Rees. But they usually travel to practice, occasionally eat dinner together, and are roommates when the Boilermakers are on the road, creating memories that will last forever.

“It’s just really special,” Layden-Zay says. “When I was away and deciding to come back, that was a big factor, and just realizing that I’ll never have this opportunity, especially with her.

“I wanted to do it with her one more time and just be with her because it’s not going to be like this forever.”

For Gearlds, the moment etched in her memory of Layden-Zay is of her holding the Purdue-Indiana Barn Burner trophy. It was the first time the three-decades-old wooden plaque, a symbol of the in-state rivalry, had been back in the program’s hands since 2016.

On a day Gearlds celebrated career coaching victory No. 300 between Purdue and Marian University, watching Layden-Zay hold the trophy and enjoy the moment with her teammates will never fade, calling it “one of the coolest moments I’ve ever experienced.”

More than 10 days later, Gearlds summed up Layden-Zay’s return and career with similar words.

“It’s been really cool to watch her grow, watch her have joy, watch her love the game of basketball again,” Gearlds says. “Forget the wins and losses. Honestly, it’s been one of the coolest things that I’ve ever experienced standing on the sidelines.”

Written by Mike Carmin, who has covered Purdue women’s basketball for 36 years.

Dr. Donald Shelbourne and other Boilermaker medical professionals changed how NFL teams gather prospects’ medical information during the predraft process

As the pro football community descends upon Indianapolis this week for the NFL Scouting Combine, media, fans and league personnel will obsess about draft prospects’ eyebrow-raising times in the 40-yard dash, quarterbacks’ hand sizes, and which players display the most impressive athleticism in leaping and agility drills. 

But those attention-grabbing diversions are not why team representatives and 300 of the league’s top prospects started gathering in the Circle City in the first place. No, if you’ve ever wondered why this circus has visited Indianapolis annually for the last four decades, start with Dr. Donald Shelbourne, the longtime Purdue team doctor who convinced the NFL to bring it there. 

“Nobody else can do medically what we can do: seeing 100 players each day and getting X-rays, MRI scans, CAT scans and bone scans, and getting everybody that day seen and read and dictated and transcribed and giving it to the doctors,” says Shelbourne, who was head team physician at both Purdue and with the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts when the combine arrived in Indianapolis in 1987. “Our hospital, Methodist, is a huge hospital, and they bent over backwards to accommodate me and to get the combine to come here. And once it came here, the NFL thought it was kind of a no-brainer to keep it up.” 

Shelbourne had just started in his role with the Colts when he attended the league’s first centralized combines in New Orleans and Phoenix from 1984-86. The medical examination process had been so disorganized and insufficient in those early iterations that Shelbourne voiced his annoyance to an NFL executive, making a claim that changed the event forever. 

The competitive and financial stakes are significant with each player a team selects in the draft, Shelbourne told him. And for doctors whose reputations are at stake. 

“I can’t be wrong,” Shelbourne says. “If I tell the team they’re OK and they draft them with the No. 2 draft choice and the kid comes in and is a bust because of a preexisting condition, I’m gone.” 

He argued that each team’s medical representatives should have access to the prospect’s full medical history, plus the results of a battery of medical testing and imaging, before conducting the combine examination where they assess his physical readiness to compete. That’s not how it went in New Orleans and Phoenix, and Shelbourne insisted Indy personnel could handle this important responsibility much better. 

The combine director’s response? “He says, ‘Well, if you think you know how to run this better, you go ahead and do it,’” Shelbourne recalls. 

And so he did. 

Nearly 40 years later, it’s still in Indy — in large part because of Shelbourne’s early leadership. 

As a pioneering knee surgeon who repaired thousands of torn ACLs and helped patients accelerate their recovery, Shelbourne’s medical legacy is secure, says Scott Lawrance, Purdue’s director of athletic training education. But the NFL combine is also a big part of Shelbourne’s story, and Lawrance believes it’s one that more people should know. 

“He’s such an accomplished surgeon and physician, but I’m not sure that he gets the recognition he deserves in the medical community for what he’s done with the combine,” Lawrance says of Shelbourne, who served as team doctor for the Colts from 1984-98 and for Purdue from 1982-2018. “He was integral in those early combines here in the city, and he’s a big part of the reason that it’s stayed in Indianapolis for so, so long when there have been lots of cries to move it to other cities.” 

But he’s also not the only medical professional from Purdue who influenced how NFL teams handle their predraft medical evaluations. Many other Boilermakers have made an impact in the league after graduating from Purdue’s revered athletic training program — which will be able to accommodate more students than ever before when it expands to Indianapolis in fall 2026.  

The reason (the NFL combine has) been in Indianapolis is because nobody else can do medically what we can do.

Dr. Donald Shelbourne

Head team physician at Purdue (1982-2018) and with the Indianapolis Colts (1984-98) 

A massive undertaking

Leon Hess, the New York Jets owner, was unhappy — and he had every reason to be displeased.

In 1977, Hess’ team had used a second-round draft pick on Wesley Walker, an All-American receiver from the University of California, Berkeley. There was just one small oversight that seems nearly unimaginable in this modern era where each NFL prospect faces maximum scrutiny. 

Let Pepper Burruss (BS health and kinesiology ’76), the Purdue alum who that year accepted a position as the Jets’ assistant athletic trainer under fellow Boilermaker Bob Reese (BS physical education ’70), explain the discovery that occurred shortly before he joined the club. 

“It wasn’t long after the draft when the rookies came in and they were doing physicals,” Burruss says. “There were stations where they see the doctor here and flexibility here and do the eye chart in the racquetball court. And an athletic training student, Ed Dobrzykowski from Purdue, came into the room and said to Bob Reese, ‘We’ve got a guy in there who can’t see the eye chart.’ 

“Bob said, ‘What? What do you mean?’ Ed said, ‘He can’t see the chart with his left eye.’ Bob asked, ‘Who is it?’ He said, ‘Wesley Walker, our second-round pick.’ 

“Turns out he had a congenital cataract in his left eye,” Burruss says. “He was legally blind in his left eye.” 

That’s right — the Jets were unaware that they had drafted a player who was half-blind. While Walker eventually developed into one of the best receivers in franchise history, his selection nonetheless exposed a severe flaw in the team’s evaluation process that Hess was determined to fix. And it fell on the two Boilermaker athletic trainers to lead the charge. 

The following year, if the Jets’ scouts or player personnel executives were interested in a prospect, it was Reese and Burruss’ duty to bring them in for a full physical evaluation and facilitate their transportation. Oil magnate Hess — founder of the Hess Corp. and one of the world’s wealthiest people — would foot the substantial bill. 

“Our scouting department gave us a list, and Bob and I divided them up. In 1978, we brought in 103 athletes to New York,” Burruss recalls. “We’d call up their school and tell them, ‘Any day you want to come in,’ and they’d fly into LaGuardia Airport. A lot of times, I would pick them up, and that was before cellphones, so it was crazy. I would meet them in a green van from the Jets and drive them to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. The doc would see him, take a couple X-rays; then I’d drive him back to the airport, give him his per diem, give him a hat and a T-shirt, and he’d fly off. We were doing that day and night.” 

Some of Reese and Burruss’ fellow athletic trainers around the league were amused by the logistical nightmares and steep financial costs associated with shuttling so many prospects in and out of town for physical evaluations. But Hess was undaunted. In 1979, the Jets brought in more than twice as many players — 220 — as they had the year before. 

“We really stepped it up, and we literally made weekends of it,” Burruss says. “We’d fly him in, put him up at the Marriott, have a bus, take him down to the hospital.” 

In hindsight, today’s comprehensive combine physicals are directly linked to the protocols that Reese and Burruss established in those days. They represented the first mass predraft physical screenings ever conducted in league history. 

The combine’s Indiana home 

In the ensuing years, some NFL teams chose to pool, or combine, their resources and evaluate prospects en masse — an approach that evolved into the first leaguewide combines that took place in New Orleans and Phoenix in the early ’80s. 

“Some teams got together and said, ‘Hey, look, if you’re doing that and I’m doing that, why don’t we just do it together and save some money?’” Shelbourne says. “And so a few teams did that and then the NFL kind of got wind of it and said, ‘Well, if eight teams are going to do it, why not just have it where all the teams are involved?’ So then they decide, ‘OK, we’re going to start an NFL combine.’” 

Even then, the primary purpose of the event was to conduct mass medical evaluations. Which is why Shelbourne offered up his team’s city as a host site after observing how inefficiently the early combines were being run. 

When NFL leaders were receptive to the idea, Shelbourne took it to Methodist Hospital leaders Sam Odle and Frank Lloyd, who agreed to commit the resources necessary for the effort to succeed. Shelbourne’s hospital colleagues assisted with around-the-clock testing and imaging work so that each prospect would report to his combine checkup with the information doctors would need to make confident assessments. 

“I had to oversee all the therapists and athletic trainers and cardiologists,” Shelbourne says. “I kind of oversaw everything and made sure everything was done. And it worked out so well, they said, ‘Can you do it again?’ Sure. Every year, you do all the work from last year and then try to make it better.” 

As time passed, the combine grew from a small, private event that was of little interest to the public to a weeklong media extravaganza that now ranks among the NFL’s most-scrutinized annual attractions. There have been rumblings in recent years about moving the combine elsewhere, mirroring how the league rotates its annual draft location between NFL cities. But thus far Indy has fended off all challengers — largely because of its domed stadium with walkable hotels and restaurants that can house and feed the flood of NFL visitors, plus its unbeatable medical infrastructure. 

“Every time they try to move somewhere, they realize they can’t get to medical care as easily,” Shelbourne says. 

Boilermaker connections

Years before hiring Burruss as his assistant with the Jets, Reese actually influenced one of the most important decisions Burruss had made in his young life. 

As a brainy-but-unathletic youngster in Wappingers Falls, New York, Burruss developed an interest in athletic training far before it was a well-known career path. Bob Rush, at the time the only NCAA Division I football player from his high school, encouraged Burruss to visit him at Boston College and consult with his athletic trainer — Reese — who at that point was the nation’s youngest Division I head athletic trainer. 

When Burruss came to visit, his illuminating conversation with Reese revealed where he should attend college if he wanted to become a certified athletic trainer and which person he would need to impress when he got there. 

“He said, ‘Go where I went — to Purdue,’” Burruss says. “I said, ‘Where’s that?’ And he kind of pointed west and said, ‘Go that way about 800 miles.’” 

Reese also encouraged him to reach out to Purdue’s head athletic trainer William “Pinky” Newell, a longtime leader of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association who today is recognized as the father of modern athletic training. 

“So I wrote to Pinky Newell,” Burruss says. “He wrote back and said, ‘You can come to Purdue, but I don’t know if your money wouldn’t be better spent elsewhere. You’re going to be an out-of-state student, and you should go closer to home.’ I wrote back and said, ‘I’m coming.’ And in Pinky’s latter years, he would say that kind of iced it for me. You know, ‘OK, I’m trying to dissuade this guy, and he still said he’s coming.’” 

Once Burruss arrived on campus in 1972, he visited the athletic training room and Newell immediately said, “Grab him a shirt,” and put him to work cleaning whirlpools. It was Burruss’ first step in a formative Purdue experience where he worked alongside athletic training icons like Newell and Denny Miller, leading to a legendary career of his own. 

Burruss was interning at Lake Forest Hospital near Chicago in 1977 when Reese — newly hired as the Jets’ head athletic trainer after spending the previous five seasons working with the Buffalo Bills as assistant to yet another Boilermaker athletic training alum, Ed Abramoski — instructed Burruss’ Purdue classmate Dobrzykowski to call him. Reese wanted to know if Burruss was interested in working in the NFL. 

“I don’t know if I had to clean out my pants or not,” Burruss says. “I do remember being unsure of my words. ‘But, Bob, I’ve got six more weeks of school. Do you want me to quit?’ He said, ‘No, we’ll wait.’” 

That season was the first in Burruss’ 42-year NFL career that saw him work for 16 seasons alongside Reese — their team won the inaugural Ed Block NFL Athletic Training Staff of the Year award in 1985 — before accepting his own head athletic trainer position with the Green Bay Packers in 1993. Across 26 seasons in Green Bay, Burruss cared for legendary players like Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers as they led the franchise to a pair of Super Bowl wins. 

His efforts to provide cutting-edge medical care certainly contributed to the franchise’s success and helped him build his own award-winning legacy within his profession. 

And he brought a number of fellow Boilermakers along for the ride. Between his time with the Jets and Packers, Burruss was involved with hiring nine Purdue student athletic trainers to gain invaluable hands-on experience at NFL summer camps. 

Last year, Burruss joined Reese as a recipient of one of the highest honors in his line of work. The two Boilermakers are among 14 NFL athletic trainers who have been recognized with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Award of Excellence: Reese in 2023 (a year before he passed away at age 75) and Burruss in 2025. 

An exciting future 

While Purdue is rightfully proud of its status as one of the nation’s first academic athletic training programs, it remains among the leading incubators for well-prepared athletic trainers — with an alumni group that includes Troy Maurer of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins and Pierre Nesbit of the Jets. 

Boilermaker athletic trainers complement their educational training with hands-on learning experiences that help them confidently launch careers after graduation.

“The best part about my time there was the clinical experiences they allowed us to have, being able to take what we learned in the classroom, as detailed and hands-on as it was, and then actually apply it to athletes or to patients,” says Gabby Poalino (BS athletic training ’22), who spent the last two seasons working as a seasonal athletic trainer with the NFL’s Washington Commanders and Kansas City Chiefs after previously interning with the league’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “Because we weren’t always necessarily in a sports environment, I did time at a PT (physical therapy) clinic. I did time working with Parkinson’s patients. Having a plethora of places to apply these skills that we were learning was really a huge advantage to me in my time there. 

“So when the time came for me to start working in these more football-specific roles, I wasn’t just applying what I had learned at football,” Poalino says. “I was pulling from all of these other experiences and then able to apply my skills as a clinician to football-specific stuff.” 

Program director Lawrance says that was by design, as he and his Purdue colleagues want every Boilermaker athletic trainer to graduate with a growth mindset in which they’re always learning new skills, plus the adaptability to thrive in a variety of work environments. 

Soon, those opportunities will be available to a larger group of students than ever before. The Purdue athletic training master’s program is expanding to Indianapolis starting in fall 2026, allowing the program to accept twice as many students as it had the capacity to serve in the past. Once Purdue reaches full capacity, Lawrance believes the program will have one of the world’s largest cohorts of athletic training students. 

These new Boilermakers will ensure that the tradition Newell started will continue to thrive, sharing Purdue expertise that keeps patients healthy — whether they’re casual weekend warriors or one of the future NFL superstars participating in the combine. 

“You find Purdue grads just about anywhere you go within the realm of athletic training, whether it’s college or the NFL or wherever,” Poalino says. “It’s kind of crazy how small of a community it really is. 

“Having a solid background coming from Purdue and coming from a program that is really well known, it carries the weight with it,” she says. “People see that, and I think they are able to have a little trust in your background and where you’re coming from. And it definitely doesn’t hurt that we have other people out there who are succeeding, especially in the league. Those connections help, and it’s really just a tremendous weight that gets lifted off of my shoulders when I’m looking at jobs and people know that they can trust you because of that background.” 

No one in this high-tech world should live without a consistent flow of electric power to their homes.

However, that’s hardly the reality for millions of people across the globe. And it could become a nightmarish predicament even in the U.S. if new solutions to meet the exploding demand for electricity aren’t explored quickly enough. 

Recent Purdue alum Ryan Hogg (MS nuclear engineering ’25) experienced firsthand the issues that an unreliable energy grid can create while on a family trip to visit his grandparents in Johannesburg during high school. Rolling blackouts created all sorts of inconveniences that changed how the family approached home life, whether it meant timing showers for when they’d have access to hot water or reducing the number of times they opened the refrigerator to prevent its contents from spoiling. 

“You noticed things that you had never noticed before,” says Hogg, a U.S. Navy pilot who has observed similar issues with inconsistent power on other international trips. 

It motivated Hogg to contribute to the re-emergence of an existing, but perhaps not fully tapped, power source — nuclear energy — that has the potential to satisfy the world’s growing needs. That motivation brought the 2024 U.S. Naval Academy graduate to Purdue, where a cooperative effort between the Navy and the Purdue Military Research Institute helped him complete a master’s degree in nuclear engineering in 18 months and then return to full-time military service. 

His background as a nuclear engineer makes him something of a unicorn among Navy pilots. 

“I might be the only one,” he says with a laugh. “I’m the only one I’ve ever met.”

‘I don’t think I could do this anywhere else’

Like Hogg, Purdue PhD student Hannah Pike (BS aeronautical and astronautical engineering ’23, MS nuclear engineering ’25) dreams of influencing the future of nuclear engineering — only she plans to go about it in a very different way. 

A former captain of the World’s Largest Drum crew in the Purdue “All-American” Marching Band, Pike plans to become a college professor and continue her research that examines integrating AI and machine learning into nuclear operations. 

Pike joined a research project with Purdue’s SCALE program during her junior year that convinced her to pursue a future in nuclear engineering. As a graduate student, opportunities to serve as a teaching assistant and as a research mentor for SCALE convinced her that this future would involve research and training the next generation of nuclear engineers. 

Her research, which uses AI and machine learning to gauge radiation levels throughout nuclear facilities, has the potential to improve nuclear safety while taking measurements that humans can’t take. 

“As I started working on my project, I became very interested in the topic, and I don’t think I could have this experience anywhere else,” Pike says. “Just thinking about where that research is going to go is very exciting.” 

The interdisciplinary nature of nuclear engineering is another aspect of the field that appeals to Pike, who came to Purdue planning to someday become a NASA engineer. 

“My interest in nuclear started when I learned about nuclear propulsion and potentially using nuclear energy to power rockets or something further down the line,” she says. “But then I learned that it also applies to agricultural engineering, has strong ties for electrical engineering and even mechanical. It just kind of interested me how it could relate to so many different disciplines. I could tell that nuclear engineering was one of those degrees where you could really make a big impact in a lot of different ways.”

I don’t think I could have this experience anywhere else. Just thinking about where that research is going to go is very exciting.

Hannah Pike 

Nuclear engineering doctoral student, on her research that investigates AI and machine learning applications in nuclear reactor operations 

Purdue’s unique features 

There are many reasons why Hogg and Pike elected to pursue graduate studies in Purdue’s highly ranked nuclear engineering program. 

They view nuclear facilities — particularly small modular reactors (SMRs), which are smaller, easier to build and less expensive than traditional nuclear power plants — as the obvious choice to meet America’s energy needs. And they have benefited from Purdue’s unique portfolio and focus on this emerging technology that continues to evolve. 

The university comes equipped with essential facilities to create solutions and meet the demand for a nuclear workforce that will need to nearly quadruple in size by 2050, according to U.S. Department of Energy projections. Those facilities include PUR-1, the nation’s only all-digital nuclear reactor, and the Purdue University Multidimensional Integral Test Assembly facility, which is being revitalized for SMR research, education and training. 

PUR-1 is the only nuclear reactor in Indiana, and its digital controls and operations enable research that is not possible anywhere else in the U.S. And because of its limited capacity — it generates power equivalent to that of approximately 10 microwaves — Boilermaker students can gain useful hands-on experience in a relatively low-stakes environment. 

“Coming from a school, at Navy, where we didn’t have that research nuclear reactor readily available for education, maybe I have a different appreciation for it than the people at Purdue who have always had it,” says Hogg, who completed a mechanical engineering degree at the Naval Academy. “Now it’s not just, ‘OK, the teacher told me I was right, so I know my chart is right and my graph is right.’ Now I can see it in real life and say, ‘We were close, but were we close enough for what real life should be?’ We’re making assumptions all the time, but it’s hard to prove those assumptions until we actually see it in person.”

Influencing the future 

While the Boilermaker engineers have grand visions about how they can contribute to the nation’s nuclear future, they will not have to wait for some far-off date to make a significant impact within their chosen field. They’ve already done it, having contributed to an influential Purdue-led study that proposed using SMR technology to meet Indiana’s spiking energy needs and drive economic activity. 

Hogg, Pike and fellow grad student William Richards were among the collaborators who visited the Indiana Statehouse to hear legislators deliberate on how to effectively add nuclear to the state’s energy portfolio, and they were unanimously thrilled by what they heard. 

“It was very exciting to see that something I did was reaching out to so many different people, and they were actually using it to form opinions and viewpoints on nuclear issues,” Pike says. “Those who referenced our report really did use it to justify how right now is the time for nuclear to come to Indiana because it is the future of energy.” 

The process is only beginning, however. 

Hogg points out that an increased emphasis on nuclear power will introduce an array of regulatory, logistical, geopolitical and safety complications that will not be easy to solve. And yet he remains motivated to ensure that energy challenges will not prevent the U.S. from enjoying a bright, tech-driven future. 

“Having that power would increase productivity as a whole for society,” Hogg says. “But to stifle it so early and then to change our minds later and say, ‘We actually do need power,’ it would be more than five years before we can get it up and running. I think that’s why we need advocates now: to prevent future issues from arising.”

Having that power would increase productivity as a whole for society. But to stifle it so early and then to change our minds later and say, ‘We actually do need power,’ it would be more than five years before we can get it up and running. I think that’s why we need advocates now: to prevent future issues from arising.

Ryan Hogg
MS nuclear engineering ’25

Top-ranked Purdue had just taken care of business against overmatched Rutgers at the start of December, and the local media — the New Jersey media — was buzzing immediately afterward, waiting for the visiting coach to arrive at the postgame press conference.

Such is Matt Painter’s standing these days as a leading voice in college basketball that he and Michigan State’s Tom Izzo now share the unofficial titles of faces and voices of the Big Ten. So when either comes to town, local writers rely on them to contextualize whatever circumstances the home team is experiencing.

In this case, a prominent Jersey columnist based out of Asbury Park needs a diagnostic from Painter on Rutgers’ struggles this season, as coach Steve Pikiell’s program rebuilds with freshmen. So far, it has not been particularly smooth.

The question prompts a Painter symposium on modern program-building as transfer culture and player compensation considerations loom over recruiting, roster construction and retention.

“It works if you can keep ’em,” Painter says before espousing the virtues of building with “company men” who will stay in one place and prioritize winning and other substantive considerations over most else.

“He just wrote my column for me,” the columnist half-joked to no one in particular as soon as Painter stood to leave.

But Purdue’s coach wasn’t just shining a light on Rutgers’ plight for the locals. By comparison, he was telling the story of his own team’s ascension. The preseason No. 1 Boilermakers are built around fourth-year players Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn, arguably the best trio in the sport, but also a rare foundation of not only ability and achievement, but continuity and experience that could take the Boilermakers a long way this season.

College basketball’s outliers

It didn’t used to be this way, but Purdue’s ability to keep this core together makes it something of an outlier in college basketball these days.

Painter has no aversion to supplementing his roster with transfers, as evidenced by recent additions like Oscar Cluff and Lance Jones. But Painter is not going to recruit a whole new team every season, as most of his peers seem to do, either by choice or due to their circumstances.

The results speak for themselves.

With this promising season’s outcome still to be determined, Smith and Loyer have started every game of their college careers and played leading roles in 97 wins entering the Dec. 20 game against Auburn. Kaufman-Renn has played a part in all of those wins but two, missing just the first two games of 2025-26 against Evansville and Oakland.

Together, the trio has helped Purdue to its first Final Four in nearly a half-century and won two Big Ten regular-season titles and one conference tournament title. They have been part of three No. 1-ranked teams.

When all is said and done, their names will long stand among legends throughout Purdue’s record books. They will almost certainly have accomplished more than any class ever at a school that takes basketball very seriously, in a state that takes basketball very seriously.

“We have a single motivation now,” says Kaufman-Renn, a preseason All-American as a fifth-year senior. “I’ve said to those guys that I feel like we’ve done everything else. (A national championship) is what matters more than anything to us now.”

Achieving that goal certainly won’t be easy, but none of the three seniors signed up for easy when they chose Purdue during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The seniors have seen it all

From the non-traditional nature of their recruitment to Smith and Loyer playing significant minutes as true freshmen, to Kaufman-Renn being the rare blue-chip recruit who excitedly redshirted as a freshman, then waited two seasons for a leading role, very little has come easy to this group.

It was hard when the three of them were part of a historic NCAA Tournament loss as freshmen, and hard when they joined Zach Edey in making a landmark run a season later, carrying the burden of redemption on their backs.

The undercurrent of their collective careers has made Purdue not so much an exception to a modern rule, but increasingly an outlier.

None of them ever had reason to leave Purdue. Still, any of them could have capitalized on the most tumultuous era of unabashed profiteering in the history of a sport that’s been driven by money for generations.

Purdue’s seniors have all done quite well for themselves as is, but Painter has made special mention of his entire team turning away more lucrative options to remain at Purdue.

“It’s just what Paint has built and it’s the type of people we are,” says Smith, the Big Ten’s preseason player of the year and a popular name in the tampering community last spring. “We all have common goals. We all want to win.”

Painter sounds a bit too wholesome to be true sometimes when he talks about the importance of being open, honest and fair with players — not just during their careers, but in recruiting, so that no player or proxy can credibly feel misled. It has fostered an environment where mutual trust and loyalty are virtually tangible, in a competitive landscape where trust and loyalty are as likely to be punchlines as guiding principles.

Since Day 1 for Purdue’s three foundational seniors, they’ve enjoyed abnormally healthy, open and mutually beneficial relationships with their coaching staff, while many of the teams they’re competing against — not all, but many — are doing things transactionally, a few months at a time.

Purdue is rolling out a team led by fourth-year players — stars, no less — against teams led by four-month players.

It’s worked. 

The chemistry these players display is unmistakable, noticeable when Smith races the ball up the floor, knowing the whole way exactly where Loyer is and where he needs to catch the ball to shoot the 3. (If Smith leaves Purdue with the NCAA’s all-time career assists record, those transition looks for Loyer will be every bit a part of it as anything thrown behind his back or 12 feet in the air for Edey to dunk).

The veterans’ synergy is apparent when Loyer runs off a baseline screen and throws a quick entry to Kaufman-Renn to the precise spot he will reach just as the ball arrives.

Actually doing something special

These players came in together, stayed together, grew together, struggled together, thrived together and found common cause together.

That’s where Purdue is different. Not one-of-one by any means, but not nearly as common as it was just a few years ago, when it was mostly the one-and-done NBA mills replacing players every few months.

It makes you feel like you’re actually doing something special and not just collecting NIL checks like a lot of these teams are. It feels like you’re really part of a team and working toward something that means a lot to not only you, but also to a whole university, a great coach like Coach Painter and a great fan base as we have here.

fletcher loyer senior guard

Indianapolis hosts this year’s Final Four.

“Obviously, winning the Big Ten, making the Final Four, those things are special and put us in the history books, but you want to end the season on a win, end the season in Indy, in front of our fans,” Loyer says. “When I committed here five or six years ago, Purdue was in a great spot, but it wasn’t at the mountaintop. If we can leave here having brought Purdue to two Final Fours and winning the Big Ten three out of four years, it would put Purdue at the peak of college basketball.”

And Painter would have done it his way, with company men.

It will have worked because he kept them.

Written by Brian Neubert, GoldandBlack.com

Advanced agricultural research and a pipeline of highly skilled workforce talent drive innovative partnership

This story highlights one of the many ways Purdue teams up with corporate partners to create solutions for complex global challenges. Learn how your organization can collaborate with us.

Say the word “agriculture” and most people think fields and farmers, crops and plows. Most people don’t associate farming with machine learning, computational analysis and AI. But Beck’s does.  

Beck’s is the largest family-owned retail seed company in the United States. Based in Atlanta, Indiana, Beck’s has always been on the leading edge of what’s next in their industry. The Beck family has invested 90 years in the seed business, and its connection to Purdue dates back even further.  

The company places a strong emphasis on innovation and education. Through its partnership with Purdue, Beck’s has access to advanced agricultural research and a pipeline of highly skilled workforce talent.  

Building ‘unicorns’  

About six years ago, Brad Fruth (ASCT ’01) was tasked with creating the Beck’s innovation group. Early on, he saw the value of partnering with land-grant universities. As the director of innovation, his initial focus was on building a resilient talent pipeline.  

“We wanted the best of the best,” he says. “And so we derisked recruitment for our company by building a bridge between Beck’s and Purdue. We brought the university projects, and we received access to top talent.” 

Beck’s has strengthened its workforce development ecosystem even more by bringing an industry-transforming research project to Purdue.  

“We were able to match a cutting-edge project with Purdue students who have skill sets that are not readily available out in the wild,” Fruth says. “And then we were able to say, ‘OK, now why don’t you join our organization?’ It allowed us to build our own unicorns rather than blanket hiring a disparate group of people and hoping that we got the right ones for our team.” 

Venkata Limmada, a Purdue PhD student in agronomy, agrees. “Through this collaboration, Beck’s gains access to multidisciplinary student teams who are highly skilled in their respective fields. At the same time, the partnership helps build a pipeline of future talent who already have experience working with Beck’s data, tools, and organizational needs.”

Computational breeding 

Beck’s high-impact research project with Purdue is a computational breeding platform. For decades, Beck’s has collected detailed information about corn crop varieties — their traits and the DNA sequences they hold. They have partnered with Purdue to translate these large datasets into smarter plant breeding and stronger crops.  

One of the things that Fruth discovered in this collaboration is the value of having access to a cross-disciplinary team. 

“Management students, ag students, computer science students, math students, data science students — having all of them coalesce on one project has been very meaningful for us,” he says. “There was not one single source we could go to from a consultancy standpoint to tackle this project.” 

The computational breeding platform is no ordinary project either. It’s a high-stakes undertaking with the power to transform an entire industry. “We knew that the decisions we were going to make on this project are going to shape the next generation of our R&D pipeline,” Fruth says. 

Seyi Ogunmodede, a PhD candidate in the School of Applied and Creative Computing, leads one of the interdisciplinary teams working on the Beck’s project. Ogunmodede and his Purdue colleagues created multiple predictive analytics models for plant breeding. 

“Utilizing advanced analytics and machine learning tools like deep learning, time series clustering, embedding, transformer, genomics best linear unbiased prediction, convolutional neural networks and XGBoost, we are able to create models that help predict the strongest crop hybrids and which varieties will best suit the regions in which they are grown,” he says.  

“The whole team works together in a way whereby we’ve been able to predict what will happen in the following season, in the following year and how farmers can gain a better yield.”

We are able to provide corporate partners with high-impact results backed by teams of trained researchers and student analysts.

Seyi Ogunmodede

PhD candidate, School of Applied and Creative Computing

The Data Mine 

Ogunmodede’s work with Beck’s is facilitated through The Data Mine, an interdisciplinary living-learning community of Purdue students who work alongside corporate partners and Purdue faculty to provide solutions to today’s toughest challenges.  

Ogunmodede points to the opportunity to collaborate across disciplines, handle large datasets and cocreate solutions with industry professionals as what makes partnering with The Data Mine transformative. 

“As a team leader and graduate research assistant with The Data Mine, I have witnessed firsthand the significant benefits organizations gain from partnering with Purdue,” Ogunmodede says. “We are able to provide corporate partners with high-impact results backed by teams of trained researchers and student analysts.” 

Fruth agrees. “The Data Mine was able to bring five different disciplines together on our project,” he says. “Working together to build something brand new helped us achieve our goals. We have other businesses asking us how we are being so successful.”

The best corn for next year’s crops 

Lorena Ferreira Benfica, a postdoctoral researcher at Purdue who specializes in genomics, plays a key role in the university’s partnership with Beck’s. Among her responsibilities are receiving all raw genomic data, organizing and formatting these datasets, and performing quality control so the team can use them in the genomic prediction models. 

“Beck’s has thousands upon thousands of options,” she says. “We help them transform large amounts of information into genomic predictions that guide breeding decisions and drive impact in the field.” 

Access to innovative, data-driven solutions is only part of the Purdue x Beck’s equation. Fresh perspectives and cost-effective collaboration are others.  

“The creativity, the innovation, that’s a key piece of what Purdue brings to the partnership with Beck’s,” Ogunmodede says. “And the students who work on this project, they are really energetic. They want to develop new things. They know about the latest technology, and they want to see it in action.”  

Beck’s willingness to try new things is also a key component of the partnership. “They have such an open point of view and an eagerness to embrace new ideas and technology,” Ferreira Benfica says. “It’s been amazing to work with them.” 

Industry, knock here 

Partnerships like the one Purdue has with Beck’s create distinctive opportunities for companies to innovate. “When we were at a crossroad of not knowing how to technically solve a problem,” Fruth says, “that’s when we said, ‘I think we have a university that can help us with this.’”

Mark French and his Purdue guitar lab team created a football-themed instrument for ESPN’s Colts-49ers pregame broadcast 

After observing the excitement Purdue’s guitar lab generated by building the “Win for Jim” guitar for the Indianapolis Colts, ESPN decided it wanted a one-of-a-kind instrument of its own. 

And the network  knew the perfect time to show it off: during its pregame coverage for the “Monday Night Football” matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and the Colts — the team once owned by Jim Irsay, the late guitar collector who inspired the tribute guitar. 

This time, the uniquely talented group of Boilermakers designed a custom electric guitar with a leather face resembling an NFL football — laces and all. 

And not just any leather. The leather face sheet came directly from the Wilson Football Factory in Ada, Ohio, where Wilson Sporting Goods has been making NFL game balls since 1955.  

The material was not the only unique aspect of the guitar face, however. The leather also received authentic game day treatment courtesy of the Purdue football equipment staff.  

Follow along to see how the guitar-building process occurred before the instrument made its network debut:

Acquiring authentic NFL game-ball leather

After collaborating on the “Win for Jim” guitar prior to the season, Purdue guitar lab creator and mechanical engineering technology professor Mark French asked alumnus Noah Scott to once again take the lead on the project once ESPN reached out with its request. 

Scott started by coordinating with ESPN on a design and reaching out to Wilson, seeking to acquire sheets of authentic NFL game-ball leather to use on the guitar face. 

Fortunately, Wilson agreed to help, assigning recent Purdue engineering alum Parker Nordstrom to the project. 

“It felt a bit like a movie where the script had things work out with just the right people and just in time,” says Scott (BS industrial engineering technology ’20, BS organizational leadership ’20, MS finance ’21). “Wilson thoughtfully assigned a young Purdue alum, Parker, who quickly stepped up to the plate, took creative ownership of Wilson’s end of the project, and stayed after hours most days to get the leather put together according to our design.” 

Scott drove to Ohio to pick up the guitar leather at the Wilson facility, where Nordstrom and his colleagues showed him the steps they follow to produce 500,000 footballs each year — a process they mimicked in assembling the guitar leather, right up to the stitching and lacing they applied to the material. 

“Once I realized we were trying to take materials and processes designed for a football and apply them to a guitar, it instantly felt like a big engineering puzzle,” says Nordstrom (BS mechanical engineering ’23, MS sports engineering ’24), a manufacturing/mechanical engineer at Wilson. “We were constantly asking, ‘How do we sew this panel so the seam lands in the right place? How do we lace it so it looks authentic but still lays flat on the guitar? How do we stamp it so the Motion P and foil stamps fall into the correct spot?’ 

“Working through those questions and testing different approaches was a blast,” he adds. “It’s the kind of challenge you don’t get very often — familiar materials, completely new application — and it pushed me to think differently about our normal processes.” 

Nordstrom was uniquely qualified to take on this challenge, having been part of Purdue’s first full cohort in the sports engineering professional master’s program that began when Purdue launched the Ray Ewry Sports Engineering Center. Since that background helped Nordstrom launch a career in the sporting goods industry, he saw the guitar project as a way to return the favor. 

“What made it even better was getting to do it alongside Purdue,” Nordstrom says. “Being able to support a project coming out of my alma mater, and specifically out of a space like the guitar lab, felt pretty full circle for me.”

Purdue football staff gives leather the game day treatment

Scott also asked the Purdue football staff to help ensure that the leather on the guitar face was as authentic as possible. So Kyle Gergely, the football program’s associate director of equipment, invited student manager Drew Decker to prepare a section of the leather as if he were breaking in a football to make it easier for the Boilermakers’ quarterbacks to grip during a game.

Allow Decker to break down Purdue’s standard ball-prep process: 

• STAGE 1: “It starts with taking off the factory coating and dye with a brush, then we massage in shaving cream and let that sit for a while,” he says. 
• STAGE 2: “Next, we do the same thing with the leather conditioner, then we rub a layer of mud all over the ball, which allows for the leather to turn a dark brown, which the majority of quarterbacks prefer.” 
• STAGE 3: “Let the mud sit overnight and then brush the mud off with a hand brush.” 
• AND FINALLY: “Once we get the mud off, we add another layer of leather conditioner, which helps bring out a nice shine.” 

The ball-prep process takes more than a day to complete, but Decker was excited to tackle the unique assignment. 

“I know how much guitars have meant for the Colts this season and how much they meant to Jim Irsay, so being able to be a part of something with this magnitude is pretty special,” says Decker, who is majoring in construction management when not working with the Boilermaker football team.

Building a guitar worthy of the ‘MNF’ spotlight

Using such an unusual material on the guitar face made it a stressful four-day assembly process for guitar lab professor French, who had never bonded leather to the wooden body of a guitar.  

“I don’t know if anyone has ever done this before, so I’m on a voyage of discovery,” French says, noting that he leaned on the leatherworking expertise of Eric Martinez, a student in his guitar class. 

The complicated process also involved preparing the body and neck, applying the “Monday Night Football” logo to the pickguard, trimming and refining the leather after curing, and making precise cuts to the material to allow for installation of the guitar’s hardware as they completed the assembly. 

As was the case with the “Win for Jim” guitar, French viewed the ESPN project as a worthwhile endeavor to showcase what Boilermakers can do in the guitar lab, which relies on donations to operate. 

“They both seemed like a good chance to show a larger audience what kinds of things happen at Purdue,” French says. “They also looked like opportunities to introduce people to the guitar lab. This is a unique place, and one that the students really value. It’s a great place for them to combine their classroom learning with the act of making a product they are really interested in.” 

But it was a rushed process throughout due to the compressed timeline. Once the team completed the assembly, they still had to leave enough time for testing and for Scott to practice with the instrument before playing it alongside ESPN analyst Jason Kelce before the game. 

“I’m less nervous about my performance — as I’m practiced enough to do it in my sleep — but more so nervous about representing the lab, its students and inherently Purdue as a whole, to a certain extent,” Scott said prior to his ESPN appearance. “The performance isn’t about me; I just happen to be the guy lucky enough to get the call.”

Perhaps some of the Indiana-based sci-fi series’ subject matter is not so far-fetched after all

Millions of viewers remain spellbound by the fantastical events of “Stranger Things” — Netflix’s classic 1980s science fiction series whose final episode will arrive Dec. 31. Although the show is renowned for seemingly impossible action involving mind control, traveling to parallel dimensions and battling monsters, perhaps some of its subject matter may not be so fictional after all. 

Here, Purdue experts weigh in on whether what we see on “Stranger Things” is possible — or could be someday — and the fear factor that has kept us binge-watching through the years. 

Q: Could the brain ever control objects — or other people’s thoughts? 

A: The human brain remains a profound mystery, yet innovative engineering is opening new doors. Low- to mid-bandwidth brain readouts allow for basic digital control via thought, but advances in high-bandwidth transmission from brain implants to wearables are now enabling richer, more complex interactions, as discussed in recent Nature Electronics research. 

These leaps promise more meaningful ways to connect our minds with technology. As new possibilities emerge, society must amplify the benefits and thoughtfully shape boundaries to ensure the ethical use of these opportunities. For now, while direct machine control is real, controlling other minds remains firmly in the realm of science fiction.

— Shreyas Sen, Elmore Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

For now, while direct machine control is real, controlling other minds remains firmly in the realm of science fiction.

Shreyas Sen
Elmore Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Q: Could electromagnetic energy ever open a gate between two worlds? 

A: Electromagnetic energy can not — so far! — open a gate between worlds, but light waves tirelessly carry all your Zoom conversations and Netflix streaming across the world. 

And remember, physics has not ruled out multiverses and quantum tunneling!

— Alexandra Boltasseva, Ron and Dotty Garvin Tonjes Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Q: Why do monsters feel real even when we know they’re not?  

A: Even when we consciously know the monsters in “Stranger Things” aren’t real, our brains respond as if they are because fear circuits (e.g., the amygdala) are wired to detect and react to threat cues automatically, before rational thought can intervene.

Even when we consciously know the monsters in “Stranger Things” aren’t real, our brains respond as if they are because fear circuits (e.g., the amygdala) are wired to detect and react to threat cues automatically, before rational thought can intervene.

Hongmi Lee
Assistant professor, Department of Psychological Sciences

Immersive storytelling amplifies this effect. Engaging narratives draw us into the characters’ experiences, activating brain regions involved in memory and emotion. As a result, we don’t just watch the fear — we may feel it. 

These emotional and physiological responses can linger after the show ends as our brains tend to replay the story, especially when it is particularly engaging and immersive (e.g., Bellana et al., 2022).

— Hongmi Lee, assistant professor, Department of Psychological Sciences