Casey Stultz’s Purdue fan cave features plenty of unique Boilermaker sports memorabilia, and that’s not all

Casey Stultz has a problem. The avid Purdue collector has been running out of room to display his ever-expanding assortment of Boilermaker memorabilia. 

To remedy his situation, Stultz (BS organizational leadership ’14) remodeled an existing barn on his property in Parke County, Indiana. 

“I just need more space,” Stultz says with a chuckle. “I keep on buying and collecting.” 

Stultz’s Purdue collection dates back to childhood, when his Boilermaker parents frequently brought Casey and his two brothers to campus for games when they weren’t camped out in the front room of their Fountain County, Indiana, home watching the likes of Steve Reid, Todd Mitchell, Troy Lewis and Mark Herrmann on TV. Stultz’s first Purdue autographs are on a yellow handkerchief signed by two-time All-Big Ten basketball selection Lewis and teammates Mitchell and Everette Stephens, both of whom went on to play in the NBA and other professional basketball leagues in the U.S. and overseas.

I just need more space. I keep on buying and collecting.

Casey Stultz

BS organizational leadership ’14

Stultz’s extensive set of Boilermaker autographs includes those of well-known Purdue football players, basketball players and wrestlers. He also has approximately 20 signed football jerseys of former Purdue stars — including NFL standouts like Mike Alstott, Matt Light, Akin Ayodele, Rob Ninkovich and Rosevelt Colvin — some of whom Stultz has remained in contact with since befriending them during their college days in the 1990s. 

“It’s always good to have them come back and go to Harry’s (Chocolate Shop) and chew the fat with them,” Stultz says.. “It’s just like we haven’t missed a beat, and we’re talking about being 25, 35 years removed now.” 

A favorite jersey that did not come from one of Stultz’s contemporaries is that of Leroy Keyes, the two-time football All-American who finished third in Heisman Trophy balloting in 1967 and was runner-up to University of Southern California running back O.J. Simpson the following year. Stultz jokes that the Keyes jersey, which he purchased at an estate auction in Ohio, has made some of his pals in the Boilermaker collecting community jealous. 

“Everybody wants that one,” he says, “but I’m like, ‘Nope, I’m not letting that go.’” 

Not just sports stuff

The many Purdue sports items are probably the most eye-catching part of Stultz’s collection. However, he has plenty of stuff that has nothing to do with athletics.  

There are items of personal significance, like his dad’s green beanie designed by fellow residents of Purdue’s Cary Quadrangle Residence Hall in the 1970s. Attached to the beanie is a button featuring characters from the iconic “Peanuts” comic strip, with Charlie Brown holding a Purdue flag and saying to Snoopy, “Good grief, another Cary man!”

Stultz also has a small book documenting the men of Cary Club’s annual spring dance, held May 21, 1948, at Purdue Memorial Union. Among the guests listed inside are Purdue administrators Frederick Hovde, R.B. Stewart and Frank Hockema; Indiana Gov. Ralph Gates; and none other than President Harry S. Truman and his wife, Bess. 

Spread among the autographed balls, photos and other sports memorabilia on the walls and shelves in Stultz’s fan cave are additional items that document Boilermaker life through the years: a framed photo from the earliest days of the Purdue campus; Debris yearbooks from the early 1900s; a poster promoting the Grateful Dead’s 1969 concert at Purdue Memorial Union; a frame featuring lids and labels of cheese and butter products once sold at the Purdue University Creamery; and a Purdue barrel tabletop signed by former university president and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. 

“It’s all Purdue,” Stultz says. “I look for anything with Purdue on it.” 

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Knowing where to look

Stultz says he found many of his vintage Purdue pieces on Facebook Marketplace and also knows a couple of memorabilia shop owners that he occasionally checks in with about new Boilermaker items that have crossed their radar. He recently picked up a number of pieces at the estate sale of a former Boilermaker football player, including an extremely rare 1960s-era helmet. 

“His daughter called me and said, ‘I heard you’re a big Purdue collector.’ So I sent her photos of my collection, and she said, ‘I want you to have a lot of this stuff,’” Stultz says. 

What dictates his strategy when such a prime buying opportunity presents itself? It depends on items of historical or personal value to him. 

After living in New York state for 17 years, Stultz returned home to Indiana three years ago to be closer to his family and beloved alma mater. Today he lives in rural Parke County and works as a production team member at Nucor, a producer of steel and steel products. 

Now, with his newly remodeled fan-cave barn, he plans to have lots of get-togethers with his Purdue buddies — just as one might expect from a lifelong Boilermaker. 

“I definitely bleed black and gold. Anything Purdue, I collect,” Stultz says. “I enjoy the history, and I really like to support my team. Purdue has done a lot for me, so I definitely put that representation in my fan cave.” 

Julie Dussliere planned to become a diplomat. She just didn’t expect that it would be as chief of Paralympics for Team USA. 

Editor’s note: On Aug. 26, 2024, the Purdue for Life Foundation announced that alumna Julie Dussliere will succeed Matt Folk as the alumni organization’s president and chief executive officer, starting Oct. 1.

As a Purdue swimmer in the 1990s, Julie Dussliere never expected to work in sports after college. 

Once she finished her bachelor’s degree, Dussliere (BA Russian ’94) intended to complete a master’s program, and then it was on to law school. International diplomacy was in her future. 

And that’s what happened — just not the way she envisioned it at the time. 

“I had no indication or thought that I was going to work in the sport world when I graduated. That was not the plan,” Dussliere says. “But then I ended up taking a coaching job instead, and I’ve been in the sport world ever since.” 

Saying she’s “in the sport world” would be selling Dussliere a bit short, though. She is a groundbreaking administrator with the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC), the organization that oversees the Olympic and Paralympic movements in the United States. 

Since joining the organization in 2003, Dussliere has filled multiple leadership roles, including her current position as senior vice president and chief of Paralympics and internally managed sports. In this job, she oversees planning and support for 28 summer and winter Paralympic sports and the operations of the 10 Olympic and Paralympic sports currently managed by the USOPC.

I’m actually doing the job I always wanted to do, just doing it in a different space than I thought I might be.

Julie Dussliere (BA Russian ’94), chief of Paralympics and internally managed sports for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee 

At the 2024 Paris Games, she will serve as Team USA’s chef de mission, a chief leadership role she has held at multiple winter and summer Paralympics and Parapan American Games to ensure U.S. athletes and their coaches have the resources necessary to succeed. 

And that’s only the most recent highlight in a career that certainly tests the diplomatic skills she began building as a Boilermaker student-athlete. 

“International relations in the sport world is not too different from the government level,” Dussliere says with a laugh. “There’s just as much politics. It’s just in its own little space.” 

A groundbreaking career 

As a Purdue student, Dussliere was certain she didn’t want to teach. She remembers discussing that aversion — which made her an outlier among her classmates in the School of Languages and Cultures — in frequent conversations with her advisor, Marianne Gupta. 

But guess what she loved most about her first coaching job? 

“Funny enough, it was the teaching aspect, even though I had all those conversations with Marianne where I didn’t want to teach,” Dussliere says of that initial job with the USA Swimming club team in San Jose, California, which she took to fill the time between grad school and law school. “You never know until you do it.” 

Indeed, she turned out to be great at it. She worked as a coach and administrator at several USA Swimming clubs over the next eight years and eventually crossed over into Paralympic coaching. 

For the most part, she found that coaching athletes with disabilities was just like coaching any other athlete. The biggest difference was that it required more creativity than had been previously necessary. 

“About 99% of what you’re doing is exactly the same: training, planning, physiology, biomechanics, sport-specific expertise,” she explains. “It’s taking your coaching expertise to a higher level in that you have an athlete who may not be able to do things the same way based on what the disability is, and you’ve got to get creative. You’ve got to figure out how you get the same training cycle, same training methodology and so forth. 

“I would say the coaches we have in Paralympics are some of the best in the world because of that, because they’ve all moved into Paralympics at some point in time, typically based on an athlete-coach relationship where they’ve gotten involved, and they have a tendency to stay in Paralympics once they come over.” 

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Dussliere coached in Paralympic swimming for a decade — including as an assistant at multiple international competitions — before making history as head coach of the U.S. team at the 2002 International Paralympic Committee Swimming World Championships. In that role, she became the first woman to serve as head coach for any American swimming team (Olympic or Paralympic) at a major international championship. 

“It wasn’t until our communications folks looked at it and said, ‘Hey, wait a minute!’ that we realized [I was the first woman head coach],” Dussliere says. “So, it really was not a huge deal at the time, and I didn’t really think about it. I’d been on coaching staffs, knew how to lead coaching staffs. It wasn’t anything out of the norm, so to speak. But it was a big deal when we realized it afterward.” 

Dussliere would break more ground as an administrator 16 years later. After serving as vice president of the Americas Paralympic Committee — one of five regional organizations that make up the worldwide Paralympic community — she was appointed in 2018 as the committee’s president. That made her both the first woman and first U.S. representative to oversee the Americas region. 

It was yet another opportunity to test her skills as a communicator and diplomat. 

“It required a lot of coaching skills and mentoring and leading people because doing it in that environment was very different than any other environment,” Dussliere says. “No one else on the board was from North America. I didn’t have any colleagues from the Caribbean or Canada. So, it was very Latin America-based, which made it a very interesting dynamic based on how they operate, how they do business. It was very different than how we operate here in the U.S. It was truly an exercise in international relations.” 

Paying it forward 

Dussliere cites her Purdue women’s swimming coach, Cathy Wright-Eger, as a strong leader who still influences her today. That mentorship benefited Dussliere in her career and inspired her to pay it forward to the students who followed her at Purdue.  

She gives back whenever possible, whether meeting with Boilermaker student-athletes during campus visits, participating in the Old Masters program or reminding College of Liberal Arts students that they can do anything they want with their degree. 

“Julie is a great source of inspiration for liberal arts students,” says Lori Sparger, chief operating officer in the College of Liberal Arts, who helped develop and for many years taught the SCLA 300 (Liberal Arts Influentials) course where Dussliere has appeared multiple times as an alumni guest speaker. “For most of our students, their major does not directly translate into a job title. Julie’s work for the Paralympics melds her degree in Russian and her passion for sports to provide a real example for our students to chart their own high-impact careers. 

“I am very grateful that she chooses to return to campus to speak in class and provide support and guidance. When they meet people like Julie, who care about their success, our students are encouraged to pursue their boldest aspirations as they consider their professional lives after Purdue.” 

Dussliere is similarly encouraging when meeting with Purdue student-athletes, like the members of the women’s swimming team with whom she has so much in common. As a former Boilermaker competitor herself, her words have special resonance when discussing topics like the importance of time management in establishing necessary work-life balance. 

According to Purdue women’s swimming and diving coach John Klinge — Dussliere’s contemporary as a Boilermaker swimmer in the early 1990s — it’s a perfect example of how an active alumni base can benefit today’s student-athletes. 

“There’s a couple of really good things,” Klinge says. “It’s a highly successful woman — so she’s a really, really good role model for our team — but it’s also someone who was in their shoes not too long ago and can maybe offer a little advice on succeeding in just about any field.” 

Dussliere’s reason behind staying involved is simple: “It’s because of the Purdue family” that influenced her and helped shape the accomplished professional she would become. 

“You get to the point where, whether you’re giving back in terms of philanthropy or time or other types of resources, it’s just important,” she says. “Purdue was a big part of my life for obvious reasons, and I just love staying involved on campus.” 

‘One of my idols and mentors’ 

Sometimes opportunities to support other Boilermakers emerge in unexpected ways, as well. 

Former Purdue women’s basketball player Léony Boudreau (BS biomedical engineering ’21, MS biomedical engineering ’22) was completely unaware of the Boilermaker connection she shared with Dussliere until she first prepared to reach out to the U.S. Paralympics chief about an adaptive sports student organization Boudreau co-founded at Purdue. But once they made contact, Boudreau quickly began to view Dussliere as someone she now calls “one of my idols and mentors.” 

“I did a little bit of research on Julie, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s a Purdue alum and she’s so involved with athletics,’ so I reached out to her,” Boudreau says. “Honestly, the first time I reached out to her, you know those people you connect with right away? She was so fantastic and so generous with her time. It was kind of history from there.” 

Dussliere continues to support that student organization — RIISE (Reinventing the Interface of Inclusivity, Sports, and Engineering) — which Boudreau co-founded with Shelby Gruss (PhD plant breeding and genetics ’21), a former captain of the U.S. women’s wheelchair basketball team, and a group of Purdue students inspired by their opportunity to make an impact within the Paralympic Movement. Dussliere even traveled to campus in April to attend the third annual Wheel RIISE event, which aims to raise community awareness of adaptive sports and highlight the connection between engineering and athletics. 

“Even with her stature and all of the impact and power that she’s gained over the years, she’s one of the most humble people I know and one of the most authentic people I know,” Boudreau says. “I had so much fun with her when she came on campus. She’s definitely an incredible advisor for RIISE and a fantastic mentor for me personally.” 

The impact of successful alums like Dussliere was so important during Boudreau’s student-athlete journey that she now also aspires to be a positive influence for current and future Boilermaker competitors. 

“Having somebody like Julie stepping in while I was still an athlete at Purdue was huge,” she says. “It opened my eyes on all the other things that are happening in life and all of the impact that you can bring as an athlete to use your platform to just expand your impact broader than your own performance as an athlete.” 

Focus on Paris Games 

For the next several weeks, though, Dussliere’s primary focus is athlete performance. Team USA, which will compete in the Summer Paralympic Games between Aug. 28 and Sept. 8, includes two athletes with Purdue ties: team captain Evan Austin, a former volunteer assistant coach with the women’s swimming team who still trains at the Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center, and men’s track and field senior Joel Gomez. 

She has supported thousands of successful American athletes through the years and looks forward to seeing many more bring medals home from Paris this summer. No matter how many international competitions she attends, that excitement never gets old. 

“It’s about our Team USA athletes getting out there on the field of play and doing what they’ve been training eight, 12, sometimes 20 years to do,” she says. “And just being there to support them and provide them with the support they need to get out there and do their best.” 

In two decades at the USOPC, Dussliere has played a direct role in the tremendous growth of international Paralympic competition in athletic performance, participation and visibility. So, while her current occupation might not be the diplomatic role she pictured as a Purdue student, many athletes across the globe — especially those in her home country — have benefited from the way her plans evolved. 

“I’m actually doing the job I always wanted to do, just doing it in a different space than I thought I might be,” Dussliere says. “This is a very, very good use of a lot of the big international relations focus from back in my Purdue days.” 

I had no indication or thought that I was going to work in the sport world when I graduated. That was not the plan. But then I ended up taking a coaching job instead, and I’ve been in the sport world ever since.

Julie Dussliere (BA Russian ’94),
chief of Paralympics and internally managed sports for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee 

Former Purdue All-American thrower Chukwuebuka Enekwechi had a unique perspective on his Olympic experience.

“It was so different from Tokyo,” says Enekwechi, who competed in Paris for Nigeria, the nation in which he holds dual citizenship. “In Tokyo, we called it the ‘Covid Olympics’. You didn’t get that super-fun experience you dreamed about because you competed in empty, massive venues. I contrast that with what I experienced on August 2nd and 3rd, [when] there were 80,000 fans.

“I have competed in stadiums before in front of 50,000 fans, but when I walked out in Paris to a crowd of 80,000 on prelim day, it was amazing. You are already nervous because it could be the end of your Olympic run, but they swallowed me alive when I saw the capacity crowd. There was a constant buzz in the crowd, and I felt it.”

Enekwechi, a self-proclaimed showman, played to the crowd and was pleased that his overall finish from three years prior was cut in half. He finished sixth in the shot put with a throw of 21.42 meters in Paris after a 12th-place finish in Tokyo.

“A crowd like that can help you, or it can hurt you,” says Enekwechi, who visits Nigeria at least once a year. “You have to know how to channel that. You can’t not do your job and then have as much fun as possible because you will look like a fool. So, the first step is to throw far, and then the next thing is to entertain the crowd.”

Ranked ninth in the world entering the Paris Games, he was pleased to finish higher than his ranking and achieve his goal of qualifying for the next day’s final.

However, there was much more to Enekwechi’s Olympic experience than just his two-day competition. While he was disappointed that he could not experience the opening and closing ceremonies, he did have the chance to watch the track & field events, some beach volleyball, and break dancing. He will never forget being in the infield when the 4×100 mixed relay was run, one of the more memorable events of the Games.

“There is a different vibe for track & field in Europe, and when you add the Olympics on top of that, it is taken into the stratosphere,” says Enekwechi, who also ran into a few ‘stars’ including tennis legend Serena Williams. “I take it one competition at a time, but if I am good enough, I would like to compete in Los Angeles in 2028.”

Enekwechi says he is at his physical peak now, at age 31, and looks forward to continuing training and honing his skills as a coach and instructor in the sport. He expects to spend the rest of his professional life doing these roles.

Purdue was not far from his mind during his memorable time in the City of Light. He ran into fellow Boilermaker track & field athlete Devynne Charlton and watched the Bahamian finish sixth in the 110-meter hurdles. He ran into volleyballer Annie Drews, part of the silver medalist USA squad.

Along with five other Boilermaker greats from years past, the trio of Enekwechi, Charlton and Drews will return to campus in October to be inducted into the Leroy Keyes Purdue Athletics Hall of Fame.

“I get goosebumps when I think about my time at Purdue,” says Enekwechi. “I am a pretty sentimental person, so it is an honor to be an ambassador for the school. That is why I stick around campus and want to pay it forward by helping those who experience some of the same angst and struggles I did.

“I wouldn’t be where I am without Purdue.”

Written by Alan Karpick, publisher of GoldandBlack.com

(Editor’s note, Aug. 11: Former Purdue All-American Annie Drews became a back-to-back Olympic medalist on Sunday when her U.S. team claimed a silver medal in women’s volleyball, having previously won gold in the Tokyo Games. Drews was one of 12 Boilermakers competing in Paris, a group that also included two sixth-place finishers (Devynne Charlton in the women’s 100-meter hurdles and Chukwuebuka Enekwechi in the men’s shot put) and an eighth-place result in 3-meter synchronized diving by Tyler Downs and Greg Duncan. Meanwhile, a trio of Purdue divers — Daryn Wright (19th place), Jaye Patrick (22nd) and Maycey Vieta (24th) — competed in the women’s 10-meter platform; diver Brandon Loschiavo took 17th in the men’s 10-meter platform; incoming graduate transfer swimmer Matheo Mateos placed 20th for Paraguay in the men’s 200-meter individual medley; swimming alumnus Nikola Aćin competed on the Serbian team that placed 11th in the 4×100 freestyle relay; and South African Paula Reto tied for 44th in women’s golf.)

No matter how you measure it, experience served as a teacher for the Purdue athletes participating in the Paris Summer Olympics. 

In diving, the sport of four current Boilermakers, there was the added benefit of having four-time medalist David Boudia as an assistant coach of Team USA. 

“I don’t know if it is cooler to make it as an athlete or watch someone make it,” said Boudia, who is in his fourth year as a coach with the Boilermaker diving program and who recently took over the head coaching position when Adam Soldati stepped down for health reasons. “Anytime you go to an event at this level, the athletes who will have success are the ones that can control (what is going on in) their heads. I love working with them on that part of the sport.” 

And Boudia’s message is resonating. Maycey Vieta was the first to qualify, competing for Puerto Rico and assuring Purdue was represented in diving for the fifth straight Olympics. She has been in several international championship events, but this was her first time at the quadrennial showcase. 

“My goal is pretty simple; I want to execute my cues on all five dives,” Vieta said prior to leaving for Paris. “That is what Dave and I have worked on. These are the same five dives I have done (in competitions) for the last four years.” 

It was a bigger stage, to be sure, but it was also about having the mind lead the body into flawless execution. 

While Boudia coached Vieta at the Games, it was also extra special for her to have support from Boilermaker teammates Daryn Wright (representing the U.S.) and Jaye Patrick (Latvia) while the trio competed in the 10-meter platform event. (And to be proposed to by fellow Boilermaker Olympic diver Greg Duncan in Paris). 

“It feels like home having all the Purdue divers in Paris,” Vieta said. “It is very comforting to have all my teammates there. Dave and Adam warned us that it would be a new experience and, at times, emotionally exhausting because of other events like the opening ceremonies. Still, we will represent our country, which is the focus.”

It feels like home having all the Purdue divers in Paris.

Maycey vieta, former purdue diver (2020-24)

Boudia, who will help coach Brandon Loschiavo on 10-meter on Friday, also worked with Duncan and Tyler Downs in the 3-meter synchronized event. Duncan is a four-time All-American and teamed with Downs, who spent a year at Purdue and won the 2022 NCAA title on platform. 

Loschiavo did not learn he had qualified until a day before the opening ceremony when a quota spot opened up late for diving. Like Wright, he had finished as the runner-up on 10-meter at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in June. 

Downs and Loschiavo competed in the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, while Duncan, age 25, made his first appearance on the world’s biggest athletic stage. 

“This team (at Purdue) is built with Olympians and those that treat the sport with respect,” said Duncan, who admitted he would rely on his diving partner’s previous Olympic experience. “If we do what we are expected to do, it will turn out great.” 

Although all of the divers except Downs were first-time Olympians, all are veterans of elite international competition. Wright (20) is the youngest and Downs turned 21 in mid-July. 

Patrick began her collegiate career at Northwestern before spending her fifth year as a graduate student training at the Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center under Soldati and Boudia. She credited Boudia for convincing her to continue her career after she competed for Latvia at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Japan.

“I was always realistic, thinking, ‘No, this can’t be me who will make it to the Olympics,’ especially since I started so late,” Patrick said. “Dave said, ‘You are not done yet; we will work on this and get you to the Olympics.’ So it became a realistic dream of mine about a year ago. He worked on the mental approach, and it changed everything.” 

When Patrick arrived in the City of Light, her approach was simple. “I want to keep my head on straight and do my best,” she said. “I used to be alone at international competitions in past years, but now I have teammates and coaches (that I know). It means so much.” 

Wright said Boudia and Soldati’s approach to the mental aspect also helped her earn a spot on Team USA. And she utilized their “one day at a time” approach when the competition began. Especially after some heartbreak in past international competitions. 

“(The Olympics) is the same thing I have done for a long time,” Wright said. “It just has a fancy name attached to it.”

Experience also permeates Purdue’s non-diving Olympians

Boilermakers Annie Drews, Chukwuebuka Enekwechi, Devynne Charlton, Nikola Aćin and Paula Reto all made their second trip to the Olympic Games. 

Drews played a vital role on USA’s first women’s volleyball gold medal team in the Tokyo Games, while Enekwechi looked to improve on his 12th-place finish in the shot put. Charlton had a sixth-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles in the 2020 Olympics, representing the Bahamas. She is now a world record holder in the 60-meter hurdles, traditionally an indoor event. Aćin earned a second trip to the Olympics after being part of Serbia’s victorious 4×100-meter freestyle relay at the European Aquatics Championships in June. 

Former Purdue golfer Reto made her second appearance after competing for South Africa in Rio in 2016. 

“It is such an accomplishment to have ‘Olympian’ next to your name,” said Reto, a freshman on Purdue’s 2010 national championship team. “It is one dream to get there and another to win something.” 

Reto, who has competed on the LPGA Tour since graduating from Purdue in 2013, won’t be able to attend the opening or closing ceremonies as golf takes place in the middle of the Games, sandwiched between LPGA events. But she planned to support her Purdue brethren, even if it was from the stands. 

“My goal is to see many other sports and other Purdue athletes perform in Paris,” Reto said. “I fondly remember cheering David on in Rio. 

“Purdue changed my life,” she added. “We had such a great coach in Devon Brouse. Everything we had at Purdue was in top shape, and I love that the tradition of athletics excellence lives on at the Olympic Games.”

Boilermaker gold in past summer games

Purdue has been a frequent participant in the Summer Games and has had success, winning 14 gold medals, seven silver medals and six bronze medals. 

Ray Ewry’s 10 gold medals in the standing high jump and long jump from 1900-08 boosted the school’s medal totals. Purdue went without a medal for the next nine Olympiads before swimmer Keith Carter won a silver in the 200-meter breaststroke in London in 1948. Four years later, Coach Richard “Pappy” Papenguth coached the U.S. women’s swimming and diving team. Papenguth led the Boilermaker swimming program until 1969.

Howie Williams (1952) and Terry Dischinger (1960) are the lone Boilermaker men’s basketball players who earned medals (both gold). Fifty-two years later, David Boudia dramatically brought home the gold in 10-meter diving in London. Amanda Elmore became the first Boilermaker woman to win gold. Elmore won it in rowing in 2016, followed by Annie Drews in volleyball in 2020. 

Purdue’s participation in the Summer Games in the 21st century is by far its most remarkable run of success since the modern Games began in 1896. In total, 55 athletes with Purdue ties have competed since summer competition began, 31 since 2000. 

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

Purdue student-athletes, staffers travel abroad to build athletics court for underserved youth

The mission is simple. It couldn’t be any more straightforward.

“Transforming lives through building courts and cultural exchange.”

It states that right on the Courts for Kids website. But it begs the question, whose life is being transformed? Is it the Costa Rican kids the Boilermakers Beyond Borders group served by helping construct a concrete basketball court in early June? Or is it the 15-member party that represented Purdue Athletics in the Central American country?

“This experience will stick with me forever,” distance runner Geno Christofanelli says. “We learned that so much can be done when communities work together.”

Boilermakers Beyond Borders is a recently formed international travel program for Purdue student-athletes and staff made possible under the John Purdue Club’s Forging Ahead campaign. The program allows Boilermaker student-athletes to give back and expand their worldview through a mission trip benefitting local youth in an underdeveloped country.

This week-long experience wasn’t easy for the Purdue crew. It was stifling hot, the work hours were long and sometimes a bit chaotic, and accommodations were far from luxurious – yet it didn’t seem to matter.

The Purdue contingent provided labor, ranging from clearing rocks from the area to hauling water buckets and cinder blocks.

“It was hard, I am not going to lie,” says Amiyah Reynolds, a member of the women’s basketball team. “To the Costa Rican workers, it was nothing, but we needed breaks, lots of breaks.

“There were ants and bugs, and we slept on the floor. The fact that the locals lived in that and were OK with it taught me a lot. They were energetic and were fighting for a spot to help us.”

Reynolds said that the locals would race home from their work at the local banana processing factory to get involved, and the kids would do the same when they came home from school. They were all simply happy to pitch in.

Transforming the dirt square into a playing surface took most of the week. The locals eagerly worked alongside the Purdue group, and despite the language barrier, the common thread was finishing the court.

“It was like a team bucket brigade,” says Logan Sandlin, a decathlete for the Boilermakers and recent graduate. “A big takeaway for us is you don’t have to plan everything for it to go well.”

With the work, the locals expressed joy and plenty of it. They worked past dusk most nights, using flashlights to get the job done.

“Life is simple there, but the people seem so happy,” Christofanelli says. “They aren’t at all hung up on the things that we as Americans seem to be, and that was a teaching moment for all of us.”

And the cultural experience came from many different facets of the trip.

“The food was awesome,” Christofanelli says. “We had rice and beans for 21 meals, but it was different and delicious every time. And the fresh fruit was like nothing I have ever had.”

Boilermakers Beyond Borders was, in part, the idea of Kelli Briscoe and Candace Britten, who serve as assistant directors in student-athlete development. The duo also made the trip. After attending a conference, the pair earned support from the athletics department senior staff after submitting a proposal.

Funding for the group’s approximately $35,000 for travel and lodging came via crowdfunding and from the John Purdue Club. Britten says one of the challenges was finding a time when Purdue’s busy student-athletes could go.

“Our job is to help our student-athletes prepare for the real world,” Britten says. “Sometimes they are focused so much on their sport that they don’t see anything past their bubble. Many of our sports don’t have an opportunity for international travel, so this brings it to them. I am a big believer that it is part of a well-rounded experience.”

A common refrain from these Boilermakers was that they gained more from the experience than they put in.

“I got so much out of the trip, but what was special for me was the time spent with our student-athletes,” Britten says. “We had absolutely zero issues. This trip provided memories that will last a lifetime, unforgettable memories. Knowing that Kelli and I helped make that happen is very satisfying.”

Reynolds, who admits to being very introverted, summed up the experience of her fellow student-athletes.

‘It was the most I have ever danced,” says Reynolds, who had a brief opportunity to impart her hoops skills to the children. “Even at 9 p.m., they were blasting music. It got me through those long seven days.

“But it was also so important that I learned about the lives of my fellow athletes at Purdue. I didn’t know their names when we first started preparing for the trip, but by the time we got back home, I felt like we were lifelong friends.”

The group’s experience with the community’s children undoubtedly left an indelible mark.

“The most fun part of it was playing and interacting with the kids,” Sandlin says. “I am so bad at soccer, but it didn’t matter. It was great to connect with them physically, even if we didn’t speak the language. It helped bridge all gaps.”

For Christofanelli, it made him proud to be at Purdue.

“It was great to bond with other Purdue student-athletes, and the experience really embodied what it means to be a Boilermaker,” he says.

In the end, it was about hard work and giving back. But it was also about having fun in an experience that will last a lifetime.

By Alan Karpick, publisher of GoldandBlack.com since 1996.

Political science alumna juggled sorority life and Navy ROTC commitment while working to fulfill a childhood dream

Caitlin Clark understands all too well the crowd’s reaction when she crossed the stage to accept her diploma at Purdue’s spring commencement ceremony.

It has been a source of amusement over the last few years that she shares a name with a certain superstar athlete — maybe you’ve heard of her — so the commencement attendees’ murmurs, cheers and laughter when they heard her name called were more of a pleasant surprise than a shock.

“It’s made it funny to have restaurant reservations. People never know who’s going to walk in,” says Clark (BA political science ’24), whose hometown, Carmel, is roughly 15 miles from Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where the other Caitlin Clark is a rookie on the Indiana Fever. “I have gotten a lot of memes about me being a world-famous basketball player. I get a lot of comments, people striking up conversations when I’m out to dinner or at a store or something like that. It’s been interesting — a little bit more attention than I’d gotten previously.”

While their response was understandable, most commencement attendees were probably unaware that there were good reasons to cheer for the Purdue Caitlin Clark’s achievement. That weekend, she joined both her mother and uncle as Purdue alumni and was commissioned into the U.S. Navy, fulfilling a dream she’s had since she was 8 years old.

An unusual fascination

That’s not an exaggeration. Clark became intrigued with the Navy during early childhood when visiting her aunt and uncle in Annapolis, Maryland, home of the U.S. Naval Academy, and interacting with the midshipmen their family sponsored. Her fascination only grew when interacting with the active-duty and special forces service members she met through her dad’s work providing board certification examinations to U.S. Special Operations Command paramedics.

One Sunday while attending a Catholic Mass at the Naval Academy with her parents, Clark observed the many impressive students decked out in their dress white uniforms and spoke up.

“Caitlin asked, ‘Mom, is this hard?’” recalls her mom, Donna York, recipient of three Purdue nursing degrees: an associate (1980), a bachelor’s (1982) and a Doctor of Nursing Practice (2021). “I said, ‘Oh, I think it’s really hard.’ And then she said, ‘I think this is what I’m going to do. It just seems like the right thing.’ So from that point on, everything was about learning about the Navy.”

Clark’s interest never wavered, right up through participation in Purdue’s Naval ROTC program and her commissioning ceremony as a surface warfare officer two days before commencement.

“I’ve kind of geared everything toward this goal of being in the Navy and being the best officer that I can be and being a leader,” Clark says. “That changed what I did in middle school, what I did in high school, where I ended up. It was very surreal for everything that I’ve been wanting in the last 14 years to finally come to fruition and be an actual naval officer.”

In August, she will report for a basic division officer course ahead of a three-year stint aboard the USS Gravely missile destroyer, followed by a two-year shore tour.

“I can’t really tell you why I’ve always wanted to do it, but I have, and I could not imagine doing anything else,” Clark says. “It’s definitely motivating, and it’s motivating to be surrounded by people that think the same way and want to push for the same things.”

A future intelligence expert?

Clark initially planned to follow both of her parents into the medical profession as a naval doctor. However, she jokes that “my love for biology did not persist” as a college student, causing her to change course.

Instead, she found that the classes in her minor, political science, were what truly excited her. That was especially the case when the subject matter dealt with national security and counterintelligence — starting with a course on terrorism taught by assistant professor of practice Melissa Will.

“She was a CIA analyst before, so she had a crazy-cool perspective,” Clark says of Will. “She is an awesome professor, and I think a lot of that stems from all this knowledge that she has from her past life of not just being in academia.”

In addition to sharing perspectives from more than a decade of intelligence-gathering work, Will invites FBI special agents to her classroom to share their real-world experiences with students. Students are often fascinated by this important work, and Will could tell that was clearly the case during conversations with Clark after class.

Pursuing it as a career is somewhat rare, however, so Will was impressed when Clark accepted an internship with the Department of Justice in the summer of 2023.

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“It was great to see she actually got that internship and was able to take those initial steps down that career path,” Will says. “When she came up to talk to me after class, she didn’t specifically say she wanted to do counterintelligence at that point, but she definitely said she was interested in going into the intel track, which was exciting. I hear that a lot, but then she actually was taking steps to do it.”

Clark built upon that foundation through coursework in her minor, French, including an independent study focused on French foreign policy. Working alongside Jessica Sturm, associate professor of French and applied linguistics, Clark selected relevant news articles to analyze, produced papers and infographics, and created a podcast that explained what she learned during the independent study.

Clark’s interest in counterintelligence evolved during her time at Purdue, to the extent that she now hopes to pursue a master’s degree in the discipline once her three years aboard the Gravely come to an end.

“I feel like I really found my niche,” Clark says. “I wish that I had done it earlier.”

Unexpected extracurricular activity

Clark believes many different aspects of her Purdue experience prepared her for the journey ahead in the Navy.

The ROTC program imparted valuable lessons about confidence, toughness and teamwork to be sure.

“She’s always been confident, but now she knows that if she needs to run 20 miles, she’s going to run 20 miles,” York says. “Nothing is insurmountable, and that’s what I think ROTC helped her see. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t do if she really put her mind to it with the right team.”

Meanwhile, participation in another campus activity — membership in Kappa Delta sorority, which her mom describes as “a juxtaposition that you don’t expect” — sharpened other necessary life skills.

“Kappa Delta taught me a lot about living with the people that you’re leading and living where you work, which I think is going to be incredibly valuable when I’m on my ship in the middle of the ocean,” Clark says.

Clark pledged Kappa Delta at the University of Pittsburgh before transferring to Purdue at the end of a COVID-impacted freshman year where she did not attend a single in-person class and campus de-densification efforts had her living in a hotel room instead of a dorm.

She quickly found a home and community at Purdue’s Theta Nu chapter, which she eventually served as chapter president. Although she was one of only three Boilermaker women who were involved in both the Greek system and Navy ROTC, Clark calls the unusual combination a formative experience that helped her recognize the necessity of employing different communication styles when interacting with two extremely different audiences.

“There’s a switch that you have to make,” Clark says. “The feedback you give to someone in an ROTC setting is entirely different than when interacting with a sorority sister.”

Kappa Delta taught me a lot about living with the people that you’re leading and living where you work, which I think is going to be incredibly valuable when I’m on my ship in the middle of the ocean.

Caitlin Clark, a future surface warfare officer on the USS Gravely

‘Find what makes your soul sing’

Clark’s Purdue journey was unique to say the least, but she looks back and can’t imagine doing it any other way.

She took the steps necessary to fulfill a childhood dream and was exposed to subject matter that could become the focus of her career in the Navy and beyond — and she did it her own way.

“Her dad and I really tried to raise her in a way that we want you to find what makes your soul sing and do it. There’s nothing you can’t do,” York says.

Clark has certainly accepted her parents’ challenge thus far, culminating in the commissioning and commencement doubleheader, which just so happened to occur on Mother’s Day weekend.

“It was like blowing up all your firecrackers all at once,” York says. “It was just amazing.”

Throughout Clark’s time at Purdue, fellow students would marvel at the mettle and time-management skills that were necessary to juggle her military regimen, academic coursework and sorority life. But she pulled it off, providing a template for how students can find ways to make time for the things they love to do. “I feel like I got two totally different experiences that have really helped me become a more well-rounded person,” she says.

She said, ‘I think this is what I’m going to do. It just seems like the right thing.’ So from that point on, everything was about learning about the Navy.

Donna York
on when her 8-year-old daughter, Caitlin Clark, decided that she would someday join the Navy

Victoria Durnell’s online degrees have allowed her to rise in a new field and positively impact lives in her community

Victoria Durnell has used her Purdue Global bachelor’s and master’s degrees not only to change fields, but to create her own promotion. What’s next for her? Going back for her doctorate.  

With every degree she has earned, she has moved forward in big ways. Her bachelor’s degree in health care administration allowed her a seamless transition from education to health care. After earning her master’s, she was not only hired, but created a new position for herself at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. In the fall of 2024, she plans to go back again for her doctor of health science. She’s hoping to use her voice to write for publications on African American and women’s health issues — instigating change at the government level.  

So what fostered this rise in a completely new career path?  

A time for reinvention 

Durnell had been working for years in an education administration role but felt her career was at a crossroads. With her superintendent retiring, she knew her school system would change and she didn’t want to get left behind. She was too young to retire, so she felt her options were to either stay in her current position or go back to school and change her field. 

Durnell found herself looking in the mirror and reflecting on her career, asking, “Am I happy doing what I’m doing? Can I do this for another 15 or 20 years?” 

These are difficult questions for any working adult to answer, but after considering her possible future paths, she knew what she had to do. After seeing an advertisement and enacting a quick Google search, she found the perfect avenue for what she calls her “reinvention”: earning her degree from Purdue Global.

I was able to take two years off my time earning my degree. It ended up saving me thousands of dollars.

Victoria Durnell
BS, MS health care administration ’21, ’23, Purdue Global 

How does a person decide to pursue a completely new field after a long career in a different area? For Durnell, it was about discovering what she was truly passionate about. She realized it was her time to follow her love for sports and exercise, which also aligned perfectly with the growing health and wellness field. She noticed most medical offices need a health and wellness professional who focuses on keeping people healthy, and she wanted to be that person. Her previous experience in education involved administration and management, and she knew she could apply those skills to this new industry — an industry that excited her.  

Another, very unexpected, person in Durnell’s life followed a similar career detour, which proved to her that she could make this dream a reality.  

“My gynecologist was an English teacher, and when she retired, she went back to medical school and became a gynecologist. She is still an excellent surgeon at almost 80,” she says. “It just proved to me that it’s never too late.” 

Purdue Global stepped in to foster that seamless transition from one field to the next. This change was made easier for her because she was able to translate her work and life experience into credits. “My advisor let me know that, because I was in a full-blown career, I was able to take two years off my time earning my degree. It ended up saving me thousands of dollars,” she says. 

Durnell started toward her degree in 2019 and was able to earn her bachelor’s degree in 2021. She jumped quickly into her master’s program, once she realized it would move her even further along in a new career. “I knew the master’s degree was going to make me more marketable. When I looked into it, I noticed that the workload was very manageable and convenient,” she says.  

Durnell celebrated her graduation with a master’s degree in health care administration by 2023.  

“I just wanted to share it and shout it and let people know,” Durnell says, smiling as she reflects on her experience. “I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I really did do this.’ This was a four-year journey, and I was so proud of myself.”

Durnell is grateful that she could focus on school full-time and waited until finishing her master’s degree to apply for a new position. At first, she felt intimidated by rejoining the workforce but was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.  

“I didn’t know what was going on in the world of employment,” she says, “so I threw my resume out there and I was very shocked at how many callbacks I got. The Purdue name helped.”  

She landed a position as coordinator of health and wellness at Big Brothers Big Sisters, a title that attracted her because she knew she could use her school and administrative experience. Not long after starting work as a coordinator, she designed a new director role for herself from the ground up. She felt strongly that they needed someone who not only coordinates but assumes responsibility for the overall physical activities of the organization throughout the year. She ensures each activity resonates with grant requirements, organizational objectives, and most importantly, the children’s aspirations and needs. 

“I kept advocating for that and it was created for me,” she says, overflowing with pride. 

En route to a doctorate

Durnell loves her work now, and she only wants to increase the positive effect she has on others. When advocating for her new director position, she also told her CEO that she wanted to get her doctor of health science from Purdue Global. 

When she talked to her husband about going back for her third degree, Durnell says, “My husband tells me he can’t even think of a time when I didn’t have a laptop in front of me. He actually just got his PhD, so he’s really proud.”  

Soon there could be two Durnells with doctorates, an exciting thing for her to think about. “He pushes me to do things like pursuing my own doctorate degree. I’m so proud of him too, but of course my competitive side is jealous he got there first,” she says, chuckling.  

When Durnell received a Purdue Global email with doctorate information, she looked at the course load and felt the pieces falling into place, exclaiming, “Oh, my God, this is for me!” 

In her current role, she works with grant programs, which helped her realize a desire to dive further into public health issues and possibly work for the state. Indiana has been identified as a state with health challenges like obesity, smoking and food desert areas, and Durnell has made it her mission to bring exposure to these issues.

I’m changing lives with kids and families right now, and I enjoy this work so much.

Victoria Durnell BS, MS health care administration ’21, ’23, Purdue Global

“I’m changing lives with kids and families right now, and I enjoy this work so much, so I look forward to bringing more change,” Durnell says. She also has the long-term goal to write for publications on women’s health issues, a topic that was inspired by her family. Durnell has daughters, so she wants to help bring information to her own family, and women like them, so that they can learn more about their bodies and choices.  

“It is a big deal for women to be able to know these things,” she says.  

She is hoping to write about the intersectionality between African American studies, women’s health disparities and diabetes.  

“I’m very passionate about that, so I’m definitely planning to dive in,” she says.  

Deciding to return to school for the third time wasn’t an easy decision for Durnell, but she can’t wait to see what she will accomplish. After completely changing fields and creating her own position, there really is no limit to what change Durnell will inspire in her community once she holds a doctorate.  

“The opportunity to tackle some of these issues is really big, and I think to have that credential will solidify that more for me,” she says. “The Purdue Global name on my doctorate will make it even better. I can see it.” 

After taking a beat to think more about the future she is manifesting for herself by starting her doctor of health science in the fall of 2024, with an optimistic smirk, she concludes, “I’ll have a doctorate. Yeah, I’m that girl.”

This dad of four is driven to protect his people. So he’s earning his master’s degree in cybersecurity with Purdue Global.

Dan Vukobratovich (MS cybersecurity, Purdue Global) isn’t pursuing his master’s degree in cybersecurity simply because he likes tech.  

It’s because protecting loved ones is something he takes very seriously. In fact, he would tell you his drive to protect his people is what informs every single thing he does. 

He’s always been that way. When he first began to consider career paths as a young adult, he dreamed of a job in medicine. But as a dad of young kids at the time, he could tell right away it wasn’t going to work for his family. So he trained as a volunteer EMT and firefighter. In that role, he started to see how getting paid to work triage was not off the table. 

“Once I got involved in emergency services, it drew my attention to cybersecurity because I realized it was actually a lot like medicine,” Vukobratovich says. “It’s the difference between dealing with the organic side of people and dealing with the nuts and bolts and wires. But the mindset is almost identical. You’re trying to figure out what’s wrong. You’re trying to help someone to safety.” 

And when he decided to earn a master’s degree in cybersecurity management with Purdue Global, his understanding of the possibilities expanded beyond what he knew he could do. He could advance his career while holding steady in the day to day. He could teach a valuable lesson to his kids. And he could use his passion for safety to help other people learn how to protect themselves, too. 

When you have a degree backed by Purdue, it’s a stamp of approval for a lot of people.

Dan Vukobratovich
MS cybersecurity, Purdue Global

Pursuing an online master’s degree in cybersecurity 

His drive to protect his loved ones is ultimately what led him to cybersecurity, but being able to provide in the meantime is what made Purdue Global the right choice for him. The dad of four says flexibility was going to have to be central to his experience as a student — and that’s exactly what he got. 

“Sessions are always after work hours,” he says. “It allows me to provide for my family, take care of the needs of my household. The faculty have been wonderful, but the students have, too. My study groups are really accommodating because we all need that.” 

Vukobratovich works as a senior IT security analyst at Purdue Information Technology in West Lafayette, so the curriculum is directly relevant to his everyday life. As he helps the university evaluate the technology for security vulnerbilities, he’s regularly applying what he learns in class in addition to setting himself up for advancement later on. 

“The class I just finished the term before this one was about network defense and penetration testing. With the upgrades to software at work, we have to actually evaluate everything from a criminal point of view — how can this be compromised, and what is our best defense against those compromises?” he says. “I’m able to take that exact, direct knowledge from class and apply it specifically to what I do.” 

Value for his family 

His family may be his primary motivation, but Vukobratovich is quick to note that their unwavering support also enables him to keep going — in particular, his wife, a full-time cardiac nurse.  

“We’ve been married almost two years now and she’s my hero,” he says. “If she knows I have something big coming up or something I need to get done, she’s there saying, ‘Just go. Do it. I’ve got the kids.’” 

And that’s what powers his capacity to model a valuable lesson for his kids in the meantime. His two daughters are now adults, but his sons — ages 10 and 11 — are at a famously challenging academic moment and being able to watch their dad push through it himself is meaningful.

“I want to expand how much I know, but I also want to set an example for my kids. Education is important. They don’t have a long-term vision right now, but I can show them it gets better,” he says. 

He adds, with a laugh, that his wife’s excitement about what he’s doing is contagious. 

“She’ll bend over backwards and then some to help make sure I can do this successfully,” he says. “She checked in with me about how it’s going. I said, ‘It’s going great.’ She said, ‘Cool. Do you think you want to get your doctorate next?’” 

Her enthusiasm is precious to him, but he thinks he’ll get through the next year or so first before he starts considering the next degree. With everything put together, however, it’s grown his passion into something bigger.  

“I want to spread the knowledge, teach people about it, show them how they can keep themselves safe,” he says. 

An opportunity to keep his family safe and other families, too 

Looking ahead, Vukobratovich is enjoying being able to think bigger.  

“My focus is on critical infrastructure protection,” he explains. “Critical infrastructure is the underlying working fields that run our whole nation by running our local communities like the police department, the fire department, the military. But it also affects other things like finance, medical, transportation, logistics. Most people don’t realize how devastating an attack on these things can be. That’s why we’re seeing cyberattacks against electric companies, water companies, and I get to help keep those utilities safe.” 

I want to spread the knowledge, teach people about (online safety), show them how they can keep themselves safe.

Dan Vukobratovich  MS cybersecurity, Purdue Global

And in the age of AI, that unknown weighs heavy on a nervous public. Vukobratovich’s degree and skills allow him to stand in the gap. 

“For a while, I taught some public classes on this material,” he says. “And I’d really like to do more of that when I graduate. I’d like to show people they can be safe online and that keeping their households and businesses safe may be easier than people think.” 

In fact, he encourages those who are interested in educating others in cybersafety to consider Purdue Global. He says this is a field — even more so than most — where a respected name matters. 

“People are worried right now. When they go to someone to learn how to keep themselves and their families safe, they want to know they can trust the person who’s teaching them. When you have a degree backed by Purdue, it’s a stamp of approval for a lot of people. They know the knowledge this educator is sharing is going to be accurate because they got their information from a renowned university,” he says. 

In the meantime, what this degree is doing for him in the here and now is huge. 

“Having the master’s degree can help me advance further within the university and support critical infrastructure,” he says. “But it also helps me work with leadership to better understand how IT and IT security can help the overall environment at Purdue.” 

From here, he has nothing but inspiration and hope for the future. Vukobratovich has a vision that includes being published for his work in cybersecurity and infrastructure protection. He wants to present at a cybersecurity conference. But the possibilities are infinite.  

“I’m proud of myself for discovering who I am, reinventing myself and continuing to pursue my education successfully,” he says. “A lot of men at some point need to evaluate — where am I, where’s my family at in life? — and find where that opportunity is. Your family is the one thing you really can’t replace.”

Go behind the scenes of a VR game creation and learn more about Purdue’s new STEM-focused urban campus. 

The horn sounds. You launch from the starting blocks, and the crowd goes wild. Purdue Pete cheers you on as you race down the pool. Flags are flying, and Boilermaker pride is all around you. Are your Olympic dreams coming true? Close. It’s the Purdue USA Swimming LIVE VR experience.   

Purdue students and faculty in Indianapolis designed the VR experience to celebrate the U.S. Olympic Team Swimming Trials being held in Indiana’s capital city. Game participants are fully immersed in a 3D race in which they swim for a spot on an Olympics-inspired podium. 

How the game is played (and made)

“The Purdue USA Swimming LIVE VR experience is interactive and fast,” says Jason Guy, clinical assistant professor of computer graphics technology. “Our goal is for any person of any age or ability to have fun. People can jump in and out of the game quickly.” 

Creation of the multiplayer game was accelerated, too. It can take years to design a VR experience. But in just four weeks, Guy — along with students Andres Garcia de Quevedo, a junior animation major, and Lukas Wise, a senior computer graphics major — concepted, designed and built Purdue’s VR swim. 

“The process of game creation is complex,” Wise says. “We break it down piece by piece and tackle each component individually. A lot of prep work goes in each step, so you need a solid plan before you start.” 

User experience was a key consideration: Should the camera view be overhead and encompass the entire pool? Should it be a third-person view from behind the swimmer? What action should a player perform to advance their avatar? These are all questions that Guy, Wise and Garcia de Quevedo explored while designing the game. 

“Andres did the menu setup,” Guy says. “This is what the players see when they first load into the game. And Lukas worked on the animations, getting the avatars to swim across the pool.”  

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Purdue Pete cheering you on? That’s all Guy. “I built Pete using Autodesk Maya, which is a 3D computer graphics application,” he explains. “Then I uploaded the screenshots into Unreal Engine 5, which is driving this game.” 

Unreal Engine allowed Guy, Wise and Garcia de Quevedo to control lighting, perspective looping, the cheering animation of Purdue Pete, the Motion P on the bottom of the pool, the soundscape, as well as core functionality. 

“Core functionality — pressing this does that — is always going to be the hardest aspect of game design in my opinion,” Wise says. 

Purdue’s VR experience uses Meta Quest headsets, which go over a player’s eyes and ears. “They’re self-contained,” Guy says. “You don’t need a computer to run the game. It’s all in the headsets themselves.” 

Wise and Garcia de Quevedo built the VR swim experience as part of a summer independent study they are doing with Guy. Hands-on learning experiences such as this are a big part of what drew them to Purdue in Indianapolis. 

Industry experts, career-ready students in Indianapolis

“My professors are excellent,” Garcia de Quevedo says. “And they’re extremely supportive. I had a solid understanding of art and Adobe before I went into college, but my professors showed me how to use those skills to create something meaningful. They have pushed me to be the best I can be.”  

Chris Rogers, site director and associate professor of computer graphics technology, says that having smaller class sizes allows him to forge these types of relationships with students. “I hold one-on-one sessions with students, even if it’s for just 15 minutes, to check in with them about class, but also to review their portfolios or hear about their career goals or internship interests. 

“My area is video production and motion design. I love being able to help students along on their journey, and then, ultimately, hearing that they landed an amazing job and are really excited about what they’re doing.” 

Creating connections between students and industry partners is equally important to Rogers. 

“Conner Prairie is going through a major redesign of their entire experience right now,” he says. “The master planner for that project is one of our graduates, and we’re looking at new projects to do with them going forward.”

The process of game creation is complex. We break it down piece by piece and tackle each component individually. A lot of prep work goes into each step, so you need a solid plan before you start.

Lukas Wise  Purdue computer graphics student in Indianapolis

He also points to recent associations with the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites and the Harrison Center, as well as a long-standing relationship with The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.  

“We are continually exploring opportunities that are unique to Indianapolis,” Rogers says. “Armando Lanuti, president of Creative Works, is on our advisory council. And we have cultivated a close relationship with the leadership of 16 Tech.”  

Purdue’s Indianapolis location plays a key role in experiential learning, which is a point of emphasis for the urban campus. 

“We’ve done many projects where we’ve partnered with outside entities,” Rogers says. “Being in the city, there are so many opportunities around tourism, sports and culture.” 

“I am a huge fan of Indianapolis,” agrees Wise. “I love learning in an urban environment.”  

Garcia de Quevedo says that the city helps him stay focused on outcomes. “I am career oriented and want to get my work done; Indy has been instrumental in that process.” 

Collaborative, hands-on learning

The ability to work closely and creatively with students and faculty who are passionate about their work has been an integral part of Wise and Garcia de Quevedo’s experiences at Purdue in Indianapolis. 

In addition to the Purdue VR swim project, Garcia de Quevedo has collaborated with other students on motion videos, video games and short films. “For a group capstone, I worked with Lukas and another student on a 3D animated short film,” he says.  

“Andres and I met in class,” adds Wise. “At first, we were complete strangers, awkwardly sitting next to each other, but as we worked on group projects together, we ended up becoming friends. The first game that Andres and I developed together was simple: Roll a ball into a goal. Now, we’re creating a VR experience.” 

The VR swim game will be Wise’s last project as a Boilermaker, as the independent study he is building it for fulfills his last graduation requirement. After graduation, he is interested in pursuing environmental design with an eye toward working in game design or the film industry. 

Continuing to innovate and hone his skills is something that Wise says he is well prepared to do: “I feel like a dry sponge being dipped in water, always absorbing new information.” 

Boilermakers pioneer aquatic sports innovation at historic Olympic swim trials event

On May 6, 2024, two days after a packed George Strait concert in Lucas Oil Stadium, trucks loaded full of steel, PVC piping, scaffolding and more lined up to begin the five-week process of building two pools in a place where no pool had ever been constructed before — a football stadium.

Two Olympic-sized (50-meter) swimming pools were constructed on Lucas Oil Stadium’s field for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, marking the first time an indoor pool has been constructed in a venue of this size. The pool deck will be constructed approximately 8 feet above the existing field.

The idea to build a pool inside a football stadium is a novel one. But for four Purdue graduates who work at Shiel Sexton, the construction company leading the project management of the trials, every team involved is perfectly suited to bring it to life.

Assembling the dream team

One of the Boilermakers from Shiel Sexton working on the project is Tony Eisenhut (BS construction management technology ’90). As vice president of field operations for Shiel Sexton, he oversees everything that has to do with putting the pools into Lucas Oil Stadium and has been amazed at the coordination and collaboration that has taken place over the two years this project has been in planning.

“Every one of the entities involved in this project is the best of the best. It’s nice working with all ‘A’ players,” Eisenhut says. “If you wanted to build an all-star team, they are all in Lucas Oil today. And you’ve got to have Boilermakers on the team, or we would be behind schedule right now.”

Shiel Sexton regularly works closely with Indiana Sports Corp., a non-profit organization that brings world-class sporting events like USA Swimming LIVE to Indiana. Shiel Sexton collaborates with representatives from Lucas Oil Stadium, Myrtha Pools, Dodd Technologies Inc., Spear Corp. and countless others with a stake in bringing the Olympic swim trials to Indianapolis.

According to Shiel Sexton CEO Mike Dilts (BS construction management technology ’81), Purdue’s role in the Olympic Trials began 20 years ago when former Purdue athletics director Morgan Burke and former Purdue administrator Nancy Cross stepped up to pledge Purdue’s support for the 2004 FINA World Swimming Championships.

That year, Gainbridge Fieldhouse (then Conseco Fieldhouse) in Indianapolis was the first major indoor sports venue to be transformed into a swimming facility. Shiel Sexton worked on that project alongside the Indiana Sports Corp. Twenty years later, Shiel Sexton is once again bringing indoor swimming to Indianapolis, this time at a greater scale and with more innovation than ever before.

“There’s no precedent for putting an Olympic pool in a football stadium, much less two,” Dilts says.

If you wanted to build an all-star team, they are all in Lucas Oil today. And you’ve got to have Boilermakers on the team, or we would be behind schedule right now.

Tony Eisenhut (BS construction management technology ’90)
vice president of field operations, Shiel Sexton

Breaking a record

The swimming trials’ new location will double the seating capacity of the previous Olympic swim trials. And it’s clearly needed.

For this event, Lucas Oil Stadium will be able to house up to 30,000 swimming fans. Shiel Sexton, the Indiana Sports Corp. and USA Swimming hope to break the record for the largest indoor swim meet in history. The previous record of 25,000 was set at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Dave Burchard (BS civil engineering ’82), a project executive at Shiel Sexton, believes that this accomplishment will prove that Indianapolis is equipped to handle large-scale sporting events that require innovation and ingenuity.

“It will be another feather in the cap for Indianapolis, which is the Indiana Sports Corp’s goal — to continue their mission to host world-class sporting events,” Burchard says. “This is another success in that path.”

After all, Indianapolis is already the racing capital of the world. Why not become the swimming capital, too?

“Innovation comes from the front end of the project when we first said how many people could we put in this stadium — positioning these pools so that when the cameras come on, it looks like a natatorium that just happens to have 30,000 people in it,” Dilts says. “We have to think about the sight lines, the ticket pricing and the flow for viewers, officials, competitors, suppliers. There’s a little more ingenuity than you think in just the planning phase.”

Dilts says the experience will also be unique for competitors. “When those swimmers come out, it’s going to blow them away when you walk up the stairs to the newly raised pool deck and all of the sudden 30,000 people are cheering you on,” he says. “That’s going to be quite an adrenaline rush.”

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Boilermakers get it done

According to Nate Moore (BS construction engineering and management ’93), there are three main challenges to be solved when it comes to dealing with the 2 million gallons of water that will end up inside of Lucas Oil Stadium.

The first challenge was how to supply the water. One fire hydrant with a fire hose borrowed from the Indianapolis Fire Dept. would pump water into the pools where it will be treated to the highest standards to make it safe for swimmers.

Not only will the water be professionally cleaned, but it also needs to be heated to the necessary temperature. According to standard regulations, Olympic swimming pools must be between 77 degrees and 82.4 degrees Fahrenheit. In the end, the most cost- and energy-effective solution Shiel Sexton and team developed for this challenge was to use Lucas Oil Stadium’s existing hot water heating system with two new dedicated heat exchangers.

The third challenge related to the water comes after the Olympic trials are over and the pools are deconstructed. The water needs to be dechlorinated and returned to the Indianapolis water system — now cleaner than when it started. Because of this approach, the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials will be a zero-water-loss event.

Each of these challenges requires strategic thinking, innovation and expert planning — skills that the Boilermakers at Shiel Sexton credit to their Purdue education.

Lessons learned from Purdue

“Purdue taught me how to solve problems like this,” Moore says.

Burchard agrees. “Problem solving was a big part of my education. It’s a constant process,” he says. “And now it’s what we do on a daily basis.”

Dilts says that Purdue opened doors for him that wouldn’t otherwise have been available. He says, “You could go anywhere in this country and if you say you have a Purdue degree, especially in engineering and construction, there’s a level of street cred.”

And Eisenhut still holds on to a piece of advice that a professor gave him during his time at Purdue: “You don’t have to know everything. You just need to know where to find it.”

The Purdue swimmer qualified for the Olympic Trials less than a year after undergoing surgery on both hips

For quite some time afterward, Masy Folcik found herself watching and rewatching video of the race where she officially qualified to swim in the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials.

“That was my proudest swimming moment,” says the Purdue senior a year after posting a qualifying time, or cut, necessary to compete in the 100-meter breaststroke in this month’s trials in Indianapolis.

There she is, touching the wall in 1 minute, 10 seconds, beating the necessary time of 1:10.2.

The tone of the event announcer’s voice makes it clear how excited he is over her accomplishment.

Next comes the contingent of Purdue swimmers present at the meet, rushing to share their teammate’s joy. They know she just earned a chance to compete once again in the Olympic Trials, having previously done so in 2021.

“Getting that cut was just insane,” says Folcik, a three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree who plans to graduate next May with degrees in kinesiology and psychological sciences. “I thought about it for weeks after. Couldn’t sleep that night. I was so excited. When my teammates ran behind my block to give me a hug, I definitely cried. It was just amazing.”

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Such a reaction would be perfectly normal for any athlete who just qualified to compete for Olympic team membership. But it was especially understandable after the challenging journey Folcik endured to get back to the trials.

At the meet where she posted her qualifying time last July — the Indiana Senior State Championships in Indianapolis — Folcik was just 11 months removed from undergoing surgery on both hips. She believes that relentless training in her signature event, the breaststroke, caused the labrums to tear in both hips.

Folcik underwent surgery on her right hip first, in August 2022, then the left hip a month later. The rehabilitation process was grueling, starting with painful exercises that simply required her to pick her legs up off the ground. She worked her way to biking and then jumping before she was finally able to return to swimming the breaststroke four months after the initial surgery.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been so excited for a meet as I am for this one.

Purdue swimmer Masy Folcik,
a senior in kinesiology and psychological sciences

Throughout the process, she dealt with reasonable concerns about her competitive future.

“It was not easy, just constantly having thoughts racing in the back of my brain if I was going to ever be as good as I was or going to be able to qualify for an Olympic Trials after I qualified in 2021,” she says. “That was a big thing for me. In my mind, it was embarrassing if I made it in 2021 and didn’t make it in 2024. So that put a lot of pressure on me.”

She credits John Klinge, the Purdue women’s swimming and diving coach, for guiding her through that period of self-doubt. Klinge pointed out that the extra upper-body strength training she was doing while she couldn’t use her legs would be beneficial when she returned to the pool. And sure enough, her arms felt stronger than ever once she swam her first meet postsurgery — against Illinois in January 2023 — and her confidence slowly began to return.

“My coach is the best person ever. He is my favorite person,” Folcik says of Klinge. “We met probably once every couple of weeks, and he’d be like, ‘How are you doing? You’re gonna be fine. I’m not worried about you.’ He just reassured me that I was going to be OK.”

The recovery process continues even today — Folcik estimates that she’s about 90% of the way back to her previous capabilities — so she’s happy to have one year of college eligibility remaining to make the most of her time as a Purdue swimmer. But first, she’s got one significant piece of business to address, alongside three other Boilermakers who will compete in the trials: Kate Mouser (400 individual medley), Brady Samuels (100 butterfly, 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle) and Coleman Modglin (200 breaststroke). Incoming Purdue freshman Evan Mackesy (400 individual medley) will also be among the men’s competitors.

Oddly enough, Folcik says she feels little pressure entering the biggest individual meet of her life, which will be held in Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever been so excited for a meet as I am for this one,” she says. “But I would say comparatively I feel more pressure during the collegiate season because that is team oriented, and I feel the need to perform for my team, whereas this one is super individualized. You’d expect it to be pretty high-pressure because it’s such a big meet. So maybe it’ll be more high-pressure when I get there because I’ve never swam in a football stadium before in front of thousands of spectators.”

In many ways, though, the pressure is already off. Not only did Folcik overcome her doubts by qualifying for a second Olympic Trials, but she also posted a better qualifying time than she did the first time around. Whatever she accomplishes next against some of the best swimmers in the world will be the icing on the cake.

I thought about it for weeks after. Couldn’t sleep that night. I was so excited. When my teammates ran behind my block to give me a hug, I definitely cried. It was just amazing.

Purdue swimmer Masy Folcik, a senior in kinesiology and psychological sciences

Purdue experts aid effort to prepare virtual sport for its Olympic moment

Picture a group of Olympic cyclists nearing the final incline in a fierce race for a gold medal. As they begin their climb up the steep hill, they must apply more force with each ensuing pedal. A stiff wind blows in the cyclists’ faces, creating additional resistance they must overcome.

The competitors are neck and neck as they push toward the finish line.

However, they are also thousands of miles apart.

How can that be?

It’s possible because their sport is virtual cycling — an event in which competitors can participate from any physical location so long as they have the necessary bicycle, internet connection, software and smart trainer equipment to meet their fellow competitors on the virtual racecourse.

That hill the cyclists climbed was programmed into the race environment, with each competitor needing to exert more torque on their pedals to keep pace with counterparts racing up that same virtual hill from other points on the globe. In this immersive virtual world, everyone engages with the exact same visual imagery and conditions — including the wind resistance they faced during the climb that made pedaling more of a challenge.

Virtual cycling has rapidly gained popularity in the last several years — so much so that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the world governing body for sports cycling, Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), intend to feature it as an exhibition sport in the 2024 Paris Olympics. They believe it could become a full-fledged medal event alongside traditional cycling events in the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games, and they selected a team of Purdue experts to help the sport achieve that eminent status.

But there remains a set of technical challenges they must first overcome, each of which relates to the same key ingredient: competitive fairness, often referred to as a “level playing field.”

Sharing Purdue expertise

“If you don’t have a level playing field, it will never be Olympic,” explains Jan-Anders Mansson, Distinguished Professor of Materials  and Chemical Engineering and executive director of Purdue’s Ray Ewry Sports Engineering Center (RESEC).

That’s where Mansson and his RESEC team have been able to help, collaborating with the IOC and cycling federation to tackle the sport’s engineering and cybersecurity issues so that the virtual competitive environment is both fair and secure.

That means building a secure network architecture able to withstand hackers’ attempts to tamper with competitors’ digital output. It also means putting the various training models on the market through a rigorous testing and certification (or homologation) process, ensuring that the systems perform comparably and meet the criteria necessary for a fair competition.

“In a traditional sport, you are competing in one environment, whether that be on a track, on the road or on a playing field. All of the participants are subject to the same environmental conditions if they’re in the same location,” says Patrick Cavanaugh (BS aeronautical and astronautical engineering ’23), a research engineer at RESEC and competitive triathlete. “However, when we bring the competition to a virtual world, the environment is no longer an objective variable. The environment has to be created by a collection of the sensor data from wherever it’s coming from.

“In this case, it’s coming from the measurement on the trainer units,” Cavanaugh says. “So if there are inaccuracies or unfairness in how that information is measured or transmitted, then you jeopardize the integrity of the competition, which is something that’s very, very unique to these hybrid sports.”

If you don’t have a level playing field, it will never be Olympic.

Jan-Anders Mansson,
executive director of Purdue’s Ray Ewry Sports Engineering Center

And by jeopardizing the competition’s integrity, you risk having it being met with indifference, both from athletes and from a viewing public whose interest is necessary to sustain the sport.

“I would imagine for the audience of the Olympic Games that integrity and fairness are the utmost important properties. Otherwise, what’s the point, right?” asks Dongyan Xu, the Samuel Conte Professor of Computer Science and director of Purdue’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), whose team enthusiastically joined the project at Mansson’s invitation. “If you have a sport where you cannot effectively detect, control, deter and hopefully eliminate e-doping or hacking, then I will lose confidence and interest.”

Luckily, the Boilermaker researchers have already made considerable headway in these efforts by creating the world’s first homologation system for virtual cycling. A RESEC team — including graduate students Teal Dowd, Diana Heflin and Justin Miller, and later Cavanaugh — created a device and methodology to evaluate smart trainer performance, with their system deducing measurement differences between some models.

“We really have to think closely about how this might affect the podium placing for a race one day,” says Dowd (BS mechanical engineering ’18), who is pursuing a PhD in materials engineering. “It makes you want to assure that the work is correct and that our accuracy in saying what trainer is good or bad is very true.”

The stakes are just as clear on the project’s data security side. Xu says the technical issues the CERIAS team faced in virtual cycling are not unusual. However, the unique domain of this particular assignment — elite competitive sports with a global audience — made this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“We don’t collaborate or contribute to important causes like the Olympic movement on a regular basis,” Xu says. “My colleagues and I are all excited about this opportunity and honored to contribute.”

Purdue and sports engineering

The virtual cycling project is one of several underway at RESEC, which Purdue established in 2019 as a joint effort between the College of Engineering and Purdue’s Department of Intercollegiate Athletics. Named after Purdue mechanical engineer Ray Ewry, an Olympic gold medalist in the early 20th century, the center focuses on the ever-expanding role that technology plays in sporting endeavors.

Helming the organization is Mansson, who has worked closely with the IOC and International Swimming Federation (World Aquatics, previously known as FINA) for many years in addition to his work in research and development with an America’s Cup sailing team.

Mansson’s worldwide experience with sports technology is so extensive that a crew for a Netflix documentary series, “The Future Of,” visited campus to interview Purdue faculty for an episode on the future of sports innovation.

By prioritizing excitement, integrity and safety in sports, Mansson and the RESEC team believe they can harness Purdue’s unique technical capabilities to make sports more innovative and entertaining and less dangerous.

In 2022 Purdue introduced a one-year professional master’s concentration in sports engineering, making RESEC the only U.S. university sports center with such a graduate degree program. Now Mansson plans to take advantage of Purdue’s growing presence in Indianapolis with its new urban campus there, plus RESEC’s new home in the Indianapolis headquarters of motorsports manufacturer Dallara, to build partnerships that can facilitate noteworthy sports innovation.

“During our initial three years, we managed to establish ourselves on a global level. And now we have to start to build it up in Indianapolis, which is totally exciting,” says Mansson, who is also head of the Manufacturing Design Laboratory (MDLab). “If you look at Indianapolis, it’s a main international stage. We have the (Indianapolis Motor) Speedway; we have the NCAA; we have professional teams and many of the national trials in the U.S. are held in Indianapolis. And Purdue now has a growing infrastructure in Indianapolis. It’s very natural to put an emphasis on our sports center in Indianapolis.”

Reaching new audiences

Of course, successfully shepherding a sport into Olympic competition would also bring attention to the RESEC team’s capabilities. And they appear to be well on their way toward reaching that goal.

“I don’t see that as being too far in the distant future, and that just opens the Olympic Games up to a new generation of people and a bigger audience,” said former Olympic cyclist and Tour de France stage winner Michael Rogers, now innovation manager at the international cycling federation, in a video interview with Purdue Engineering.

For Mansson, the audience engagement opportunity is one of the most exciting aspects of the project. He points out that viewers have never had more entertainment options than they do today, so sport organizers like the IOC must consistently innovate to attract audiences and young people. That’s why digitalization is such an important tool, with broadcasts presenting more and more information from the competition and athletes, in increasingly inventive ways, in an effort to captivate spectators.

This technology can also allow spectators to become competitors themselves.

Mansson pictures an Olympic virtual cycling event where riders may compete from the same physical location, but viewers also may log in from anywhere to test how their riding ability measures up against the world’s best.

I will like to see that event, knowing the work I did played a direct role in the introduction of the sport to more people and that I’ve influenced the outcome of an Olympic champion.

Teal Dowd, RESEC team member and graduate student in materials engineering

“You can imagine 100 athletes on a stage or on a podium competing on the same equipment, and in front of them they have the road and so on coming through the system,” Mansson says. “Then at the same time, you have 3 million people at home competing against them. All of a sudden, you have moved the competition of the Olympics home into the living room with that added dimension of how sport can be part of spreading well-being among people.”

The RESEC team members believe the same homologation standards they developed for virtual cycling can be applied to other virtual events like rowing or running, so we are likely on the verge of a new era of interactivity between viewers and the sports they’re watching.

The technological advances that create such interactivity will also pave the way for new sports to emerge and for new methods of staging competitions to become commonplace.

If all goes according to plan, virtual cycling will be a showcase for the emerging possibilities at the next two Summer Games — and a team of Boilermaker engineers and computer scientists will have helped it get there. “I will like to see that event, knowing the work I did played a direct role in the introduction of the sport to more people and that I’ve influenced the outcome of an Olympic champion,” Dowd says. “Personally, watching that and knowing that I contributed will be extremely rewarding.”