Photos that especially a Boilermaker could love

This Purdue fan cave features visual evidence of a family’s memorable interactions with famous Boilermakers

Rob Stanley has lived and worked all over the world, and yet visiting one particular location always elicited childlike enthusiasm.

Stanley (BS technology ’88) relished any opportunity that he and his wife, Cheryl (BA education ’88), could take their daughters, Laura and Beth, to Purdue, where they met as undergraduate students.

“We used to take the girls when they were younger back to Purdue whenever we could,” says Rob, who grew up in Kokomo, Indiana, before attending Purdue on an Air Force ROTC scholarship. “We were hardly ever in Indiana, and it was really special to us to go back and show them where we grew up and where we met and tell them the stories. They could tell that both of us just came to life anytime we’d go back to Purdue. I’d get so excited that I’d do some pretty stupid things.” 

More on those things in a moment. Years later, the most important aspect of those stories is not whatever light trespassing might have occurred, but the memories that remain for the Stanleys and their daughters. Those moments are memorialized on the walls of Rob and Cheryl’s Purdue-themed fan cave in the upstairs rec room of their Rockwall, Texas, home. Affectionately known as “The Boiler Room,” it houses memories and mementos from their time at Purdue and from Rob’s 25-year career in the Air Force.

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There are photos of family members with Purdue luminaries like President Emeritus Mitch Daniels and C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb, the university alumnus for whom the School of Communication is named. And like many Boilermaker fan caves, there are pictures featuring numerous Purdue football and basketball coaches. 

But what sets the Stanleys’ fan cave apart from others like it are the questions visitors might be inspired to ask after viewing some of the photos on display.

For starters, how did the Stanleys wind up in legendary Boilermaker basketball coach Gene Keady’s office during a visit to campus? 

Or, a few years later, how did they meet current Purdue basketball coach Matt Painter and essentially enjoy a private viewing of a Boilermaker basketball practice at Mackey Arena? 

Or, in perhaps the story that beats them all: During her own days as a Purdue student, how did Beth and a friend manage to spend the night in the guesthouse of former Purdue football coach Joe Tiller and his wife, Arnette, after the Tillers retired to Wyoming? 

To answer a couple of those questions, it’s time to explain those “stupid things” Rob referenced.

‘Where are you gonna go to college, little girl?’

The Keady story starts innocently enough. On a 2004 trip to Purdue, Rob and Beth — over Cheryl and Laura’s protests — decided to sneak onto the field at Ross-Ade Stadium to grab a few blades of grass from the football field that are still on display in their Boiler Room. Rob then decided to test his luck further, trying multiple doors at Mackey Arena until finding an open one that provided access to the basketball arena. 

The family wandered around the darkened building for a bit. The girls posed for a pic in front of the women’s basketball team’s locker room door. Rob found the spot on the playing surface where he figured Keady might sit during a game and took a seat. All the while, Cheryl was none too pleased by her husband’s willingness to trespass with their girls in tow.

Eventually a maintenance person came across the Stanleys and ushered them toward the exit, but on their way out of the arena, they bumped into Todd Foster, who had played basketball at Purdue several years earlier. Foster chatted with the family about what they were doing in town, then posed for a photo with them and made an offer that even an angry Cheryl couldn’t turn down. 

He asked if they’d like to visit Keady’s office and meet the future Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee. 

“We’re standing in the office, and I looked over to my wife and wink at her because she is so mad at me, but she’s gonna get to see Gene Keady now, which she’s super excited about,” Rob recalls with a laugh. “We just love Gene Keady.”

Once the longtime Boilermakers coach completed a meeting with a player, he turned his attention to the family waiting outside his office door — specifically the smallest member of the group.

“Gene Keady makes a beeline directly for Beth,” Rob says. “She’s just this little, short thing, and she’s got big old glasses on and her Purdue baseball cap pulled down so her ears are kind of flopped out. And he gets right in her face with the Gene Keady scowl and goes, ‘Where are you gonna go to college, little girl?’ And she looks up at him and said, ‘Uh, Purdue?’ And he says, ‘Come on in.’ So we all got to go into Gene Keady’s office, and he talked to us for about 30 minutes. He was just the nicest guy.”

Perhaps that fortunate turn of events influenced the Stanleys to wander into Mackey again on a visit several years later.

This time, they were camped out in the otherwise-empty arena watching the Robbie Hummel-era Boilermakers practice. All of a sudden, a door opened right behind the Stanleys and out walked Painter, Keady’s former player and successor, who has coached the Boilermakers for the last 19 seasons.

“There’s not another soul in that building except the basketball team, us — who snuck in — and now Matt Painter,” Rob says. “So he came over and talked to us, and that’s how we got a picture with Matt Painter.”

As for the photo of Beth and her friend in front of Tiller’s fireplace, that involves only one of several memorable interactions she had with the former Purdue football coach.

Beth was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, when her dad was stationed at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, so she always felt a special connection to Tiller, who coached at the University of Wyoming before Purdue and later retired to the state. 

They could tell that both of us just came to life anytime we’d go back to Purdue. I’d get so excited that I’d do some pretty stupid things.

Rob stanley BS technology ’88

Just before the start of their sophomore year, Beth and a friend planned to travel from Great Falls, Montana — where Beth graduated from high school when her dad was 341st Missile Wing commander at Malmstrom Air Force Base — back to Purdue. The drive would bring them close to Buffalo, Wyoming, where the Tillers lived, so Beth took a chance. She sent a letter to the couple telling them that she would be traveling through town and inviting them to lunch.

“She never expected to hear back from him, but she put her phone number in there,” Rob says. “So I’m fixing breakfast one Saturday morning, and I can hear the phone ring upstairs. All of a sudden, I hear this rumbling down the stairs, and it was Beth, and she had Joe Tiller on the phone. He invited her and her friend to come stay with him and Arnette there in Buffalo on their way back to Purdue. Sure enough, they put Beth and her friend up in their little guesthouse, and they stayed up and played euchre with them all night. Joe took them to lunch, and then Beth treated them to ice cream afterward.”

‘It’s our happy place’

Maybe you have to be a Boilermaker to fully appreciate these stories, but boy, are the Stanleys ever some Boilermakers. Not only are Rob and Cheryl alumni, but so are Laura (BS apparel design and technology ’12) and Beth (BA mass communication ’16). And so are Laura’s and Beth’s husbands, Vinny and Zach.

Vinny proposed to Laura under the Purdue Bell Tower after her graduation. They were married on a snowy December day in 2013 at University Lutheran.

Meanwhile, Zach and Beth met at Greyhouse Coffee near campus while Beth was working toward her bachelor’s degree and Zach was finishing his PhD, awaiting his Air Force flight training assignment. 

“We’ve got a bunch of Boilermakers, and hopefully our granddaughters will go there, too,” Rob says.

Their professional lives may have taken the Stanleys all over the world, but nothing compares to their bond shared via Purdue — a place where they have a common connection as well as their own individual memories.

They didn’t need to sneak into Mackey for that connection to exist, but thankfully they had a camera on hand when they did so that Rob has visual evidence to back up the Keady story he still loves to tell 20 years later. Same with the time they met Painter or when Beth and her pal snapped a shot with Tiller at his home.

Photographs help folks recall the important events in their lives and happily reflect on the good times they shared. As the photos in the Stanleys’ fan cave indicate, Purdue has been part of many of those family moments.

“It’s our happy place,” Rob says of their Boiler Room. “Our lives started at Purdue, as far as I’m concerned, as far as our marriage. Cheryl and I have been married since 1988. Everything goes back to Purdue. We certainly wouldn’t have been able to do some of the things that we were able to do had it not been for the wonderful education, the tough stuff that Purdue does to you. It’s not a gimme school. When you come out of that place, you can feel proud that you’ve actually accomplished something.”

We’ve got a bunch of Boilermakers, and hopefully our granddaughters will go there, too.

rob stanley
BS technology ’88