Gold and Black @ 30: Year 17--2006-07

Related links: Year 1: 1990-91 | Year 2: 1991-92 | Year 3: 1992-93 | Year 4: 1993-94 | Year 5: 1994-95 | Year 6: 1995-96 | Year 7: 1996-97 | Year 8: 1997-98 | Year 9: 1998-99 | Year 10: 1999-00 | Year 11: 2000-01 | Year 12: 2001-02 | Year 13: 2002-03 | Year 14: 2003-04 | Year 15: 2004-05 | Year 16: 2005-06

Gold and Black Illustrated is celebrating 30 years of publishing. Over the next few weeks, we will look at each publishing year, recalling the moments that took place in that particular year.

Note: Captions describing each cover are not available on mobile platforms.

It was predictable.

I can remember defensive coordinator Brock Spack saying at the time that if fans weren't satisfied with an eight win season at Purdue, that there was trouble afloat.

And that was, to some extent, the case with the 2006 season, despite Purdue's 8-6 record. The problem was Purdue jumped to a 4-0 start, but wasn't competitive enough against the ranked foes it faced, losing decidedly to Notre Dame, Iowa and Wisconsin and being shut out at home by unranked Penn State. Even in the last regular-season game of the year, the Boilermakers had No. 25 Hawaii well within their grasp before losing in the last moments.

The luster of the Tiller Era wasn't completely gone, but it was fading. Purdue did manage a fourth quarter comeback win at hapless Michigan State, but it was the first comeback victory for the program in four years. Comebacks and thrilling victories seemed to happen every week in the early years under Tiller, and it was hard when that magic seemingly evaporated.

Yet, to put it all in context, Purdue hasn't had an eight-win season since 2006. Maybe it wasn't all that bad, after all.

It was a melancholy fall off the field. The suicide of athletic department official Jay Cooperider hit all of us in the media hard. It was a head-scratcher that remains to this day puzzling. But mental illness does that. And the media, despite sometimes being in competition with one another, is a relatively close group. It looks out for one another. That was especially true in those days, when traditional media flourished more than it does today.

I don't mean to say there weren't good things that happened in 2006-07. Dave Shondell's volleyball team, a program we have never covered enough at Gold and Black, continued its ascent in the rough-and-tumble Big Ten. And Shondell has kept the program at a high level, despite having to earn his keep in every match in as tough of conference competition that there is in all of college sports.

And women's basketball's Katie Gearlds capped off a strong career, teaming with Lyndsay Wisdom-Hylton to lead Purdue to the Elite Eight in coach Sharon Verysp's first season. It's a place it has strived to reach since, but has been close just once since that inaugural year.

My two children loved David Teague.

And during the 2007 Big Ten season, they were at the very impressionable ages (12 and 10). As sports observers and fans, we all know what is imprinted on the brain at those ages and how it remains with us forever. And that was the case with Teague.

We had the No. 2 jersey at home. And they loved it when Teague would do his signature fist-to-the-chest pump after every made three-point bomb. Yes, before there was Carsen Edwards from deep, there was Teague ... and Teague's range had no limits, it seemed.

Even before Twitter and Instagram, Teague's demonstrative on-court persona lit the wick to what we see with player-student fan relationship that exists today. It is a part of the fabric of Power-5 level sports that is almost taken for granted today.

As a whole, what happened in the first three months of 2007 in Mackey planted the seeds, if not set the stage, for what we see now in Mackey Arena. The Paint Crew became a focal point buoyed with dramatic wins over Virginia, Illinois and Indiana. The dramatic home triumphs helped Mackey Arena return to its past levels of being an intimidating place to play. It was further proof that student sections were becoming even more the center of attention on media outlets like ESPN and the Big Ten Network (that would begin broadcasting later that year).

It was in-your-face, take-no-prisoners fan participation. And much of that was ignited 13 years ago.

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