Gold and Black @ 30: Year 19--2008-09

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 | Year 17: 2006-07 | Year 18: 2007-08

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.

This was a melancholy year in many ways.

Coach Joe Tiller's final season at the helm was bittersweet, at best. He set the all-time record for coaching victories in a year that his team struggled more than in any of his dozen seasons at Purdue.

You got the sense that Tiller wasn't ready to go. Whether it was time for the transition is another question and subject to some level of debate, but there was a hollowness present throughout the 2008 season.

And when it got to his finale, that too was a little off-kilter. Purdue thrashed Indiana at a record level. A 52-point victory was a sweet sendoff for Tiller. And the fact that Ross-Ade Stadium was at a capacity level for the final game was a fitting finale, especially considering all Tiller had meant to the program.

Tiller had been stoic throughout the season, not drawing much attention to himself about it being his swan song. Yet, he became very emotional as he addressed the home crowd on the chilly, gray afternoon. The transition had been difficult for all parties. Was it time for a new face for Purdue football? Maybe. Was the baby thrown out with the bath water? Maybe, as well.

I also remember a mixed feeling with respect to the career of senior quarterback Curtis Painter. His senior year didn't go as planned, either. He was injured mid-year or he might have broken Drew Brees' all-time passing yardage total. Yet, Painter couldn't compile enough wins to be considered among the cream of the crop of quarterbacks in Purdue football history. It wasn't necessarily fair, and I sensed at times that burden was a lot for him.

For men's basketball, there were many expectations. In the end, most were lived up to. Purdue started the season ranked in the top-10 but laid an egg at home by getting thrashed by Duke in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. It showed the Boilermakers were not quite ready for prime time.

And that was the case for much of the season. A back injury to Rob Hummel persisted and he was never quite 100 percent. I remember all the furor the night before and the day of the Purdue-IU game. Not because it was Purdue-IU but because the night before it was thought that Hummel was going to shut it down for the year due to injury. Less than 24 hours later, however, he had a back brace on and competed against a dismal IU team.

In the end, Purdue did peak at the right time. It won the Big Ten Tournament, still the only time it has done so. And it beat Washington in a Sweet 16 game that was in essence a road game with the Huskies having a huge throng of fans that made the trip from Seattle to Portland. It was as difficult an environment as Purdue ever had faced in NCAA play, and it prevailed thanks to a couple of blocked shots in the closing minute by JaJuan Johnson.

Yet, I also recall Sharon Versyp's team facing a similar throng in the NCAA Tournament, facing Oklahoma in Oklahoma City. It played the Sooners to the end in front of over 11,000 fans with a trip to the Final Four on the line. Unfortunately, Purdue has struggled since to attain that level on the college women's basketball landscape.

It was hard to find an image that captured Tiller's last game in Ross-Ade Stadium. I remember debate among our staff about whether this one fit, but I thought it did. At the end of his emotional farewell speech, Tiller ran up to the podium/ladder and demonstratively led the band in "Hail Purdue." To me, it was the perfect way to cut the tension of what was a hyper-emotional moment for Tiller. It gave him a task to do when he was showing more emotion that he was comfortable displaying.

Tiller knew all along that his life runway could be short due to the rare disease he carried with him. And it proved to be the case, as he passed less than a decade later. At that moment of leading the band, he did it like there was no tomorrow.

... The need for longevity and stability in football. Tiller's dozen years at the helm were bumpy at the end, but Purdue had an identity under Tiller. It has begun to formulate the same under coach Jeff Brohm, and there is hope that Brohm and Purdue will be a successful match for a long time in West Lafayette.

As we have written before, Brohm would be the first to admit there is work to be done, but the potential is there. Boilermaker men's hoops has an identity built by two coaches over 40 years who were cut from the same cloth in Matt Painter and Gene Keady. Tiller and Brohm are different, but they have that common thread of offensive ingenuity that captured the imagination of Purdue fans.

Continuing to build it and sustain it on the football field is the next challenge.

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