Gold and Black @ 30: Year 3--1992-93

Related: Year 1: 1990-91 | Year 2: 1991-92

Gold and Black Illustrated is celebrating 30 years of publishing. For 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.

As a freelancer for the publication in the first two years, I didn't have a contribution to any issues that I recall from this publishing year. But I was an avid reader, always looking in my mailbox for the next issue from my home in Columbus, Ohio.

Publisher Ken Halloy continued to feature unsigned recruiting prospects on the cover. And, once again, the only success Purdue enjoyed of the cover prospects was in women's basketball with Leslie Johnson's commitment. Johnson was a standout freshman who would play a key role in leading the Boilermakers to their first Final Four in women's hoops two years later. Her career, however, fizzled the following year and she was gone from the program.

There was surprise and real optimism for Jim Colletto's football team when it steamrolled No. 17 Cal in the season opener in Ross-Ade. The Boilermakers were double-digit underdogs, but played one of the best first-halves I have ever witnessed by a Purdue football team in Ross-Ade Stadium, pulling to a 38-3 first-half lead. I still remember Arlee Connors, a low-center-of-gravity back from St. Louis, scoring on the last play of the half as he broke tackle after tackle to ramble 24 yards to get in the end zone.

Unfortunately, the euphoria ended the next week when Toledo and Gary Pinkel rolled into Ross-Ade and beat Purdue, 33-29. I recall Halloy writing a scathing column in the issue after the loss to the Rockets about how Purdue fans were sitting on their hands too much for his liking. Colletto and company had some impressive victories in '92, including a road win at Iowa and a dramatic Old Oaken Bucket triumph over IU when Boilermaker defensive back Jimmy Young stepped in front of a Trent Green pass in the game's closing minute to seal the victory. Yet, Colletto's team finished 4-7 for the second straight year.

Coach Gene Keady's basketball team got off to a hot start, and found itself ranked in every poll during the 1992-93 season with exception of the opening week. A win versus UConn in the Hall of Fame Classic in the season opener got Purdue some national attention. So did the arrival of Glenn Robinson and his 30-point lid-lifting effort.

With the arrival of Robinson, tickets for the 1992-93 season were in as high a demand in Mackey as they had been at anytime since the days of Rick Mount. And a senior guard named Matt Painter had his best year as a Boilermaker, starting all 28 games, averaging 30.3 minutes, 8.6 points and nearly five assists per game. Ironically, Painter's lone appearance (as a player) on a GBI cover was a year earlier. The Boilermakers ended the season with a thud, and an NCAA opening-round loss to Rhode Island, causing a great deal of grumbling by fans in the off season.

The Purdue women's basketball team, under Lin Dunn, also had a relatively spartan season finishing just 16-11. But the seeds for a Final Four run were sewn, in part, but the recruitment of Johnson and the development of players like Jennifer Jacoby (who appeared on a cover) and Stacey Lovelace.

The Purdue-Michigan matchup on Jan. 8, 1993, is on the short list of the most anticipated games in Mackey Arena history.

It was the Big Dog versus the Fab 5. Ninth-ranked and undefeated Purdue against the No.3-ranked Michigan Wolverines.

And with the exception of the outcome for Boilermaker fans, the game didn't disappoint. I remember friend Mike Franklin of Trio Engraving of Lafayette sharing some excellent lower arena tickets (I still owe him, I think) and heading over to the game from my home in central Ohio with a work colleague who was a huge Michigan fan. Unfortunately, it was a long four-hour drive back to Columbus that night.

And the game's two stars were phenomenal. Chris Webber had 22 points and 14 rebounds and Robinson had 30 and 9. Unfortunately, Webber had Jalen Rose and Juwaun Howard on his team, and that spelled the difference with their double-figures scoring efforts. Other Fab 5 member Jimmy King also chipped in a dozen points, but the fifth member of the storied quintet--Ray Jackson--did not play in the contest.

From my vantage point, I had never seen, and don't think I have seen since, a more lethal fastbreak unfurled. Webber would get the rebound, outlet the ball to King and off the Wolverines would go. It took a while for the visitors to get on track, as Purdue led 32-24 at the half. But I recall a sinking feeling when UM got things rolling in the first five minutes of the second half. Not many teams in the history of college basketball could roll like that, and 56 second-half points later, the band of sophomore stars had an 80-70 win.

Still, I left Mackey thinking I had seen something special.

A close second favorite cover was the "Miracle Comeback" cover you see in the gallery above. To read Doug Griffiths's story about Darryl Stingley's triumphant return to Purdue and the Elliott Hall stage was very memorable, especially since I had seen Stingley play every game he appeared in at Ross-Ade Stadium two decades earlier. Stingley, who was paralyzed from a hit by Jack Tatum in 1978, persevered to graduation and inspired many by this feat and overall resilience in the face of unspeakable physical difficulty.

Morgan Burke's hiring in the fall of 1992 marked a dramatic change in Purdue's athletic administration and reflected the evolving role of athletic directors and the direction of big-time college athletics.

Schools around the Big Ten and country were beginning to hire business people to run their departments, getting away from the former-coach-as-AD model that had been prevalent for decades. Burke, who was a swimmer at Purdue who had graduated two decades earlier, came to West Lafayette from the steel industry and possessed a law degree.

Corporate sponsorship and huge television money was in its relative infancy in 1992-93, but Burke helped Purdue push forward in those areas and hired a consulting group early in his tenure to garner marketing dollars. Burke also increased emphasis, and funding for, non-revenue sports in his early days, but spent much of his first year as AD assessing the situation.

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