Gold and Black @ 30: Year 7--1996-97

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

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.

My first full year as publisher of Gold and Black was fun and challenging at the same time.

I felt it was important that we kept a bit of my predecessor's (Ken Halloy) edge to the magazine and were able to accomplish that with our first two titles: "Put Up or Shut Up" and "Road Kill." There was an established tradition of not sugar-coating disappointment long before I arrived. I had hoped to keep it constructive, but real, during my days. And it was very real a few times in 1996-97.

And we spent much of the football season looking for images other than football for the cover. Jim Colletto's crew would fall back to a 3-8 season, but that gave us good reason to feature Purdue's freshman class in men's basketball, Mike Alstott in his rookie season with the Bucs and Corissa Yasen stating her case as the "greatest Boilermaker athlete ever" all before Nov. 1.

Still, football provided some memorable moments. Unfortunately, it was at Colletto's expense some, but not all, of the time. As the disappointing season unfolded, we were unsure what athletic director Morgan Burke would do with Colletto after the season. After all, Colletto had improved things, and in fact, many of the players he recruited played a huge role in coach Joe Tiller's early success (Matt Light, Rosevelt Colvin, Mark Fischer, Chukie Nworkorie, Billy Dicken, to name just a few).

One could tell all the losing was having an negative impact on Colletto, even affecting his health. So when he chose to resign in a bizarre press conference/radio show the week of the Michigan game at, of all places, a now-defunct campus bar named Jake's Roadhouse, it wasn't shocking, but it was surprising. I recall the Monday night radio show being right out of the twilight zone, as Colletto took questions after announcing his resignation. Host Joe McConnell told me years later it was one of the strangest experiences of his long-time radio career.

Still, somehow, Colletto and company pulled it together five days later to post a huge upset of No. 9 Michigan. You can count on one had the number of times that a Purdue defense has held a Big Ten opponent without a touchdown in the 30 years of this publication. But on that day, Purdue did it. In fact, Colletto and company accomplished the zero TD feat in their final two appearances against the Wolverines, losing 5-0 in a rain/snow/ice storm in Ann Arbor a year earlier. The program made progress under in Colletto's six years at the helm, just not enough.

But I digress.

Colletto reportedly asked Burke for his job back after upending the Wolverines. I have never confirmed whether that is really a true story, but it does make for a good one (story). Burke began his search for a head coach and targeted Notre Dame assistant Bob Davie, only to have Davie take the ND job at the last moment to replace Lou Holtz. Burke moved on to Wyoming coach and former Boilermaker defensive coordinator Joe Tiller, and the rest his history.

If first impressions were important, Tiller definitely made a good one in his first press conference the morning of Gene Keady's season opener. He had a confidence to him, and a great sense of humor that allowed him to win that first press conference, and win it big.

Chad and Brad and even Brian, too, played standout roles in the 1997 basketball season. Brad (Miller) was up and down, but when he was good, he was really good. That was especially true in game's like his 25-point, nine-rebound performance in a home win over IU. Chad (Austin) will be forever remembered for his game-winning shots against IU, the second of which helped the Boilermakers beat IU in overtime in Bloomington when their NCAA hopes were starting to look dim.

And then there was Brian (Cardinal). The redshirt freshman didn't take long to become a fan favorite with his diving on the floor and ability to make clutch shots. None was more clutch than the three-pointer he hit at the buzzer in regulation in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament that was critical to eliminate Rhode Island.

In truth, Purdue's 18-12 finish will not go down as Keady's greatest coaching performance, but maybe it should. Purdue was 5-5 in non-conference play, but he gathered together a team of veterans with a freshman class of Cardinal, Jaraan Cornell and Mike Robinson, and made it all work.

For the women's hoops team, coach Nell Fortner made the most of her single season in West Lafayette. It was the second most surprising press conference of the season (after Colletto's) when Burke announced that Fortner was going to become the women's Olympic coach and turn the reins over to her fun-loving assistant Carolyn Peck.

The women's basketball program had been through so much transition in the last 12 months that few thought it would rise again with an unproven coach in Peck. Through fate, and a lot of grit, and players who refused to lose or be distracted, it did just that, winning a national championship just two years later.

Triumph and ultimate tragedy are the story of Yasen.

I loved this cover because it was simple and spoke of the athleticism of Yasen. We were told before the photo shoot that she could nearly dunk a basketball. Well, as it turned out, she could dunk the ball as Tom Snyder's image suggests.

Yasen could do anything. By the time this cover published in the fall of 1996, she had already earned All-American nine times, and was a 10-time Big Ten champion in track. She won the '96 heptathlon title in the NCAA outdoor meet. Ultimately, she had one more title to add to her stockpile, and that was a 1997 Big Ten women's basketball crown.

Amazingly, Yasen hadn't played basketball since high school, but she used her fifth year of eligibility to not only play, but play at a high level. Yasen averaged 11.4 points and started all 28 games for a team that was picked to finish near the bottom of the Big Ten.

Why were the Boilermakers predicted to be so far down? Well, it was because the team had been depleted when Lin Dunn's contract wasn't renewed, as potential standouts Michelle VanGorp and Nicole Erickson left the program. First-year coach Nell Fortner was left with just over a handful of scholarship players, but it didn't hurt that those players were ones with hearts of lions: Yasen, Jannon Roland, Stephanie White and Ukari Figgs. It was one of the most surprising and inspiring stories in the history of the publication.

But it also had a tragic end. Yasen died way too young in 2001 from a drug overdose. An accomplished Purdue pharmacy graduate, I remember where I was when I heard the news. It was almost more that any of us could bear.

This one is easy.

Drew Brees.

The skinny armed quarterback, who donned the cover of our recruiting issue (No. 18), was lured to West Lafayette by new coach Tiller.

We didn't know at the time whether Brees was better than the other two quarterbacks that were taken in that recruiting class: Jim Mitchell, who is also pictured on the cover, and Ben Smith. As it turned out, Mitchell transferred a year or so after arriving in West Lafayette and finished his career at Western Illinois. Smith was moved to the defensive backfield and became a key contributor on defensive coordinator Brock Spack's unit.

Smith also became one of that skinny-armed quarterback's best friends and remains that way today as the two are visible together every time they are both in West Lafayette.

And Brees keeps on being the gift that keeps on giving to Purdue football and the university as a whole. He is its most visible alum who always finds a way to do things that make his alma mater look good. Part of it is his Hall-of-Fame level exploits on the football field, but his philanthropic work is not far behind. And that includes his recent $5 million donation to New Orleans to help with the COVID-19 crisis.

There has been much discussion over the years about the efficacy of recruiting rankings. After all, that first class of Tiller's was ranked No. 11 (that's last) in the Big Ten, but led Purdue to the Rose Bowl just four years later. There were four eventual first-team All-Big Ten players in that class: Brees, Akin Ayodele, (though he didn't arrive until 1999), Vinny Sutherland and Tim Stratton. But there were a whole host of others that played big roles as leaders during and after their playing days: Chris Clopton, Smith, Jason Loerzel and R'Kes Starling, just to name a few. It all added up to a trip to Pasadena on Jan. 1, 2001.

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