Three Thoughts is a new feature GoldandBlack.com will run every Monday morning in-season.

Saturday, Ross-Ade Stadium hosted its biggest and most important crowd in forever, as commencement took place outdoors and that giant new video board finally met a meaningful audience.

This wasn't just your run-of-the-mill graduation ceremony, obviously, but rather a celebration of perseverence and sacrifice, that this school year went off with plenty of hitches, I'm sure, but went off, nonetheless.

Well done, Purdue, for investing so much by every definition of "investment" in making this work. Mitch Daniels and his team were determined to make things as normal as possible during the pandemic, and while things were far from normal, the light at the end of the tunnel arrived this weekend. Protect Purdue worked.