I Hate Purdue

"I don't like to use the word 'hate,' but I'm not a fan of that school . . ."
--IU senior fullback Josiah Sears, when asked what the IU/Purdue game means to him

"Hate" is okay to use here, Josiah. The Old Oaken Bucket game is coming up on Saturday. For the first time since 1980, both IU and Purdue have winning records coming into the Bucket game, and the game actually has bowl implications for both schools. While thinking about all of this, I was reminded of something: I fucking hate Purdue. Unlike Josiah, I love using the word "hate" when appropriate, and it's very appropriate when it comes to Purdue. I hate Purdue more than the Packers, more than Hinsdale Central, more than Illinois, more than Notre Dame, more than the Cubs, more than Steely Dan, and yes Hess, more than AIDS. This primal hatred is sometimes overpowering. Shepley and the many pint glasses and file cabinets that met their fate at his hands during IU/Purdue basketball games know what I'm talking about, and it's time you did too. The simple fact is that there is nothing to like about Purdue.

Founded by a man who was denied a professorship at IU, Purdue offers nothing of value to society. The piss-yellow jerseys, the chronic underachievement in every facet of life, the inability to comprehend the word "facet." Frankly, Purdue annoys the shit out of me. It's the less-talented, bastard younger sibling of the Indiana state university system; the Edward M. to IU's John F.; the Ashlee to IU's Jessica; the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County to IU's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; the World According to Jim to IU's late 70s era SNL. By state charter, IU gets a law school, a med school, a world-renowned music school, Olympic heroes, a beautiful campus filled with buildings made from the same limestone that built the Empire State Building and the Pentagon, a completely ambiguous mascot, and gorgeous women, while Purdue gets an engineering school, an agriculture school, an aviation school, a vet school, inferior athletes, a train as a mascot, and a campus enveloped in industrial smog and the overpowering stench of pig shit and broken dreams. Sure, they have a wonderful animal husbandry program, and a few astronauts have managed to avoid suicide long enough to graduate, but let's not kid ourselves. Purdue is little more than a glorified two-year technical college located on a plat of flat, desolate land where the sun simply does not shine.

Have you ever been to West Lafayette? As the saying goes, walk north until you smell it, and walk west until you step in it. It's obvious that Purdue does not have an architecture program, and it's unclear if they've ever hired an architect to design anything. The buildings are as drab, uninspired, and depressing as the overfed engineering and ag students they house. Ross-Ade Stadium -- which is basically a larger high school stadium -- is a horrible place to watch a football game, although a great place to go if you want to see what is proudly (and incorrectly) hailed as "The World's Largest Drum." Holy shit, Purdue, are you kidding me?

On the other hand, the only reason Mackey Arena is a tolerable place to watch a basketball game is because there are no NCAA championship banners to block your view. Although, if you talked to one of these slovenly creatures that went to Purdue, they might lead you to believe that their men's basketball program has some sort of storied tradition. Technically they're right, if you consider a tradition of consistent underachieving, zero NCAA championships, and not a single Final Four since the Carter administration to be storied. I guess that's why, in 1999, they rioted after they won the women's NCAA basketball championship. Yes, you read that right. They rioted after winning the women's NCAA basketball title. And who could blame them? After all, they had waited 38 long years to finally double their NCAA championship count. For all sports.

Around this time every year, a rush of IU/Purdue-related football memories -- both good and bad -- overload my brain: losing 15-14 in the '89 Bucket game, thus preventing IU from going to a bowl and costing Anthony Thompson the Heisman; getting knocked to the ground by a Purdue linebacker while rushing Ross-Ade after IU won the Bucket in '96 to send Bill Mallory out on a winning note (and finally put Jim Colletto out of his misery); watching in 2000 as those bastards clinched their first Rose Bowl since 1966; Martin "The Killer Québécois" Lapostolle stopping Montrell Lowe in 2001 on 4th and goal from the 1 to seal a rain-soaked victory for the Hoosiers in Randle El's senior year (and verbally depantsing a Purdue student during a halftime IU/Purdue-based argument so badly that his fellow Purdue friends ended up on my side); last year's 9-point loss, where 4 turnovers cost us a bowl bid. The common thread in these memories -- win or loss -- is absolute, unabashed hatred for that abomination they call a university. A win makes the season. A loss ruins my week.

A lot of people -- we'll call them "idiots" -- think Purdue is a private school. As if a private school would pride itself on the size of a percussion instrument. And people that ugly generally don't go to private school either. Carson Cunningham, Brian Cardinal, Kyle Orton. Need I say more? Hell, Drew Brees even got a tattoo of the State of California on his cheek to distance himself from any association with Purdue. The school had a basketball coach for two decades that looked like Mama Fratelli's uglier older brother. Speaking of Gene Keady, Sporting News once named him the best college coach never to have made the Final Four. That's adorable. Isn't that about as prestigious as being the best virgin never to have gotten laid? Certainly something to hang your hat on.

And I don't mean to be an asshole, but a hot chick at Purdue is about as common as a lucid basketball fan at Kentucky or Illinois. Sweet mother. Things are so bad that a Purdue sophomore a couple years back wrote (yes, some of them CAN write) into the student newspaper to complain that there are too many fat women at Purdue. At IU, all we had to complain about was a legend-replacing coach who had been to more Final Fours by the end of his second season at IU than Gene Keady had been to in his entire coaching career. This whole "ugly" thing shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, given that West Lafeyette's "best" bar is called Harry's Chocolate Shop, whose slogan is "Go Ugly Early." I guess the inclusion of "early" shows that someone in West Lafayette understands the concept of irony. While still an IU student, my wife once made the mistake of visiting a friend at Purdue. They went out to the bars, although it is unclear whether a chocolate shop was involved. She was not dressed in a manner differently than she would be in Bloomington (or any other city, for that matter). A guy came up to her at a bar, stunned and confused, and asked her if she was from Europe (which he probably thought was somewhere in California anyway). Why? "Because you sure ain't from around here." That was the last time she visited.

Hopefully that's the last time anyone close to me visits. My kids will not go to Purdue or apply to Purdue, even if that's the only school they can get into. (Although, if that's the only school they can get into, I have bigger problems than whether they're going to Purdue.) God willing, none of my descendants will ever step foot in West Lafayette, other than to rape and pillage and maybe get gas right off I-65.

In conclusion, fuck Purdue. Fuck Purdue's football team, fuck Joe Tiller, fuck Purdue Pete, fuck Purdue's drum, fuck Purdue fans, fuck Purdue students, fuck Purdue alumni, and fuck Purdue women, but never literally, of course. I have, do, and always will hate Purdue, and so should you.