Tuesday Top Ten: Fun Facts About Purdue University

It's Old Oaken Bucket week.  This Saturday (3:30 EST; BTN), Purdue makes its bi-annual trip by pack mule down to Bloomington to take on the Hoosiers and see what the sun looks like.  For the 4th time in the last 6 years, the Hoosiers and Boilermakers will be playing in a "this is all we have" equivalent of their bowl game, before they respectively go to their homes and shanties for the holidays.

In case you have been sleeping under a rock for the last eight years –- in which case, hello, things are marginally better now, although Tupac is still dead –- I went to Indiana University.  Indiana University's arch-rival is Purdue University, a school comprised of men, eunuchs, and gargoyle-esque women who all stink as bad as the effluence of the livestock they aspire to one day breed for a living.  I do, have, and will always hate Purdue, and I wish their athletic teams nothing but continued failure and dysentery.  I have written about this hatred and about how Purdue stinks (both literally and figuratively) on many occasions.

In response to my 2007 magnum opus, "I Hate Purdue" -- referred to by IU fans as "Grade A+ screed" and "the most fantastic rant of hate that I have ever read," and referred to by Purdue fans as "buncha words all next'eachother" -- an anonymous idiot with no stake in the rivalry, who was apparently just trolling the internet for IU/Purdue-related content, recently posted a comment putting forth the proposition that "[r]ivalries are suppose[d] to be fun."  That's the dumbest fucking think I've ever read.  Orgies are supposed to be fun.  Rivalries are not.  The only two things that are supposed to be fun about a rivalry are beating your rival and talking shit about your rival. 

With that in mind, here are 14 "fun" facts about Purdue University, as much as facts about a two-year technical college that sits in a fetid, post-apocalyptic wasteland can be considered fun:

1.  People affiliated with Purdue consider what they refer to as "The World's Largest Drum" as a source of -- get this -- PRIDE.  However, their drum, despite the words that are clearly written on its face, is, in fact, not the world's largest drum.  In fact, it's not even the largest collegiate drum in the United States.

2.  Since Purdue was founded in 1869 by a horse fetishist who was unable to obtain a professorship at IU, a grand total of 16 attractive women have matriculated to Purdue.  Of those, 12 transferred to IU by the beginning of their sophomore year, 2 were force-fed various grains by their sorority sisters to "get up to weight," and the other 2 don't know what the word "matriculated" means.  All 16 developed restless leg syndrome.

3.  IU's Little 500 is rightfully ranked among the best college parties in America. Purdue's annual Poo Throwing Jamboree is not.

4.  After his car broke down on a desolate, pungent stretch of I-65, forcing him to spend a single night in West Lafayette, Trent Reznor wrote "Hurt."  Said Reznor about the song, "I wrote some words and music . . . as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in . . . ."

5.  Darrell Hazell has more Ls in his name than the combined number of NCAA team championships Purdue has won across all men's and women's sports.

6.  While in college, my then-girlfriend (now wife), who also went to IU, once went to Purdue to visit a friend.  They were out at the bars.  She was wearing what would be considered normal, contemporary, female attire.  A male Purdue student, presumably wearing overalls, approached her and asked, I kid you not, "Are you from Europe?  You're sure not from around here."  This supports the findings of a 2001 Department of Education study showing that 78% of Purdue students believe Europe is "a place located approximately 30 minutes south of Fort Wayne."

7.  The original terms for the school colors, chosen by John Purdue himself, were Piss Yellow and Crow's Anus Black, but the school had to change them to the simpler gold and black in 1951, after it was discovered that the vast majority of Purdue students had been peeing on their clothes to show their school spirit.  Legend has it you can still smell the overwhelming stench of urine while walking through campus.

9.  On April 5, 1994, Kurt Cobain found out that Nirvana's next tour included a stop in West Lafayette.

10.  I know I've linked to this many times before, but it bears repeating.  The women at Purdue are so physically repulsive that they inspired a letter by a male Purdue student, presumably wearing overalls, to the Purdue student newspaper entitled "Purdue doesn't have enough quality women," in which the author correctly noted, "Women at Purdue are too fat."

11.  The last time the Purdue men's basketball team went to a Final Four was 1980.  That's just a straight fact that's not supposed to be funny.  Actually, it's pretty damn funny.

12.  The position of Purdue Pete, the school's dimwitted and child-scaring mascot, is given out each year to the graduating senior with the highest cumulative GPA who does not have foot-and-mouth disease.  It is considered the most prestigious job a Purdue graduate can attain, even more so than making boilers.

13.  Matt Painter masturbates to Nickelback.  While looking at pictures of Gene Keady.  And wearing overalls.

14.  In a recent AP/Ipsos telephone poll, 94% of current Purdue students answered "yes" to the question, "Is there a basement in the Alamo?"  4% were unsure, and the remaining 2% were unable to communicate verbally.

In sum, fuck Purdue, go Hoosiers, and Happy Thanksgiving!