 Hi, I'm Kate Young and you're listening to This is Purdue, the official podcast for Purdue University. As a Purdue alum and Indiana native, I know firsthand about the family of students and professors who are in it together, persistently pursuing and relentlessly rethinking. Who are the next game changers, difference makers, ceiling breakers, innovators? Who are these Boilermakers? Join me as we feature students, faculty and alumni taking small steps toward their giant leaps and inspiring others to do the same. Coming back for the Indiana State Football Hall of Fame is beyond my wildest dreams. Purdue's a place where great things happen and we have patience and we're reasonable but we also want and desire and crave good football. When you think of Purdue, what comes to mind? What should come to mind? Only Purdue can call itself the cradle of astronauts and the cradle of quarterbacks and one of those members of the cradle of quarterbacks is Jim Everett. He was inducted into the Indiana Football Hall of Fame in early September. Jim sat down with us at the Whitaker Inn, a beautiful inn on 25 wooded acres in West Lafayette. The Whitaker is also owned by two Purdue graduates and they were gracious hosts for us as we recorded our This Is Purdue podcast interview. Jim, thank you so much for joining us on This Is Purdue. Oh, thank you. It's so good to be back. How do you feel? Is there some nostalgia coming back? Oh, I love it. This is when I think of West Lafayette, I think of family. I think of all the good times we've had. Some of the memories we made around here on and off the field are just remarkable. So yeah, every time I come back, it's like coming home. You see, Jim lives in California now, but his journey from playing for Purdue to playing in the NFL to where life took him after professional football is an incredible story. Jim was an all-American quarterback for the Boilermakers in the early 1980s and he has a long list of accolades from his time at Purdue. He wasn't just any college quarterback. If you're a Purdue football fan, you know the name Jim Everett. He was one of the best players in the country his senior year and he's tied as the earliest NFL draft pick of any Purdue player in history. But I was curious, Jim was born in Kansas and went to high school in New Mexico. How did he decide to come play for Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana? What brought you to Purdue in the first place? Well, I was being recruited nationally. We had a really good team. We were undefeated. We had six guys go Division I for the New Mexico teams. And so it finally came down between Stanford and Purdue and both of them are great quarterback schools. And I just don't think I was ready for California just yet. And you are there now. Okay. Oh, Lake Bloomer. It's pretty nice out there. You know, there's good and bad in every place that you live in. You know, I just found that that was a nice place. The weather's good, the whole thing. But going back down how I got here, there was a lady named Wona Deverman who was an English teacher at El Dorado High School as she was a Purdue alumni. And she ended up getting on the phone with Jim Young. She was instrumental on making sure Jim came out and had a personal visit. And I was just, you know, at the time, Mark Herman, all the success they were having at Purdue. And cradle of quarterbacks was all I'm like, yeah, I won't be part of that. You know, I won't be an astronaut yet, but I will be one of those quarterbacks. And it wasn't easy either, because there was the journey along the way. They had Scott Campbell. I was a backup. I was, you know, fourth string. So it wasn't like, hey, Jim, here's just coming. And, you know, nowadays it's like guys jumping it out of the portal. They change stuff. You know, we didn't have it that easy back then. So there was a lot of endurance, patience, and a lot of hard work that went into it. Each one of my teammates had to push each other for us to be at a time that we could have a season where we beat a Michigan Notre Dame Ohio State. To me, that was really cool. So we get to claim Jim Everett as a Boilermaker, thanks to his El Dorado High School English teacher. You heard Jim mention he had to be patient while waiting for his turn to play as Purdue's quarterback. And Jim's persistence finally paid off in 1984. I asked him what kinds of lessons he learned from remaining persistent in his pursuit at that one and only starting quarterback position. How did that teach you, you know, overall in life a lot of guys nowadays would leave if they had to wait to play quarterback for three years, like you did. How did that teach you persistence and overall life lessons when you think back on that? Well, it was a different mindset. You know, we didn't have phones in our pockets. We didn't have instant media. We didn't have all these different, you know, we kind of had to figure it out. I mean, if you had a question, you have to actually look at a dictionary or, you know, some sort of encyclopedia to find an answer, but now it's just instantaneous. So life was different. It was a different pace. And it was like, if you were going to do something, you kind of had to create it. We had to work really hard for it. And I'm not saying that that still not applies today, because it does. It's just that we had a coaching change from Jim Young to Leon Burton that and nowadays, I think a lot of guys could move with your coaches. We had it still had the year penalty at our time. So it was one of those things that you just don't do off the cuff and just say, Hey, I'm out of here. So we worked through it. And plus Leon kept the staff with Bob Spoo and Jim Coletto and all those guys. So I was very familiar with that. I just had to learn their, earn their trust to be their quarterback, which man, it was a tough road, but very rewarding. I had thought about one time going to San Diego state and the staff wanted me there and as much as we could, you know, talk during those times, but I really wanted to be a pretty quarterback. And maybe it's because sometimes when you have a hard head, it pays off. And sometimes it doesn't, but this one, I did. It's for you. In the same year, he became a starting quarterback for the Boilermakers. He also became the only quarterback in Purdue history to beat University of Michigan, Ohio State and Notre Dame in the same season. Jim explains why the team's mentality had a lot to do with those historic wins. We talked about that trifecta Notre Dame, Ohio State and Michigan, that you love the team to those three victories and it hasn't happened since. Were people doubting the Purdue team back then? Like were people surprised that you and the team were able to pull that off? You know, it's the tradition people are going to doubt. It's the mindset of the team that makes the difference. So when you're talking about five-star recruiting athletes, you know, you're competing with the Alabama's, you got Ohio State. And so we had to figure out some other different ways that we were going to find victories. And that had to do with, you know, our mentality, maybe not believing the box that people want to put us in. That's the difference. That win against the University of Notre Dame in 1984 at the Hoosier Dome dedication game in Indianapolis is one of Jim's favorite memories from his time on the field as a Boilermaker. One of my first starts my junior year and we were playing Notre Dame at this held where the first game ever in Indianapolis in the Hoosier Dome, which now has already changed, but that's the NFL. That's a whole other story. So Notre Dame agrees to have their home game moved down to Indianapolis. There's a start that, you know, I've got two blue chip All-Americans, Doug Downing, Jeff Huber behind me, and Leon says that, you know, if you're not heads and shoulders above these freshmen, I'm going to start a freshman. Oh my God. So I better play good. So we're playing. I mean, it's so funny because a good friend of mine in California, Steve Burline, who I talk to all the time, was the quarterback. It was a freshman quarterback for Notre Dame. And so they were ranked, I believe, number two in the country, or number two or eight, one of those. And soon again, that box they put us in, we didn't have a chance. We ended up going down that stadium. It wasn't as like going into Notre Dame. Then moving a home game to a neutral side was very helpful. And our fans showed up and that's what Purdue does. And then, you know, we gave them a few things to scream about. So after that game, my job security wasn't as much of an issue. So I could kind of relax and kind of get in my groove and built confidence. And I think, you know, you're looking at 20 year old guys, if you can build confidence in young people, big things happen. Yeah. I just had the pleasure of talking to Coach Braum and he almost had those exact same words and just building up these young men into people that are good on and off the field, right? Right. And I think at today's age, it's easy to criticize our leaders, easy to criticize mistakes, easy to do others. But when you're in a position where you can build somebody and are young people believing in themselves, very powerful. What about off the field at Purdue? Were there any activities that you participated in or a favorite memory, a favorite spot on campus? I would say the Sigma Chi house. I'm a Sigma Chi. I kind of followed the footsteps of Mark Herman and all my fraternity brothers all the times we got the experience being in athletics and trying to also do well in academics didn't leave me a lot of social life. But the social life I did have was with my roommates and with my fellow Sigma Chi brothers. It was important to Jim to attend a school with balance. He placed great significance on the football program, of course, but he also wanted a university with a strong academic background. So it's no surprise that he felt that Purdue's prestigious Cranert School of Management was the perfect fit for him. Well, that was one of the main reasons why I came to Purdue. I mean, it was a industrial management degree from business school at Cranert. A lot of the other schools I didn't feel, all right, feel this in the back story. My parents, my dad was a professor. My mom was a teacher. So academics was always kind of like bring home the A was automatic. That's what we did. So our expectations were up here. And so when I was looking at my school choices between school like Stanford and Purdue, to me, they were on par about what they want to do. Stanford was more economics. Purdue was a little bit more business. And I wanted computers, even though we were doing the computers back in the day where we put the cards in and all that stuff. And I like today what we have in our pocket was way more stronger than what we could buy. But I always kind of like the tech stuff. I still do. And it was a way for me to kind of hit my other love as far as being able to be involved in business, which I ran an asset management company for almost 15 years. And so I got to apply that. And of course, we were one of the first in the technology in to go all digital. And I think we're still moving all digital to today. And it's a transition that I've got to see during my lifetime from, you know, the first Mac computers to phones in your pocket to possibly money being digital. Well, at Purdue, Jim earned a regular membership on the distinguished students list. And during his senior year, he was awarded the Big 10 Medal of Honor in recognition of his athletic and academic achievements. Jim reflects on why it took him some time to put all of his college accomplishments into perspective. You won the Big 10 Medal of Honor. It's a huge, huge achievement. How did you feel at the time when you won that? At the time, to be honest, I don't know if I really understood all the stuff. I look back on it now, I look back at, you know, being two-time Purdue athlete of the year. I mean, it didn't really, you know, when you're involved in something and you're so engrossed in what you're doing and focus and pro football was and trying to, I don't think that stuff didn't really get me until later in life. I'm going, oh, wow, that was, that was pretty special. Oh, wow, that, you know, even Sigma Chi being a significant sick hit me a little bit later. It's like, maybe because this is the first year I'm a grandpa, maybe I'm reflecting a little bit more, but I'm looking at it, looking at things a little different, man, way more appreciative of understanding what all that is and what those awards mean. I'm going to be honest, it took me some time to really put that in perspective about where they were because I felt like I was still in the moment, still making advancements and other, trying to be an all pro, trying to be the fast I could. Yeah, and watching guys like Drew Brees do it for 20 years. I mean, we had different rules back then. They actually used to hit us. I could imagine playing that game to age 40, but now they're doing it. I mean, Tom Brady, good luck, man. During the 1985 season, Jim led the NCAA in total offense, 3,589 yards, which was at the time a school record, until it was broken by another prominent Purdue quarterback, Drew Brees. And after graduating from Purdue, Jim finished sixth in balloting for the 1985 Heisman Trophy. Jim was selected as the third pick in the first round of the 1986 NFL draft by the Houston Oilers. Like I said earlier, this tied for a Purdue record. But from there, things got a bit wild. See, Jim thought he was going right down the street from West Lafayette to Indianapolis to play for the Colts. He tells us the full story on how he felt during that 1986 draft. What were you feeling like as a very young man, as a first round draft pick? Well, first of all, I didn't know where I was going to go. Okay, so the draft, you know, as everybody knows, you don't know if you're going to be playing in a cold weather place, or so as our draft went down, Bo Jackson goes one. And we all, everyone on the planet knew Bo Jackson was going one. Atlanta has the next pick. They don't have a quarterback, but they decided to go to, and I met with Dan Henning on our way going down to Spring Break. They picked Tony Casillas. And I'll hold that back because we played Atlanta every year. And I had that in the back of my head the whole time, like Atlanta didn't pick me. So when you see these guys get drafted in the, like, Dak Prescott, you know, teams passed on him three times. He didn't get drafted in the fourth round and by Dallas. So he's looking at every team going, I want them, I want them. They make it personal. And don't think they don't. Well, Houston has the third pick. They got Warren Moon and Indianapolis has the fourth. Well, Indianapolis needs a quarterback. My age is working with Indianapolis, which was maybe not as legal at the time, but we pretty much had a contract. So I kind of knew where I was going to be. I thought I was going to be a fourth pick. Well, Houston ends up picking me. You know, like a long story short, they ended up picking me to trade me. And while I thought I was preparing to go 60 miles down the road and play for the Colts because they needed a quarterback, my path went differently, got drafted by Houston. Ended up with trade bait and I felt like a piece of meat. You know, I ended up moving out to, and there's stories within that. I almost went to Green Bay. I almost went to San Francisco. Ended up with the Rams and it worked out from there. But it was kind of nice to be able to go, be a high draft pick and go to a team that was established. So it was a little easier. Some of these guys coming out, Joe Burrow over in Cincinnati, first pick goes to a bad team. Troy Aikman, first pick goes to Dallas, goes one of 15 the first year. There's a lot of things that people could say, oh, you know, Troy was a bust because of that first year. A lot of things that would happen today were they try to, you know, put you in that box. I'm talking about it, but this is, let's label him as a bust or this or that. Well, you might be playing for a bad team and usually the number one pick guys are. So I'm slow to judge on quarterbacks. I think it takes a while to develop. So were you bummed about not playing for the Colts, was your heart set on that? You know, because we had a draft party in the morning and we all knew it's going to be in Indianapolis. It was good. And then when Houston calls me on the phone, I'm like, what? And then I was like, okay, I got to fly down to Houston to do all these interviews and I'm not, I would just felt like I was just out of sorts. It was, I was, yeah, I was prepared to play for the Colts. I was looking for it. They needed a quarterback. They needed someone to, we led the offense, the nation of offense the last two years in college. Of course, I think I could have done great things for the Colts. It would have been an easy transition. It just didn't work out that way. Jim is the first to admit that NFL is quite different now from when he was playing. But there's a lot of work. And that's when I look at the pro football and you see the games on Sundays. There's a heck of a lot of work that goes into it. Even with college levels, all the, the stuff you see on Saturday, the preparation that they do and the limitations now that you can have with the athletes, very difficult. Your system has to be clean, has to be easy. And then the guys have to really want to self do it. And if you've got a team that can motivate themselves to try to get that extra practice reps in because of the, the rules they have now, even with the pros, I mean, I go to the camps. They don't have two days anymore. We have one, but it's a lot of mental reps and you have to have guys that are disciplined. And another thing that's different, the explosion of sports journalism and social media. I asked Jim how he would feel playing in the NFL in this day and age. I would love social media. Don't get me wrong. I would have loved it. I would, I would. Would you have clapped back? No. Well, this is the deal. Back in our time, if you had someone wrote a story, you can't respond. Right. And so it would behooved you to be friends with these guys. And we would go out and have beers with Jeff and the stories that you would tell me, Hey, don't, don't tell him saying this, but this is what we're thinking. We, you know, you kind of give them a little at, well, in the nineties, when the whole media bomb changed and we had sports illustrated and all these new, sporting news and all that became competition and it became all these different stories. And it wasn't always someone writing something friendly about you. Or maybe I remember there was a reporter in general, he had his own agenda trying to either run out of coach one time running Mia. And so then you didn't have a way to respond. Unless you had another friend in me. Now you can just call it out. You can go right to the public. You can say, Hey, no, this isn't how it is. Now on the flip side, yeah, you can say something really stupid, really quick. If you're going to ask me, would Jim, would you rather have a voice or not have a voice? I'll take the voice. Now, is there mistakes possible that young men can make? Absolutely. And I give them a hall pass too, because we're all human. There's some goods and bads, but I think that's very, very cool. Jim played for the Rams from 1986 to 1993, and ended up being an all pro quarterback. And during the 1988 and 1989 seasons, he led the NFL in passing touchdowns. Jim shares his favorite NFL memories with us. Probably have to talk about playing New York, the Giants. And I don't care which game you want to pick. I just love playing the Giants. You know, the Giants are the type of team that their fans know more about your mom than you know. And so when you play them, you really want to, you know, just get after them because when they're quiet, when they're a fan, it's the best. So I would have to say there was a championship game we were playing and we were going into overtime and we hit flipper for a touchdown, and he keeps running through the end zone. And man, when that stadium was quiet, it was like the best. And there's always this New York, LA, you know, big city thing. But that was just, I mean, we always like playing Dallas too. You always had that extra gear to play Dallas. Just because, just because. San Francisco, same thing. But I would have to say one of my favorite moments would have to be against the Giants. Speaking of, there was one time we threw five touchdowns against them and Belichick was a defensive coordinator. And so that was kind of cool. They kept trying to play this cover too. We kept hitting the turkey hole on them. And he just couldn't stop it. There's many, many other ones. I had such a good relationship with Ernie Zampezi, our offensive coordinator, and Norf Turner, and all the guys there. And John Robinson, I thought was treated everyone like men. And that's the coaching style that I like. I mean, they were, it's respectful. You get the most out of your guys and you treat them like men. Speaking of men, I mean, did you feel like you had to grow up fast, staying in the NFL at that young of an age? So honestly, when I first got to the NFL, I thought Purdue prepared me very, very well. It really did. I mean, I thought our offense at Purdue, initially, when I first came and played with Eric Dickerson, it was kind of Mickey Mouse passing game. I mean, you got to run back, ran for 2,000 yards on the ground. You don't really have to develop much else, right? I'm sure Tennessee does that with Derek Henry. You know, it's just a lot less pressure. But we got into the point where we needed to step our passing game. And that's when I think that our offense started taking off as when we started getting more complex of. Some of the stuff Coach Brahm is using, some of the West Coast offense, some of the different things. And that's where our development, I think, from probably two to five years in the league, really took off because we were doing a lot more complex. That was a fun part of this league. When you're doing things and the defense can't figure it out, they eventually all do. And then they move to a different system or then they have mobile quarterbacks or then they have, you know, wild cat offense. There's always something new, but if you look through the history of sports, you usually pick and choose different areas and you can bring something back and coaches haven't seen it. You know, in high school, they were doing all the pistol offense. That was the one that's old, but I don't know, Wishbone will probably come back. After playing for the Rams for eight seasons, Jim went over to the New Orleans Saints from 1994 to 1996 and ended his career with the San Diego Chargers in 1997. And after 12 seasons in the NFL, most football players would be perfectly content with retiring. And Jim did retire, but just from football. He explains his decision to go back to school for his MBA after finishing up his professional football career. After you retired, you kind of took a route that a lot of NFL players don't. You went back to school and got your masters. Tell us about that experience and why you decided to do that. The education was always a big thing that we talked about earlier in our life. I was the least educated in my family having been a bachelor's degree. And so I had somewhat of family peer pressure to get my masters. Also, I needed a transition from coming out from the NFL. And I think it's very difficult for some guys, it was for me, to transition from, hey, this is what I want to do with my whole life. And now I got to do that. People say, I want to retire up on my own terms. Well, no one ever really does that. You can say that with some sort of pride that protect your pride, but you're fired. That's just been real. You're coming through this point where the thing you've done your whole life. And so then you transition saying, I need to reset. And I need a hard reset right now because I don't want to cling on to this. Or I could have gone into coaching, I could have gone into announcing. There were some other issues. I had some family stuff I wanted to resolve. The best thing was for me to be around and to extend my education. And I went to Pepperdine, which is a fabulous school. It was a program, their business program where it was Pepperdine's in Malibu, but I was in the Orange County campus. So I got to network with people in the Orange County area where I was living. I met some lifelong friends, professors, and still to this day in contact. So it was a good transition. And then I started my asset management business. And it was a boutique firm. It was, I could manage my time and manage our money and do the things that I love to do. And like I said, with technology, we were on the edge. And so it was challenging on a bit of different fronts. It was time consuming, more so probably than all the football stuff. Maybe not physically, but the mental part. And it was good. I ended up after 15 years of getting out of it. I had some health issues that we had to resolve, which we have with modern science because you don't go through 12 years of AFL, scot-free. For sure. I mean, replacement parts, thank you. What appeals to you about assets management? I always dibble dabble on finance. I think when I hired, matter of fact, if my asset manager at the time was from Stanford and Chuck was my mentor, really. And I was actually going to go in business with their firm until he suddenly passed and talked about it. And so rather than joining a firm without my mentor, it was easier for me to start my own. And some of his clients came with me. And so it was, it was an easy transition, but it was tough because I lost my guy, but it was good because it forced me to get out. And sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone to really find out what things are all about. And I was there. Jim ran his assets management company in Southern California until retiring in 2014. He kept up with his Rams, but he didn't attend many events as he was living across the country. That is until the franchise moved back to LA from St. Louis. And so this former Rams quarterback began popping up at team practices and events. He is, after all, still the franchise's all-time leader in passing yards. And so now you're in Southern California. The Rams left. They came back. Are you involved with them now because they're back? Well, there was an interesting time. The Rams, I left a year, I went to New Orleans the year before they left. So we had a chance to come back and play it. And they were a bad team. I was on a bad team. We just, we killed them. They didn't have a chance. And we talk about that off. So then they moved to St. Louis. And if people know the economics of the NFL, it all makes sense. It wasn't about the fans. It wasn't about the city. It was all about the money and stadiums. So if you have a stadium, you get revenue share, 60, 40. But everything behind the glass goes to the home team. So that's why you see all these stadiums with the big glass, all boxes, because the home team gets to keep that money. So if you're playing in like the Coliseum, there's no glass. You're sharing all the revenue with your opponent. Jerry Jones makes all the money at his place. And then he makes a lot more money at your place. So it doesn't make economic sense unless you have a great stadium. St. Louis had a great stadium. Georgia could make a lot more money. And I don't know anybody that works that wants to work for less. If there's an opportunity to make more money, like anybody else, a plumber, electrician, anybody that's working, they made perfect sense for it to go. It didn't have anything to do with that. As far as the California fan base or this or that, no, California doesn't like losers. And so she was losing it on that part because they just didn't have a good team. And I was part of a team that wasn't good at the end. So I went to New Orleans. It was, you know, we ended up having the top ranked offense again for the next two, three years. And that was fun. And then, so then I stayed in LA. We were without a team for 21 years. I always thought it would be a new franchise that came back or a, you know, what would they call it? What would it be? And then Jacksonville, there was Rovers Jackson. Every time a team needed a new stadium at their home place, they would say, we're going to LA. But there's no stadium in LA. They were just using it for leverage. And that's what the NFL likes to do. It wasn't until Kronke came in, Stan Kronke, and then he developed, he committed $5 billion to build the stadium. I mean, let that sink in. Who runs around has $5 billion just for, you know, a house. I mean, that's pretty impressive. And if it wasn't someone like Mr. Kronke, it wasn't going to happen. So by him taking out the race park, putting in this development, his stadium, his personal commitment, which was huge, that whole SoFi stadium wouldn't happen. Rams wouldn't be back. The Chargers wouldn't be there. So that was a huge commitment. And Jerry Jones knew that, and that's why he brought Mr. Kronke in. And so that's very progressive. A lot of stuff that went down. It was very interesting. And yeah, I do, when they came back, they would call us and I, oh, totally. I mean, they're bringing the horns back. I mean, I'm the all-time leading passer for the Los Angeles Rams, but all my records are in St. Louis. It was, I'd show up to St. Louis, and be like, who's this guy? So I just felt like, I mean, I was talking to Jack Youngblood about that the other day. He's like, we kind of felt like outcasts. Just like, we're like, oh, we had our time here, all our records are in some other city, you know, like war and moon. He had all his records in Houston, but now they're all in Tennessee. It's just kind of, it's kind of weird. But having the home team come back, different management, different mindset, Coach McVeigh is doing great things. Jim also keeps up with his Purdue Boilermakers. He shares his thoughts on the program and where he sees it going in the future. I don't follow as intently as maybe I see some of the RAM things. And that's just a proximity thing. If I was closer here, I absolutely would. I totally believe in Jeff Brom. I don't think he has the pieces to his puzzle. And I think that's been the issue. The COVID year, man, that was crazy. So recruiting, I think, you know, as far as Jeff needs to have his guys, I think it starts at quarterback. Rondell, I'd love watching. I just didn't think that he had the pieces around him to complement. But what he's going to do in Arizona is going to be phenomenal. Kingsbury is going to take him and roll. I mean, he'll be a featured part. It'll be like, you know, he had these stats at Purdue, but he didn't have the same parts around him. And when you're talking about offense, like I said, when I played for Purdue, we had six guys drafted on our offense. You know, if it was just two guys drafted on offense, that's not enough. So you need to have pieces around you that complement you. The most, my most successful years in Los Angeles, we had pieces is when you start taking them out, you're not. So I think that would be the thing that from a 30,000 feet with Coach Brom is he's got to get to his pieces in place. And I think that's, you know, the time is coming up to make sure and, you know, at quarterback, that's a huge piece. And I think that's kind of been unsettled. And after all this time, his love and passion for Purdue is as strong as ever. What does the Purdue community mean to you after all these years? Oh man, stability, reliability, faithful, family. Everywhere I go, even when my daughter was riding horses, we had Purdue people in the horse industry. And I mean, there's a contact that's sort of a base that's whatever walk of life you're in, you seem to run into Purdue people. And then there's a bond and how to describe that to people that don't have a Purdue degree is this tough. As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, Jim was recently inducted into the Indiana Football Hall of Fame. He shares what this means to him and his heartfelt thanks. You know, I always looked at football as a team sport. I know there's individual honors. I've been on the end of some fine honors and this is absolutely one of the best. So any one I'm honored. But I also have a lot of thanks. Thanks for my teammates, my coaches, Leon Burton at who passed away. I mean, all these people in my lives who touched me. And so it kind of motivates me to try to pay it forward and think about, oh yeah, we've got this, we're doing these things, but I couldn't have got it there without my parents, my teammates, Purdue, the whole deal. So I'm appreciative of not only the award, but of family, I guess. I don't want to call it that it was all part of it and that to me is super rewarding. I'd like to tell everybody, I appreciate your support and coming back for the Indiana State Football Hall of Fame is beyond my wildest dreams. Purdue's a place where great things happen, but we have patience and we're reasonable. But we also want and desire and crave good football. And I was fortunate to be part of some of those programs. I was doing some programs earlier in my career that we worked, but it takes a whole team effort and getting the right, I think Babinski's doing a good job trying to put the right pieces together because it goes all the way from the top, all the way down to the guys that walk on. You know, I think that you got to have some belief and I think that people at Purdue continue to have belief and I love that. Be sure to head over to Purdue's YouTube channel, youtube.com slash purdue university to see my full video interview at the Whitaker Inn with Jim. And if you liked this episode, leave us a review on Apple podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening to This is Purdue. For more information on this episode, visit our website at purdue.edu slash podcast. There you can head over to your favorite podcast app to subscribe and leave us a review. And as always, Boiler up.