The Alma Mater – Purdue University

hail, hail to old purdue!
all hail to our old gold and black!
hail, hail to old purdue!
our friendship may she never lack.
ever grateful, ever true,
thus we raise our song anew
of the days we’ve spent with you,
all hail our own purdue!

James R. Morrison, “Hail Purdue”

I think everyone reading this blog already knows how much I love Purdue. The four and half years I spent in West Lafayette at Purdue have had a profound impact on my life. So many good and amazing things in my life originated at Purdue:

• It’s where I met my amazing better half, Lisa
• I got my Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering that has thus far led to a successful career in wireless communications (see my only patent here, ha)
  
• Through the community at Purdue Christian Campus House and Joshua House – the men’s co-op house where I lived for three years – I formed amazing friendships that I hope will last a lifetime

I’m writing a post specifically about Purdue because it’s uncanny just how many connections there are with Purdue and cancer for me right now.

It started in October of 2018, we were hanging out in LA for the weekend to celebrate our friend Chris Reynolds’ birthday at an AirBnB in Redondo Beach. I happened to turn on the Purdue Ohio State football game and learned about this Purdue student with bone cancer named Tyler Trent. Turns out Tyler Trent is the biggest proudest Purdue fan EVER and he made a bold prediction that the unranked Purdue football team would beat the top ranked Ohio State football team. Well friends, we all know what happened next, Tyler’s bold prediction came true and PURDUE SMOKED OHIO STATE!!! The news media heard about his prediction and stories popped up all over the internet talking about this kid and his amazing prediction that came true. Drew Brees even tweeted at Tyler:

Your school loves you too, @theTylerTrent We all feel your strength and are inspired by your will. You are special, and you make us all better. We are with you. Boilermaker4Life

Drew Brees (@drewbrees) October 20, 2018

Apparently, if I have my facts correct, Tyler Trent was the FIRST person to camp out overnight at Ross-Ade Stadium to secure seats for a Purdue football game. Also, he apparently did this on a day where he HAD A CHEMOTHERAPY INFUSION! I can’t imagine camping out in the middle of a parking lot after chemo, I want my own bed please!

So anyways, Tyler Trent gains noteriety for his bold proclimation and the rest is history… until he passed away on January first of this year. Days before he died Tyler attended Purdue’s bowl game, the Music City Bowl, where he was named the honorary captain and received a standing ovation from the entire crowd.

From what I’ve read, even until the very end Tyler was very positive and was a light to all those around him. It’s incredible to me that he was able to maintain such hope, and I know a big part of that was his faith in Christ. Here’s what Purdue head football coach Jeff Brohm had to say about Tyler:

“Tyler made an impact on us, the community, the entire school and now the entire nation. His strength has helped us overcome things along the way; to see how he’s handled himself with class, with dignity, with a great attitude, a great smile. We learned a lot from him. He got us to this point. He helped us win some games with the encouragement he provides and the love that he has for our team and university.”

Jeff Brohm
https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/2019/01/01/tyler-trent-music-city-bowl-honorary-captain-purdue-super-fan-dies/2460688002/

The second uncanny connection about Tyler: his family currently attends, and he grew up attending College Park Church in Indianapolis. This is the church Lisa grew up in, and where her mom, Jevne, still works! College Park Church hosted Tyler’s funeral, where members of the football team including QB David Blough got up to speak about the impact Tyler had on their life. I livestreamed the funeral on my phone. This was before I knew I had cancer.

Once I was diagnosed with cancer, I felt an immediate admiration, deep connection, and thankfulness for Tyler and the life he lived. I admire his courage to be in the face of death. I admire his will to fight to the end. I admire his positive attitude even in the bleakest of moments. I admire his strength to continue to support Purdue as the best Purdue fan EVER while his body was failing him.

Tyler set a high bar for how to live life while fighting cancer. Many days I don’t feel like I live up to the bar he set, but I know that’s ok. I didn’t get to see his hard days, but I know he had them, we all do. Not everyone sees my hard days (except for Lisa!), so I just need to extend myself some grace when I’m going through a hard period. As Lisa said, the end of the full week of chemo is the hardest and I’ve been pretty wiped out since Wednesday/Thursday of last week. I’m on the mend now, and should just continue to improve this week.

Third uncanny connection with Purdue: the first Purdue basketball game after my surgery in February was Purdue’s HAMMER DOWN CANCER game! All the players wore special hammer down cancer jerseys to bring awareness to Purdue’s research in finding a cure for cancer and also the Tyler Trent Cancer Research endowment. Purdue doesn’t treat cancer patients, (you have to go to IU for that as I discussed in my last post) but does do cutting edge lab research on cancer cures. Anyways, we had a group of friends over for the Purdue Hammer Down Cancer basketball game and had a great time eating food and watching Purdue beat Nebrasksa.

On that note, it’s been a fun time watching this Purdue basketball team come back from a middling season to make it all the way to the ELITE EIGHT! It was tough to lose to Virginia, but I really loved watching this team play. It was even more fun to be able to watch Purdue play in the NCAA tournament while my brother Paul (also a Purdue grad) was here! I loved the fight of this team – they never gave up and kept pressing till the end, just like Tyler Trent. Another inspiration for me.

Lastly, I’d like to give a shout out to all the Purdue peeps who have reached out in the recent weeks to support us! I love you all and am so thankful for your support. We have a great community here in San Diego, but I love getting care packages, texts, and phone calls from old friends checking to see how I’m doing. Please, keep them coming!

That’s all for now. I’ll end this post in the most appropriate way:

BOILER UP!!!

HAMMER DOWN CANCER!!!

-B