1 seeds Florida & Duke prep for Elite 8 against Texas Tech & Alabama
Mackenzie Salmon breaks down Elite 8 matchups, as No. 1 Florida will take on No. 3 Texas Tech and No. 1 Duke will verse No. 2 Alabama.
Sports Seriously
Purdue basketball has become a staple in the Sweet 16 men’s NCAA Tournament round.
Under coach Matt Painter, the program has reached the regional semifinal round six times since 2017 and the second year in a row this season. No. 4 seed Purdue takes on No. 1 Houston at 10:09 p.m. ET on Friday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis for a chance at a second straight Elite Eight appearance and the seventh in school history.
While Painter and Purdue are mainstays in the tournament, a question that regularly pops into college basketball fans’ minds at this time of the year is, “What exactly is a Boilermaker?” Fans may also wonder how Purdue got the unique nickname in a sport dominated by “Bulldogs” and “Wildcats.”
Here’s what you need to know about why Purdue is nicknamed the Boilermakers, what a Boilermaker is and its history:
Jimmy Fallon asks, ‘What is a Boilermaker?’
That’s the question “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon asked earlier this week but could not come up with an answer. Fallon and an “audience member” (staff member) went over the mascots for the NCAA Tournament but kept getting stuck on one particular team.
Why is Purdue called the Boilermakers?
According to Purdue’s website, the university adopted the Boilermakers nickname in 1891: “Under accusations of recruiting athletes from boiler shops, the ‘Boilermakers’ name was adopted for Purdue’s athletic teams. An 85,000-pound Schenectady No. 1 Locomotive engine was purchased.”
In 1889, Purdue’s football team defeated Wabash College 18-4 in Crawfordsville, Indiana. The students of Wabash and its fans were devastated by the loss, and Purdue’s football team was referred to some as “a great big burly gang of corn-huskers,” “rail-splitters,” “foundry molders,” and “log-haulers.” Following a 44-0 drubbing of Wabash in 1891, a sports writer for the Daily Argus headlined his story “Slaughter of Innocents,” with the line under that reading, “Wabash Snowed Completely Under by the Burly Boiler Makers from Purdue.”
By the following football season, the nickname of “Boilermakers” stuck.
What is the Boilermaker Special?
The Boilermaker Special VII is the official mascot of Purdue University and is run by the Purdue Reamer Club. While the newest rendition of “the world’s largest, fastest, heaviest, and loudest collegiate mascot was dedicated” on Sept. 3, 2011, at a football game against Middle Tennessee State, it has been around since 1939.
In 1939, Purdue sophomore student Izzy Selkowitz wrote a letter to the editor in the Exponent advocating the construction of a symbolic mascot. Eventually, the idea of a locomotive mascot mounted on an automobile chassis.
The original Boilermaker Special spread Purdue spirit from 1940 to mid-1953.
What is Purdue’s mascot?
Purdue Pete has been Purdue’s live-person mascot since 1956. However, he began as a logo drawn by the University Book Store, which hired California artist Art Evans in 1940. According to the university’s website, Purdue Pete was “a grinning, muscular icon reflected a boilermaker tradesman with a mallet for molding steel and hat to keep grease out of his hair.”
In 1944, Purdue Pete appeared for the first time in Purdue’s yearbooks, “Introducing Boilermaker Pete,” a headline read. Finally, on Sept. 28, 1956, Purdue Pete debuted at a pep rally before Purdue played Missouri.
Student Larry Brumbaugh was the first to wear the mascot outfit, donning foam rubber padding, football shoulder pads, long black pants, a sweater with a P, and a papier-mâché head.