Hands-on Mitch Daniels helps revive Purdue athletics: 'I just want to win'

Dana Hunsinger Benbow | IndyStar

Show Caption Hide Caption He was Indiana's governor, he's Purdue's president. But first he was a sports fan. Purdue University president and former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels talks about a life of loving sports, NCAA student compensation and Purdue athletes.

WEST LAFAYETTE – The snow was falling and there was football to play. A young Mitch Daniels got a yes from his dad — actually it was a, "Yeah, fine, but take the Christmas tree out and burn it first." Then play football.

Daniels dragged the tree behind him with the best of intentions, but here came the guys. The wind was swirling, the ball game was good. The tree blew away.

Well, Daniels thought, "I'm off the hook." So he played football until he was sure his nose would freeze off.

And as the pigskin flew that winter day, the tree blew through the streets of the Jewish neighborhood where Daniels lived. A neighbor spotted it. Odd, the Daniels family must have lost their Christmas tree.

"They brought it back. They knew where it had to come from," Daniels said, laughing. "I got in big trouble. I can't remember what the punishment was, but it was swift. Swift and sure.

"But, I got to play football."

Football, baseball, wrestling, basketball. Sports, any sport, has been Daniels' unending passion as long as he can remember.

Few knew as he rose to the top of Washington politics — chief of staff to Richard Lugar, an advisor to Ronald Reagan, appointed by George W. Bush as the director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Few knew as he climbed to one of the highest-ranking positions at pharmaceutical behemoth Eli Lilly & Co., or as he served two terms as governor of Indiana, the motorcycle-riding head of state, that sports had a big piece of Daniels' heart and his soul.

As he sits at the helm of Purdue University, just six years in, the changes Daniels has made as president in the school's sports have been swift and sure. From a seat overlooking Ross-Ade Stadium this week, Daniels talked about them.

There will be no more 'IU Sucks' chant by the student body at games, if Daniels has his way. Just months after sports betting became legal in Indiana, Daniels and his board passed a policy that prohibits students, faculty and staff from betting on Purdue games or athletes. When talk of football coach Jeff Brohm leaving Purdue for Louisville arose last year, Daniels wrote a secret letter, just a little nudge telling Brohm how much Purdue wanted him to stay.

Daniels has been fighting to get the Old Oaken Bucket game moved to Lucas Oil Stadium. He hates the one-and-done phenomenon of college basketball. He is extremely skeptical of the NCAA's pay to play. He helped get alcohol sales approved at football and basketball games. He was the chief quality officer of the creation of Boiler Gold and Boiler Black, the university's self concocted brews that keep selling out at games — and everywhere else.

Of course, there is tuition and curriculum and policy far beyond the field. That's what Daniels spends 97 percent of his time on. But sports, they keep tugging at him.

"I told them when I said yes, 'I'm probably the biggest sports fan that's had the job,'" said Daniels, 70. "My instinct, of course, is to spend all kinds of time and be all over our sports because I feel so strongly about them. I try to find a balance. But, I just love sports so much."

'It was the band, doggone it'

He walks into the third level suite of Ross-Ade and looks out at the football field, thinking about the 24-6 loss against Illinois last Saturday, talking about how the monsoon that day didn't help the team.

The Boilermakers sit at 2-6, heading into their game against Nebraska this weekend. Daniels isn't thrilled with that record. "I just wanna win," he says in a gruff voice. He is thrilled to see nearly sold out stadiums every game.

When he came to the school in 2013, both the football and basketball teams were in last place in the Big Ten, the first time that had happened in Purdue history.

"I used to feel like I needed to go up and personally thank every person who bought a ticket to a game," he said. "The turnaround has been great, to see the enthusiasm and the spirit back at the games."

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Daniels starts chuckling, still staring at the football field. "You know..." he says... here comes another sports story.

A few members of the marching band ran into Daniels on campus the first football season he was at Purdue in 2013. The big Notre Dame game, a night game, was approaching and the band was performing a motorcycle-themed program. They'd be playing tunes like "Born to be Wild" and thought their freshly-minted president, the former motorcycle riding governor, would be perfect for a stunt.

"They wanted me to take a 700-pound motorcycle on a squishy field," Daniels said. "It was the band, doggone it, we had to help out."

He was nervous that night before halftime, sitting on his bike in a Harley-Davidson leather jacket with a big gold P on his right chest that the trustees had gotten him as a gift. He pulled sunglasses out of the saddlebag and put them on. If he was going to do this thing — win or lose — he might as well do it right.

"Down the ramp, hard left at the 'B' in Boilermakers, hard right at the tuba section down here around the 'K' and out to midfield," he says as he points to the field. "Another hard left and I tell you, when I got off that bike, I was the most relieved person in the state of Indiana."

For the finale, Daniels climbed the ladder to conduct the fight song and looked out on the field. That's when he realized the band had spelled out his name, "MITCH."

Daniels' place at Purdue games has only grown since. He goes to every home football game, peruses the crowd and stops in to sit with fans. He makes his way by the beer garden to check on Boiler Gold sales. If he happens to be at the end zone when the team scores, he drops to the ground and does push ups — equal to the Boilermakers' total score. He once did 28.

And a few years ago, something started called "Where's Mitch?" a knock off of the "Where's Waldo" books.

Shortly before the end of the halftime, Daniels finds a spot in the stands and invites himself to sit with fans. On the big screen, the camera moves about the stadium until it reveals where Daniels is lurking. The crowd cheers for their president.

The crowd also, sometimes, cheers something else, something that Daniels doesn't like one bit.

'IU Sucks' chant gone, if he has his way

Daniels is adamant that the 'IU Sucks' chant that Purdue students yell out at games, no matter the opponent they're up against, is wrong.

"It needs to go and it is going," he said. "Let's just say it was tired. And whether you thought it was swell or troublesome, it's a good time to rotate to something else."

He said the chant will no longer take place at home basketball games this season. When asked if he is sure the students won't still try to pull it off, Daniels said it's his "understanding that that's been established." Basketball coach Matt Painter for whom the basketball cheer group, The Paint Crew, is named has backed Daniels on the chant needing to go, he said.

"So, we've worked with the group and I hope they'll have some new creative things," Daniels said. "I want them to be as loud as ever. I want them to get after, unsettle the other team here and there, do some things that are new and clever and creative and maybe are worth a point or two in a close game. I don't think that is one of them."

"IU Sucks" is still happening sporadically at football games. But when basketball season rolls around, it will be no more. "It's been in basketball where it's stirred the most attention," he said.

As for those who think the chant should carry on, Daniels said he, in some ways, understands that.

"Sure, standards change. A word that was pretty near kind of profane at one point, for better or worse, is more common parlance. I understand our students have grown up with that," he said. "But they don't get the letters I do."

Speaking of letters...

'We love having him here'

Daniels wrote the letter — he still won't reveal its entire contents — and had it delivered to Brohm at the Football Performance Complex last fall. It was just days after Louisville fired Bobby Petrino and the reality that the Boilermakers could lose their coach after two seasons and as many consecutive bowl berths didn't sit well with Daniels.

"He was in a very difficult position, heart and head type conflict," Daniels said of Brohm. "(There was) so much history, family history, not just him, at Louisville and at the university."

Louisville wanted its hometown hero back to coach at his alma mater. Purdue wanted Brohm to stay. Before Brohm ever had an in-person meeting with Louisville, Daniels' handwritten letter on a 5-x-7 sheet of paper arrived to his office.

"It was just a little note," Daniels said. ""I just wanted him to know how strongly I felt about it, we felt about it without unduly pressuring him."

Daniels said he didn't want to leave any doubt in Brohm's mind "that we love having him here."

Brohm stayed at Purdue, earned a seven-year contract worth $36.8 million, including a $1.7 million signing bonus and numerous retention bonuses.

“When you get a handwritten letter and when you get things delivered to you... when those people reach out and open up the line of communication and say you can call them if you need anything or call them when you have a chance, yes, you build a trust factor there," Brohm told the Lafayette Journal & Courier in June. "And it does make you feel more comfortable when decisions are being thrown at you that you have to make."

Daniels puts Brohm staying at Purdue into the victory column. Another challenge he's fighting? He's calling it a loss.

Bucking Old Oaken Bucket tradition

He pulls out a white handkerchief and starts waving it. Daniels is surrendering this fight. Or, at least acknowledging he's on the weaker side of negotiation when it comes to something he's been quite vocal about. He wants to move the Purdue-Indiana Old Oaken Bucket football game to Lucas Oil Stadium.

"Look, I've had a lot of things I thought were good ideas that didn't get to the finish line," he said, "and I don't guess this one is going to."

But, Daniels would still like to argue his side.

"We're stuck on Thanksgiving weekend. That's the starting point," he said. "Nobody is on either campus. A lot of folks have family obligations. They'd love to come to the game and they can't. They're somewhere else."

So, Daniels started asking if maybe the game could get moved to another date. Due to scheduling, that didn't work. Part of the tradition is that the bucket game is the finale of the season.

"It'd be like asking Army and Navy not to play when they do," he said.

Which gave Daniels another idea. A lot of great rivalries are played on neutral fields — Army-Navy, Texas-Oklahoma, Georgia-Florida.

"Gosh, we've got a great neutral field halfway in between (at Lucas Oil)," he said. "It's an easy drive and so many students and alum live in the central Indiana area. Just being sarcastic, but after two or three days with the loved ones, getting out of the house and going Downtown to a big game?"

That sounds pleasant, he said.

The idea isn't half baked. Daniels has talked to the people at IU, Lucas Oil, IHSAA and other colleges who play on neutral fields. He crafted a legitimate case for the move.

There were people who liked the idea, but there were people who didn't.

"So, I've given up on it," he said. "But that was the theory."

One-and-done is 'corruption'

If anyone thinks college players like Zion Williamson or Romeo Langford were actually college students, they are mistaken, said Daniels.

"These students are not students by any real definition. They may only have to go to one semester or pretend to go to one semester of classes," he said. "If we want to have a semipro basketball league, let's do it above the table. Otherwise, it's corruption."

The one-and-done model has been kept alive, Daniels said, because "it works out swell for the NBA."

The league gets a showcase of tomorrow's talent for free, basically a minor league, he said, and the NBA gets great college coaches to develop players for a year, preparing them for professional ball.

He's heard the argument that allowing the stars to head straight from high school into the NBA would hurt the college game.

"I think it's nonsense when people say, 'Well if you didn't have these 10 or 15 phenomenal freshmen, the game would suffer.' I think exactly the opposite," he said.

Daniels said he believes Purdue would sell more tickets.

"The athleticism would still be spectacular," he said. "And a lot more people would follow the sport even more avidly if they could follow players two and three or four years. It's a whole new team every year. If you want to do that, let's call it something else but it's not college basketball."

Daniels is passionate about sports, about the games, the rules and about what is fair. He said that passion started long ago when he got a dog named Duke.

'As long as I can remember, I played'

He was five years old, living in in eastern Tennessee, when he picked his first team to love — the Dodgers. His dad was in pharmaceutical sales, so the family moved between Tennessee and Georgia.

"I became a Dodger fan and it's not clear why," Daniels said. "The Dodgers finally won a World Series when I was just becoming conscious of baseball so that was probably where that came from. It doesn't take much when you're five years old, somebody gives you a hat or something."

Or a dog. Soon after he discovered the Dodgers, the family got a $5 mutt and Daniels named him Duke, after the great Dodger Duke Snider.

And about that time, he fell in love with playing baseball himself — and any other sport he could find. When the family moved to Indianapolis in the late 1950s, living on West 73rd Street, Daniels was just blocks from his grade school. It had a huge playground and any sports field a kid could want.

After school and after his homework was done, Daniels would take Duke down the street, inside the chain link fence and play.

"We'd play whatever ball was in season," he said. "Until it was time to go home and I'd whistle and Duke and I'd go home."

There have been so many wonderful things he's been connected to throughout his 70 years, but one thing has remained, Daniels said. His passion for sports.

It comes from all those years of playing himself -- all those long summer days and late fall evenings and those snowy wintry days where football was more important than a Christmas tree blowing away.

"For as long as I can remember," Daniels said, "I played."

More with Mitch

Purdue in October became the largest school to ban its faculty, staff and athletes from betting on Boilermaker games or athletes.

"There are so many hypotheticals that would become real," Daniels said. "You know the kicker who misses the game-winning kick and now has to wonder how many of my fellow students did I cost money to?"

The NCAA's top policy-making group on Tuesday voted unanimously to allow athletes to benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness in a manner consistent with the collegiate model.

"There are going to be loopholes after loopholes," Daniels said. "People are going to have to do some hard thinking about how you do this without creating huge abuse potential or worse problems than you started with."

How many sporting events do you attend?

"I do all the football games, almost all the home basketball games, travel now and then but not too often. I always go to the Bucket game and I try to catch all the other sports at least once," he said. "There are a lot of them, so my batting record is not 1.000."

Lowest Purdue sports moment for Daniels:

Purdue's loss to Virginia in the Elite Eight earlier this year. "The last 10 seconds of the Virginia game, we had the game won and it was a preposterous fluke," he said, "a miracle finish. Do I have to relive the nightmare?"

Student protests?

"Oh gee, just last year, a big one. I got a petition from a thousand and some students who were really irate that we were closing the library at midnight," Daniels said, "because they weren't done studying yet. That's Purdue."

How has selling alcohol at games gone?

"We have had fewer alcohol-related incidents in the stadium since that started. When I ask our police department what they think about that, they think because people know they can come in and get a beer or two in the stadium, they don't smuggle in something harder or they don't have too much before they come in. I think it's worked out OK."

On declining to talk about politics or a run for POTUS:

"That's another great thing about this job, legitimately, I really shouldn't talk about stuff like that. So, I can duck all those questions, right? I tell everybody, 'It's a great time to be a eunuch." People say, 'Geez, did you see what (Nancy) Pelosi said or (Donald) Trump did?' I say, 'You know that just wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment.'"

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via e-mail: dbenbow@indystar.com