Doyel: And in his spare time, Purdue’s student body president plays QB

INDIANAPOLIS – The shock, all these years later, is that his final pass into the end zone fell incomplete, glancing off his receiver’s hand and onto the turf at Lucas Oil Stadium. The surprise, even now, especially now, is that the furious comeback in the 2013 Class 3A championship game fell short. Because winners win. It’s what they do, who they are: metronomes of droning, deliberate triumph.

Brebeuf fans, you remember Aaron Banks. He was the quarterback on that 2013 team that did things Brebeuf had never done before, and Brebeuf had been around for more than a half-century. Founded in 1962, Brebeuf had never won a sectional in football until that 2013 season when Aaron Banks transferred in from North Central and led the Braves all the way to the 2013 title game, where …

Well, hang on. Let’s come back to that. Because right now, you need to know what became of Aaron Banks. Spoiler alert: Winners win.

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And Banks, who turned down football scholarships to smaller schools to walk on at Purdue – he wanted to major in engineering, and there’s not a better engineering program around than the one in West Lafayette – is coming off the biggest individual victory of his life earlier this week: The election for Purdue student government president.

Aaron Banks, president … sounds about right to anyone who’s ever known him. Winners win. And presidents, they’re presidential. And from the moment he showed up at Brebeuf, arriving at about the same time in 2013 as new football coach Mic Roessler, Banks has carried himself as such.

“It was the middle of June,” is how Roessler starts this story …

… and I’m going to fill in some blanks first, OK? Roessler had just been hired from Cathedral, where he’d been an assistant for 12 years. Roessler knew that 2013 Brebeuf team needed a quarterback. He’d heard about the transfer from North Central. Tall kid, basketball player, had played some varsity quarterback for North Central in 2012 before suffering a broken wrist. Roessler heard Aaron Banks was transferring in, but hadn't actually seen him.

And then, this happened:

“It was the middle of June,” is how Roessler started this story from 2013, remember? “I’m passing out equipment. I look up, and it’s Aaron. Big grin on his face that says: ‘I’m here and ready to play.’ I was taken aback by him. The look on his face was: He’s ready to get busy. He believed in me and I believed in him. It was instant. It was weird, in a very good way.”

With Banks passing for more than 2,000 yards, Brebeuf goes 6-3 in the regular season and wins five playoff games. Nobody comes within 21 points of the Braves until the state title game, when Andrean jumps them for a 21-0 lead. Aaron Banks gathers the team and says something along these lines:

We’re not done yet.

By the end of the fourth quarter Brebeuf is within eight points, 35-27, and Banks has the 3A championship game record with 268 passing yards, but he needs 21 more. Final play, Brebeuf on the Andrean 21. Banks is chased from the pocket and has to unload it toward receiver Chandler Grau in the end zone. The pass is thrown in the right spot, but Andrean's pressure forced it out a split-second too soon. As Grau is turning for the back-shoulder pass, it’s another split-second he needs to get two hands on the ball. The ball hits one hand and falls incomplete.

Afterward Banks is taking the blame for a play where there is no blame to assign, just good Andrean defense.

“Aaron’s a very tall, broad young man, and his shoulders were holding our burden of failure,” Roessler says. “He was standing strong – Simon Banks, his younger brother who will be senior (safety) next year, has the same pride – but he was going to hold himself together and continue on being that good positive leader.”

Now Roessler is reflecting on Banks, about to say something that sounds weird, in a very good way.

“I’m from Beech Grove, and I didn’t have a lot of friends,” Roessler says. “We were a small community, and as I reflect back on my first impression of Aaron (after the transfer from North Central), it just seemed like: How does this guy come in from nowhere and people instantly gravitate towards him and they allow him to lead? It was just extraordinary. He had a gorgeous smile, good-looking kid all around, good student, but it takes something more for your peers to look up to you and believe in you instantly. I knew right away: This guy has a presence very few people have.”

Banks goes to Purdue, keeps on winning. He makes the team as walk-on for Darrell Hazell, and he’s the fourth-string quarterback. Comes the 2015 IU game, and the Boilermakers are down to two healthy quarterbacks: Austin Appleby and Aaron Banks. Sure enough, Appleby gets dinged up and Banks has to play a series. Now it’s third-and-5 and he has to pass, and Darrell Hazell’s staff dials up a 4-yard route. Banks completes it, but it’s short of the first down. Darrell Hazell was fired for a very good reason.

That’s the extent of Banks’ playing career for Purdue – 1-for-1 for 4 yards – unless we’re going to talk about the 2017 spring game. And by all means, let’s talk about that. Banks played in it, Purdue’s first under Jeff Brohm, and threw a 24-yard TD to Malik Kimbrough. (See it for yourself.) Brohm’s watching the play, and he’s just giggling to himself. He was new last April, barely four months on the job, but he knew all about Aaron Banks. Sized him up from the start, same as Mic Roessler had at Brebeuf four years earlier.

“We joke in the meeting room that any time we give him repetitions, he gets completions,” Brohm said. “We put him in the spring game for a few plays, and he was 3-for-3 with a touchdown. He just has a knack for getting it done. Goes in and slings it around, doesn’t have a worry about it. Doesn’t overthink it, doesn’t overstress it. He’s just one of those guys where you think: Whatever he’s going to do, he’s going to be successful, and that's why.”

Winners win, right? Banks has been balancing football and engineering school, and doing it with a 3.0 grade-point average that helped him land an internship this summer with the consulting firm Accenture in Chicago. Banks figures the fall semester will be difficult, what with classes and football and his latest triumph, serving as student-body president, but he didn’t run for office just to sit back and thump his chest about winning.

“I have a vision of inclusion on campus and collaboration between all groups, no matter their backgrounds,” he’s telling me this week by telephone. “I recognize that there’s a disconnect between a lot of groups on campus, and with PSG (Purdue student government) being the bridge that bridges the gap between some groups, we can have a more progressive campus and a more sound Purdue community.”

Sounds difficult, but Purdue’s next president is a winner, and winners tend to ... well, you know.

“I try not to have any negative experiences in life,” Banks says. “Losing is more of a mindset, not a statistic.”

So there it is, an explanation: In the case of Aaron Banks, the system is rigged, and he rigged it himself. He doesn’t see losing as an option. It's a concept, a choice, one he refuses to make.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.