Painter Paints Domer Country Black and Gold

Tonight Andrew, Andrew's dad Tom, and I went to the Purdue Alumni Association dinner.  It was at the Morris Park Country Club.  This place is extremely nice.  In fact, Andrew checked the website and there are no prices for membership on the website. You just have to "apply".  Yiiiiikkkeeesss.

Anyway the food was amazing.  The guest speaker was even better.  The St. Joe Valley Purdue Alumni Association was able to get Coach Matt Painter to speak at tonight's function.

He was a fantastic speaker.  He had all kinds of great stories.  Let's see if I can recall a couple...

Painter talked about one of the former players who came to the dinner tonight. These players grew up in the South Bend area, went to Purdue and came back to the area afterward.  One of the players in attendance, Jaraan Cornell, went to Clay High School.  Painter was telling us that when he does Walk-Throughs during practice, no one is allowed to talk or mess around in any way.  No noise.  No one dribbling a basketball or anything distracting.  Until one day, a guy walks in and starts shooting hoops during their Walk-Throughs.  Painter doesn't even acknowledge that the guy is totally distracting the team. One of the players finally says, "Who is that guy that's shooting hoops and why is he allowed to do that during our Walk-Throughs?"  Painter says, "That's Jaraan Cornell and if you score 1700 points for Purdue, I'll let you do whatever the hell you want, too."

Painter said that he sat down with one of the players, Matt Kiefer. Kiefer told him, "Coach, I can't play when Coach Keady yells at me."  Painter said, "Matt, did you have a TV down in Evansville?"
"Yeah."
"Did you watch the Purdue games on that TV?"
"Yeah."
"And what did Coach Keady do during those games?"
"He yelled."
"So what did you think would happen when you got here?"

During the Q&A session at the end of his speech, someone asked Painter what he thought about the NCAA violations not following coaches when they switch from job to job.  Painter said, "Well you know it's funny.  I just read this article the other day where Jerry Tarkanian once said, 'The NCAA was so mad at Kentucky that they put Cleveland State on probation for two more years.'"

The dinner and banquet were excellent.  There was a live auction where they had people bid for basketballs signed by Matt Painter.  They also had a silent auction. It made me wish I brought more cash.  There was some great stuff on the tables.  Tom decided to bid on the Purdue bib. 

He WON with a bid only a dollar over the original price! SWEET! All the money goes toward scholarships for local students going to Purdue so money well spent.

The only problem was being that it was a local dinner, many people that I work with in my office were at the dinner.  I haven't informed any of these people that I am expecting. They announced all the Silent Auction winners and said, "The winner of the BABY BIB is TOM THORNBURG."  One of the guys comes up to me after the event and says, "So... I heard you won a bid item."  Whoopsie! Haha!


And now... finallly.... the great reveal.... the BEST part of going to the Alumni dinner.....

They were able to get a picture with Matt Painter!! How cool is that??????? Is he tall or what?
I practically forced them to stick around and stand in line to get a picture with him.  They thought he would have to race out of there.  But it took about 5 minutes and they were shaking his hand! I'm so glad we got this picture. Very exciting!