I was probably 20 when I was working for the Exponent on campus and I visited with Purdue's new football coach, Joe Tiller, for a preseason interview, probably in August of 1997.
I was young and dumb and eager and intent to ask the guy difficult questions about why this chuck-and-duck offense of his was going to work in the Big Ten, with the players Jim Colletto recruited to drive the field a couple yards at a time.
I don't remember if I even asked, because we spent the whole time, if I recall correctly, talking about a boxing career that didn't make it past the first punch, some colorful tales about youth-football teammates — bandits, as he called them — who drove themselves to practice, he joked at the time, and other such topics.
I probably shouldn't have in hindsight, but afterward, I thanked him for being so damn interesting and making the subject matter we were covering so. This was the first time I had such an interview with someone of such prominence at Purdue, and the first who talked to me more like a peer than the kid that I was.
While I was self-aware enough then to recognize that the man was media savvy enough to understand that if you win over the students as a new coach, then you've won the heartbeat of your campus, I appreciated it.
Still do.
Years later, I was older, he was winning big, and I'd still hover around that office from time to time, back before things became so managed between media and their subjects.
When the door was open, there was no walking past it. If you tried, typically it wouldn't work. You'd get called in, like you were trying to sneak into school late.
Usually, you'd walk in that door and walk out an hour later, in some cases without having spoken a word about football. There was the one day in 2004, in the middle of an election season, where we talked politics.
I'm going to miss the man, a man who I've been happy to call a friend for many years now, for which there was never a generation gap, never an inability to relate. That was Tiller — a friend to most everyone.
I'm going to miss calling out west every couple months to see how he was doing, then getting off the phone an hour later, talking about Purdue or the wildlife that might be happening upon his property or our respective health, politics or families or whatever else.
One time maybe two years ago, I pocket-dialed him.
Hour.
I'm sorry I never got out to see him in Buffalo, as I'd told him for years I would as soon as our daughter, Sydney, was old enough to appreciate Yellowstone, to which I've been a half dozen times or so.
Sydney might have gotten a kick out of it.
She's just 10, but might remember the night in the spring of 2008 when we were eating dinner at Culver's and Tiller came in, by himself. His wife, Arnette, had already moved out to their retirement home in Wyoming, so he was by himself, kind of in more ways than one.
Spring ball was going on, but the program was moving forward under newly minted coach-in-waiting Danny Hope. Tiller has long regretted the control he surrendered over his team that year under the circumstances put in place around him.
His role on this particular night: Hit Best Buy to pick up a GPS as a retirement gift for athletic department stalwart Butch Brose.
He saw us as he came into the restaurant, nodded in our direction, then sat and quietly ate.
When he was done, he came over, shoved one of us over and squeezed into our booth, and just chatted for a while. Nothing out of the ordinary for me, but fun for my little girl, I'd think.
This sticks in my memory because of the stark contrast between how Tiller went out — nudged out after folks got tired of Purdue only winning seven games a year — and how he came in.
I don't know, even all these years later, if people fully grasp what the man accomplished at Purdue, how surreal those years were and what his lasting legacy should be. I wasn't around in the '60s or early '80s, obviously, but if Purdue has enjoyed better days, then Purdue is damn lucky.
Tiller changed Purdue.
He changed the Big Ten.
Hell, in some way, he helped change college football.
I don't know if people grasp what he did in West Lafayette. They should, and there really ought to be a statue or something to remind those who might not.
The 1997 season was pure magic — Christmas every week, as I think Tiller once called it — the Drew Brees Years were extraordinary and Tiller's best team at Purdue, top to bottom, came three years after Brees left.
There were fun teams, and fun staffs, staffs who loved each other and loved working for their boss, "The best," as one of them just texted me this morning.
Tiller gave Purdue an identity. He made it matter. He changed the Big Ten in some ways. He was a pioneer, a brilliant evaluator of talent, both of the athletic and coaching varieties. He was no pushover as a coach and undoubtedly difficult to play for at times, but he knew a player when he saw one and knew how to win with them.
And virtually every minute along the way was incredible fun, and like that first interview I had with him, damn interesting. He was honest, to his own detriment at times, but knew no other way. Every second of it was interesting, most of it damn fun. Damn fun to witness, let alone be a part of.
I get paid to use words. I struggle to put into words exactly what Joe Tiller did at, and for, Purdue.
News of Tiller's passing comes as no surprise, sadly. This has been coming for quite some time now.
I last spoke to Tiller in June. He knew the deal then. He was exhausted. It was good-bye. He was thinking weeks, but hoping months. This was months ago. He talked of those who were visiting him and how much he appreciated it, and his voice changed with new life when he talked of how Kyle Orton had just "probably saved my life" by paying for a private plane to transport him from the Mayo Clinic back to Buffalo.
I told him Sydney was old enough for Yellowstone now and that we've been putting some money away for next summer, that we'd pass through Buffalo, as I'd been telling him for years we would.
"You should," he said. "Arnette will be here."
This is a difficult day for a lot of people, for his family, obviously, for the countless players he helped shape, for the coaches he employed who love the man to this day, for people who knew him at Purdue, for people who covered him at Purdue, for most anyone who crossed paths with the man in any meaningful way.
He was flawed like we all are, stubborn as the day is long, as he might say, but he was an original.
Thing about Tiller at Purdue was, the guy he was in 1997 was the same guy he was a decade later. Success never really changed him. He was the same grounded, genuine to a fault, bitingly funny, smarter than hell, loyal 'til the end guy he always was.
There's something we say in times like this but we don't always mean but in this case I'm not nearly talented enough a writer to come up with a better way to put it: He was one of a kind, absolutely, positively one of a kind.
And he will be missed. He already is.
I was young and dumb and eager and intent to ask the guy difficult questions about why this chuck-and-duck offense of his was going to work in the Big Ten, with the players Jim Colletto recruited to drive the field a couple yards at a time.
I don't remember if I even asked, because we spent the whole time, if I recall correctly, talking about a boxing career that didn't make it past the first punch, some colorful tales about youth-football teammates — bandits, as he called them — who drove themselves to practice, he joked at the time, and other such topics.
I probably shouldn't have in hindsight, but afterward, I thanked him for being so damn interesting and making the subject matter we were covering so. This was the first time I had such an interview with someone of such prominence at Purdue, and the first who talked to me more like a peer than the kid that I was.
While I was self-aware enough then to recognize that the man was media savvy enough to understand that if you win over the students as a new coach, then you've won the heartbeat of your campus, I appreciated it.
Still do.
Years later, I was older, he was winning big, and I'd still hover around that office from time to time, back before things became so managed between media and their subjects.
When the door was open, there was no walking past it. If you tried, typically it wouldn't work. You'd get called in, like you were trying to sneak into school late.
Usually, you'd walk in that door and walk out an hour later, in some cases without having spoken a word about football. There was the one day in 2004, in the middle of an election season, where we talked politics.
I'm going to miss the man, a man who I've been happy to call a friend for many years now, for which there was never a generation gap, never an inability to relate. That was Tiller — a friend to most everyone.
I'm going to miss calling out west every couple months to see how he was doing, then getting off the phone an hour later, talking about Purdue or the wildlife that might be happening upon his property or our respective health, politics or families or whatever else.
One time maybe two years ago, I pocket-dialed him.
Hour.
I'm sorry I never got out to see him in Buffalo, as I'd told him for years I would as soon as our daughter, Sydney, was old enough to appreciate Yellowstone, to which I've been a half dozen times or so.
Sydney might have gotten a kick out of it.
She's just 10, but might remember the night in the spring of 2008 when we were eating dinner at Culver's and Tiller came in, by himself. His wife, Arnette, had already moved out to their retirement home in Wyoming, so he was by himself, kind of in more ways than one.
Spring ball was going on, but the program was moving forward under newly minted coach-in-waiting Danny Hope. Tiller has long regretted the control he surrendered over his team that year under the circumstances put in place around him.
His role on this particular night: Hit Best Buy to pick up a GPS as a retirement gift for athletic department stalwart Butch Brose.
He saw us as he came into the restaurant, nodded in our direction, then sat and quietly ate.
When he was done, he came over, shoved one of us over and squeezed into our booth, and just chatted for a while. Nothing out of the ordinary for me, but fun for my little girl, I'd think.
This sticks in my memory because of the stark contrast between how Tiller went out — nudged out after folks got tired of Purdue only winning seven games a year — and how he came in.
I don't know, even all these years later, if people fully grasp what the man accomplished at Purdue, how surreal those years were and what his lasting legacy should be. I wasn't around in the '60s or early '80s, obviously, but if Purdue has enjoyed better days, then Purdue is damn lucky.
Tiller changed Purdue.
He changed the Big Ten.
Hell, in some way, he helped change college football.
I don't know if people grasp what he did in West Lafayette. They should, and there really ought to be a statue or something to remind those who might not.
The 1997 season was pure magic — Christmas every week, as I think Tiller once called it — the Drew Brees Years were extraordinary and Tiller's best team at Purdue, top to bottom, came three years after Brees left.
There were fun teams, and fun staffs, staffs who loved each other and loved working for their boss, "The best," as one of them just texted me this morning.
Tiller gave Purdue an identity. He made it matter. He changed the Big Ten in some ways. He was a pioneer, a brilliant evaluator of talent, both of the athletic and coaching varieties. He was no pushover as a coach and undoubtedly difficult to play for at times, but he knew a player when he saw one and knew how to win with them.
And virtually every minute along the way was incredible fun, and like that first interview I had with him, damn interesting. He was honest, to his own detriment at times, but knew no other way. Every second of it was interesting, most of it damn fun. Damn fun to witness, let alone be a part of.
I get paid to use words. I struggle to put into words exactly what Joe Tiller did at, and for, Purdue.
News of Tiller's passing comes as no surprise, sadly. This has been coming for quite some time now.
I last spoke to Tiller in June. He knew the deal then. He was exhausted. It was good-bye. He was thinking weeks, but hoping months. This was months ago. He talked of those who were visiting him and how much he appreciated it, and his voice changed with new life when he talked of how Kyle Orton had just "probably saved my life" by paying for a private plane to transport him from the Mayo Clinic back to Buffalo.
I told him Sydney was old enough for Yellowstone now and that we've been putting some money away for next summer, that we'd pass through Buffalo, as I'd been telling him for years we would.
"You should," he said. "Arnette will be here."
This is a difficult day for a lot of people, for his family, obviously, for the countless players he helped shape, for the coaches he employed who love the man to this day, for people who knew him at Purdue, for people who covered him at Purdue, for most anyone who crossed paths with the man in any meaningful way.
He was flawed like we all are, stubborn as the day is long, as he might say, but he was an original.
Thing about Tiller at Purdue was, the guy he was in 1997 was the same guy he was a decade later. Success never really changed him. He was the same grounded, genuine to a fault, bitingly funny, smarter than hell, loyal 'til the end guy he always was.
There's something we say in times like this but we don't always mean but in this case I'm not nearly talented enough a writer to come up with a better way to put it: He was one of a kind, absolutely, positively one of a kind.
And he will be missed. He already is.
