Robbie Hummel will leave Purdue as one of the most beloved players in its history.
But that's true not only because he happens to have been one of the school's greatest players ever, but also one of its greatest people.
Too often, word of someone being a "great kid" just spreads among those who'd never know and just becomes accepted by the masses. Having known Hummel and his family for a good half dozen years now, I can tell you unequivocally he is the genuine article.
Born to some of the nicest people you'll ever meet in your life without a selfish bone in his body nor an ounce of pretense to his being, Hummel's been that rare star athlete people genuinely connect with in an age where more and more walls are put up between the people and their favorite athletes.
Maybe that connection comes from the fact that people appreciate, or can relate to, the humility, selflessness and commitment to effort that you don't have to actually know Hummel to sense. Chris Kramer was the face of Purdue on the court during its resurgence. Hummel has been the face of its culture, that of hard work, modesty, personal responsibility and fight.
Maybe that connection, too, comes from the fact that he showed up on campus looking like a really tall 12-year-old, sure to have sent grandmas everywhere swooning. Robbie Hummel may as well be your neighbor.
Or maybe it stems from the fact that Hummel's had to stuggle and people feel like they've been part of it.
Hummel's fought to keep his career from turning into a Greek tragedy and that's been a battle waged in a fishbowl with the eyes of the entire college basketball-watching nation fixed to it.
Hummel's been told three times in his career he was, "Out for the season." Twice it's been true.
At times it's almost been too much to bear.
He's lived with the guilt - as if any of it were somehow his fault - of his knee injuries costing Purdue trips to the Final Four. His junior year, that team was going to the Final Four. It just was.
He's played in a turtle shell, stricken by a broken back. He's wrecked his knee twice, the first time in front of everyone to be played on continuous loop on TV and the second time amidst the student body on a busy football weekend on campus, word of the injury breaking hearts in Ross-Ade Stadium like a line of dominoes falling one after the other as word spread.
People felt Hummel's pain when they saw him walking off the United Center floor a year in tears over the demise of the team he couldn't even play for.
Hummel fought to get back, but he's only now gotten back.
As his heart and mind have been willing this season, his body, until recently, hasn't been, and we've all felt his anguish as he's missed jump shot after jump shot.
Hummel may not admit it, but the pressure on him this season was suffocating. Up until recently, this season couldn't have been very much fun.
As he's sat for a year-and-a-half, his legend's only grown. The team he's returned to was a new one, and he was cast into a new role. Gone were JaJuan Johnson and E'Twaun Moore and the greatness the three of them together produced as a threesome.
For the first time in his basketball career, Hummel was the man, asked to carry a team on two creaky knees.
Hummel was never guaranteed the happy ending he's so deserved.
But as his career winds down, things have changed.
Purdue is rolling. Hummel, improbably, is playing maybe at the highest level of his career.
Maybe it was the different anti-inflammatory medicine Hummel's been given that's led to this. Or maybe it's simply honest-to-God triumph of spirit or karma, I don't know.
But no matter what happens from here on out, the fact that Hummel's returned to this form just in time to save his team from NIT irrelevance counts as Hummel leaving a winner. At least in my book.
It's that sort of triumph that people have wanted so badly for Hummel at the end of this arduous go of things the past five years.
Those who must be objective about their subjects, myself very much included, can't be with Hummel. That's been proven through his career. There is no objectivity with Robbie Hummel. There is no other side of that line. If you don't like Robbie Hummel, you pretty much suck.
People have loved Robbie Hummel because of how hard he plays. Because of that pull-up jumper and unique blend of characteristics that just make everyone around him that much better in some form or another.
People love Robbie Hummel because he's the biggest star on a campus of 50,000 people and nationally revered, but hasn't let it change him in any way, shape or form.
People love Robbie Hummel because he does everything right and he treats everyone right.
People love Robbie Hummel because he's gotten the best of a heart-breaking run of calamities that could have gotten the best of him and sent him away from Purdue as The Best That Hardly Was.
But most of all, people love Robbie Hummel because he's just like them, because they can relate to the least superstar-ish superstar in college basketball.
Hummel hates talking about himself. Yesterday, a media horde demanded it and he squirmed.
The question is a premature, but appropriate, one: Will Hummel's iconic No. 4 hang from Mackey Arena's rafters next season alongside that 25 and 33?
Hummel's not going to be a first-team All-American this year, nor will he score 2,000 points.
He knows he'll fall short of those jersey-raising criteria.
"If I don't make it, I don't make it," Hummel said. "It would be cool to have my jersey up in the rafters, but if I don't, I'd completely understand."
That jersey will hang.
Trust me.
Or trust classmate Lewis Jackson.
"That No. 4 will definitely be up there," Jackson said. "... He's done great things and will go down as one of the greatest to play here. He'll never say it's going to be up there, but we're sure that No. 4 will be up there in the rafters."
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