My 2 cents worth.....
I have had some interaction with now President Chiang over the last few years, though am far from someone that is close to him personally or professionally. He is probably one of the most driven and most competitive people you are likely to meet. I can see him wanting to win everything all of the time, including athletics--some of this is first hand observation in non-academic situations. Even if he is not a complete sports nut, I have zero doubt that he is pragmatic enough to understand the value that high-performing athletics has from a marketing/visibility standpoint for the university.
The Tik Tok ban is no doubt an extension of Keith Krach's tech diplomacy efforts. I believe both Krach and Chiang crossed paths multiple times during both of their stints in D.C.
President Daniels was very good for Purdue. I was somewhat skeptical when he has brought in, but both first-hand interactions with his office on some items and seeing what he has done for the university at large, I think he did a great job.
I was actually fairly excited about the Cordova hire because I had thought Purdue needed to adjust some of their academic concentration, rather on building infrastructure or further expanding research-for-hire centric goals and I thought that her background was going to be a good fit. I agree with the former poster that mentioned that Purdue's academic status slipped under her, but as we saw, her fundamental understanding of how create a vision and lead toward that vision was terrible. She also could not see value in things that she was personally interested or vested in. (i.e. athletics). I know several people that had to work with her and the examples of how terrible she was to work with makes me wonder how Purdue retained any talent at the top of the university. Even though some of the anecdotes come from my best friends and I have zero doubts as to their truths, I did not personally witness them and so won't publicly publish them. Rather, if you have friends in Purdue's administration during her reign....ask them.
This has become a Wole-worthy (inadvertent Seinfeld reference?) length post. Boiler UP!