Purdue football performance complex could be 'catalyst' for program, school

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Purdue was all about the pomp and circumstance Friday night inside Mollenkopf.

A stage set up near midfield at the indoor practice facility was draped with gold and black balloon towers.

Other “balloons” scattered in the area were lit and shifting colors.

The two projection screens were providing an up-close view of the action for the folks sitting at tables in the back.

The cameras were rolling for the live-streaming service to people who were watching elsewhere.

Former football players who’d won Super Bowl championships weren’t only on display for the group of 500 or so attendees that included current players and coaches, administrators, former players and John Purdue Club members — they were regaling the crowd with stories from those title games and their Purdue experiences.

The shovel handles were emblazoned to mark the occasion — “Purdue University Football Performance Complex Groundbreaking, April 15, 2016” — and the shiny gold hard hats were gleaming with the motion P logo.

The ceremony was, in a word, an event.

But all that was running through junior linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley’s head was “don’t mess this up.”

Bentley was the current team’s representative to don one of those hard hats and be handed a shovel and stand alongside president Mitch Daniels, athletic director Morgan Burke, Board of Trustees chairman Mike Berghoff, coach Darrell Hazell and future Hall of Fame QB Drew Brees to take a symbolic plunge into a square of sod to represent the groundbreaking of Purdue’s upcoming $65 million, 110,000-square foot football performance complex.

And the guy who has so quickly become a face of Purdue’s program with his ferocity as a middle linebacker was feeling the nerves.

“Something that easy, I would find a way … I was like, ‘What if I knock the whole grass thing (down)? (They’d say) Ja’Whaun Bentley, on this day, messed up the whole program.' So I was just trying to keep it low key,” said Bentley, smiling widely. “I watched President Mitch dig in with his foot, so I was like, ‘All right, seems like a good idea’ — because at first I had no traction. So I was just trying not to mess up.”

After the ceremony, Bentley was searching for the hard hat and the shovel he’d absent-mindedly left on the stage.

He was searching even harder for words to describe the moment.

“It was definitely … it’s a big deal,” said Bentley, needing to pause. “I’m very honored to be in the position I’m in. (No.) 1, to be a captain of this football team, and I know we’re going to do big things. To just know all the alumni, all the past players, Drew Brees, Akin Ayodele, Rosevelt Colvin, Bob Griese, all from the past, people who are still playing, just to know everybody is behind you in everything you do, it’s a blessing to have so many eyes on you. It puts the pressure on. You know everybody is looking forward to you to do well, so you don’t want to disappoint.

“I can’t wait until this thing gets put together. Right now, I’m just worried about this season, but down the line, you’re excited to see what happens with this because it’s going to help with recruits and it’s going to solve a whole lot of (logistical) problems for us and issues that may come up in the future. It just makes a little bit happier to have things like that going down. It’s definitely a good feeling.”

And, though it was a symbolic groundbreaking Friday — the actual groundbreaking and construction will be begin on Monday with an expected completion date of Aug. 24, 2017, which happens to be Bentley’s 21st birthday — it was a crucial event not only for the football program but for the athletics department and for the university, Burke, Berghoff, Daniels and even Brees said.

It was Brees who hosted a “summit” in San Diego to entertain key members of the program for a brainstorming session about the future, and that meeting altered the course of Purdue’s “master plan” in football. Initially set on rebuilding the south end zone, the focus shifted to a facility that would directly impact current players by giving them a more expansive weight room, a more efficient work space that included a locker room and meeting room in the same building and a complex that could also wow recruits.

In this performance complex, designed by Populous, Purdue thinks it accomplished all those goals.

“For student-athletes, it’s about convenience and it’s about state-of-the-art stuff, and that’s what this performance center is,” said All-Pro linebacker Ryan Kerrigan, who has pledged $250,000 toward the project and was at the event. “It’s new, it has all the new-age stuff, and it’s convenient. You have many different areas to maneuver to get all your stuff done. And having everything in one area will also help with team camaraderie because players might hang around the players’ lounge a little more, spend a little more time together. That stuff, while it may seem small, translates to Saturdays.”

It does much more than that, administrators say.

It also signals a commitment to athletics and the football program by the president and the Board.

Daniels said it “astonishes” him when people will actually ask if he and the board are committed to football.

“Any idiot who has to ask that question is about to get 65 million answers,” he told the gathering Friday.

In his comments to the crowd, Berghoff said the board, the president and the AD care about excellence — and “that includes winning.”

“It’s the reason we made a commitment to build this football performance complex. It’s going to be the quickest way to accelerate our path to winning. From that investment, we expect a return,” Berghoff said. “It’s going to start with a bowl championship. It’s going to start with a division championship. It’s going to be a conference championship, a Rose Bowl championship and a national championship. It’s OK to talk about winning because that’s what we expect.”

Laying a foundation for winning with the complex was part of a pitch that Burke was planning to make to Daniels in an October meeting last year. They’d spoken about the project just a month before in September — Burke even joked he’d become a “pain in the neck” because he was so intent on having something for the fans by December. But Burke intended on making what he called a “closing argument” at that regularly scheduled October meeting.

He didn't have to.

“I had rehearsed it for a month,” Burke said after the ceremony Friday. “I knew we had tremendous support, but I also knew there was a risk. And we didn’t have all the Is dotted and the Ts crossed. We didn’t have the guaranteed price for the bids. We hadn’t raised all the money. We didn’t know where the bond markets would be. We talked in September, and I said, ‘My biggest worry is we’ll get to December and our fans are expecting something to happen. They’ve heard this planning, planning, planning.’ I said, ‘We’ve got to have an answer of what we’re going to do.’

“So I got ready. It was like law school again. I was prepared. I knew it had to be three, four minutes. It had to be crisp and to the point. He had seen my agenda. I always send an agenda a week in advance. We sat down. He said, ‘You got it. We’re doing it.’ I had him repeat it. ‘We’re going to do …?’ ‘We’re going to do the football performance complex.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s great.’ And he said, ‘And we’re not going to wait to announce it. We’re going to announce it now so people understand we’ve got a vision for the future.’ It was a pretty powerful statement and the board has backed it up with action. They get it. They can see if we do football right how it can impact every other thing. And there are so many things that are happening in this university that are off-the-charts. This just helps you create the front porch and football is the light on the front porch.”

Brees has been one of the loudest advocates for the program, speaking first with finances — he and wife Brittany, a fellow Purdue alum, pledged $1 million to the project — and then, on Friday, in words.

Brees was front-and-center at the event as one of the 10 Super Bowl champion Boilermakers in attendance and one of four who participated in a Q&A session with Tim Newton on stage, but he also closed the ceremony by grabbing the mic and offering a reminder of why he was there.

“It was an honor to be here to announce what is a grand vision for Purdue athletics, for Purdue football, (and) really for the entire university,” he told the crowd. “The sport of football has given me so much. It’s taught me so many valuable life lessons. It’s certainly paved the way for me. … Just like coming to Purdue was a catalyst for what has been opportunities in my life, I know this project and this vision is going to be a catalyst for many, many more great things ahead for Purdue University.”

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