Kenny Thompson
Kenny Talks Strong Predictions for Boilermaker Football
The 2022 Big Ten football media days are officially over and the hours of coach speak will be sifted for any nuggets of real information by fans and news organizations alike until the season opener Aug. 27 in Dublin, Ireland when Northwestern faces Nebraska. Illinois also hosts Wyoming that day but the focus will be…
Read MoreThe Unlikely Story of Parke H. Davis and the 1931 Boilermakers Football Team
Until reading “Perfect Warriors,” the story of the 1943 undefeated Purdue football team, I didn’t know Parke H. Davis from Fenway Park. Between 1869 and 1936, when The Associated Press poll was launched, there seldom was such a thing as a consensus national champion. Davis, a former player at Princeton in the early 1890s, took…
Read MoreRanking the Best Purdue Football Players for the Upcoming Season
Where has the summer gone? By the time some of you read this column, Big Ten football media days will be less than 10 days away. Before Jeff Brohm steps to the podium inside Lucas Oil Stadium, here’s one man’s ranking of Purdue’s top 10 players for the 2022 season. 10. Gus Hartwig The third-year…
Read MoreUSC, UCLA Make the Big Ten Stretch Sea-to-Shining-Sea, Plus Notes from Kenny
I’m not old enough to remember when the Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles and the Giants departed to San Francisco from New York’s Polo Grounds. But last week’s news that USC and UCLA were leaving the Pac-12 Conference for the Big Ten had to be a shift nearly as seismic in the sports world.…
Read MorePicking Through the Draft History of Boilermaker Double-Doubles
Jaden Ivey’s selection by the Detroit Pistons in last week’s NBA Draft completed a rare double-double for Purdue athletics. Thanks to GoldandBlack.com publisher Alan Karpick, whose trivia question started this thought process, only four times since the NBA came into existence in the late 1940s has Purdue had a first-round pick in both the NBA…
Read MoreReflecting On the Life of Caleb Swanigan, Plus News and Notes with Kenny
The Allen County (Indiana) coroner declared former Purdue All-American Caleb Swanigan died Monday night of natural causes. I’ll add two contributing factors to Swanigan’s death at the age of 25: heredity and environment. There’s not much any of us can do about our family’s health history. Swanigan entered life with a big strike one in…
Read MoreProfiling Purdue’s Indiana Football Hall of Fame Inductees, from M – Z
While researching part 2 of my series on Purdue football’s membership in the Indiana Football Hall of Fame, one trend stood out. Some of the state’s finest high school, college and professional football coaches had Boilermaker ties. A few, like Gordon Straley of West Lafayette, Pat McCaffrey of Lafayette Jeff and Bob Springer of Indianapolis…
Read MorePreviewing the Upcoming Boilermaker Football Season with Kenny
The arrival of June means one thing to sports fans. No, not the NBA Finals or another month of losing for the Cubs and Reds. It’s time for the first college football season preview magazines to reach your local book store, pharmacy or favorite online retailer. Athlon Sports has released its All-Big Ten Conference teams,…
Read MoreGoing Back to the Jersey Number Retirement Debate with Kenny
A few weeks ago, we explored what would happen if Purdue athletics would reverse its stance and retire numbers of its men’s basketball greats. Now we’ll take a look at which Purdue football legends should have their numbers retired. Unlike basketball, NCAA rules permit duplicate numbers to be worn as long as both players wearing,…
Read MoreWith the NFL Draft Behind Us, Kenny Looks at 2023 Prospects
Now that the 2022 NFL Draft is history, it didn’t take long for national media to start thinking about prospects for 2023. A lot of guesswork goes into these projections. Which incoming juniors will make the jump like Purdue’s George Karlaftis and David Bell? Which seniors will improve enough from their junior years to become…
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