In my experience in dealing with people. Particularly, people who are college students. More particularly, drunk college student sports fans who are unhappy with the state of their program. One surefire way to make sure they will DEFINITELY do [something], is by telling them “You are not allowed to do [something]”.
I believe this was sent as an email, as it’s addressed to “Paint Crew Members”, which appears to be what the Purdue Boilermaker’s basketball student section calls themselves.
Obviously, this message is in regards to Purdue’s wildly inept football team, and their head coach Ryan Walters. Walters, in his first season with Purdue in 2024, finished 4-8. Now, in his second season as head coach, he’s an abysmal 1-8. Their only win came in Week 1 against Indiana State. Take away the Indiana State game, Purdue’s team point differential is 113-340. They are a bad football team.
So bad that Gus Johnson doesn’t even raise his voice when they let up a defensive touchdown.
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And it certainly doesn’t help that their arch rival Indiana is 10-0, with a head coach in Curt Cignetti who was available & dying for a chance to coach at any major conference program at the time of Ryan Walters hire.
Clearly, fans of Purdue athletics (of which there are some) are none too happy with the current state of their football program. I’m sure Purdue’s athletic department is feeling the heat. So naturally, when you find yourself in that position, the first thing you want to do is make sure NOBODY involved with Purdue Football, or the athletic department as a whole, gets their feelings hurt. Directing athletics is hard. Coaching football is hard. Ryan Walters is trying his best. So just to be safe, the bright minds in the Purdue athletics department had the foresight to send a stern letter to their students reminding them that mean words are not tolerated in West Lafayette (unless of course they’re chanting “IU sucks” in a middle of a non-conference game vs Northern Kentucky).
If The Paint Crew has any balls whatsoever, then the crew members are printing up 1,000 “Fire Walters” or “Fire Whoever Purdue’s Athletic Director Is” shirts as we speak. They’ll wear them as undershirts to the game vs. Yale tomorrow, and when the clock strikes 15:00 in the first half, the entire student section removes their overshirts and starts a “Fire Walters” chant that rings through Mackey Arena.
I’m not plugged into the Purdue University athletic scene nearly enough to know if that’s truly how all their fans feel. I have to imagine if the university felt it necessary to send that letter, then enough of them probably do. Based on Twitter, they sure seem to.
But on principle alone, if your school sends you a stupid fucking email telling you that you’re not allowed to voice your displease with them… whether it’s with the football coach, or the AD himself (who’s probably one of the people, if not the main person behind this letter)… then you HAVE to voice your displeasure. Loudly. Listen to Anthony B. Lennen.
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You can’t be silenced by an email if you ever want to have success. There’s not a respectable program in the country who sits idly by and thinks to themselves, “Yes, we’ve pretty much sucked ass for as long as I’ve been alive. But the heads of our Athletic Department have families to feed. They’re real people with feelings just like us. We don’t want to be disrespectful, or do anything to jeopardize their livelihoods.”
Except for Indiana football. Who basically did that exact thing until somehow the best coach in college football who nobody knew about fell directly into their lap
