Where is Purdue University? Why is the team called the Boilermakers?
Purdue could make history by winning their first NCAA National Championship. They are known as the Boilermakers, but why?
Everything is ready in Phoenix, Arizona, for the biggest university basketball event in the world, the NCAA tournament final clash. No. 1 seeds UConn and Purdue will collide at State Farm Stadium in Glendale for a place in the university basketball’s history.
The Huskies will be looking to defend their title and win it for the sixth time. They will also try to establish a perfect record of six wins in six National Championship games, while the Boilermakers will try to become champions for the first time. They played a Championship game in 1969, but they lost to UCLA.
Purdue will be led again by their main star, center Zach Edey, one of the best players during the tournament, averaging 28 points and 15.4 rebounds per game on 65 percent shooting.
Where is Purdue University?
Purdue University is a public land-grant research university located in West Lafayette, Indiana. It was founded in 1869 after businessman John Purdue donated land and money to establish a college of science, technology, and agriculture.
Purdue has 18 intercollegiate sports teams and more than 1000 student organizations and enrolls the largest student body of any individual university campus in Indiana.
Why are Purdue students called the Boilermakers?
Purdue University has had successful sports teams since its foundation, but the origin of the Boilermakers comes from its football team and a rivalry with a neighbor city’s team.
In 1889, the team traveled to Crawfordsville, Indiana, to take on Wabash College, who ended up being defeated 18-4. That loss had a big impact in Crawfordsville, and the town began calling the Purdue team “a great big burly gang of corn-huskers,” “rail-splitters,” “foundry molders,” and “log-haulers”, among other nicknames.
Both teams used to play quite often by then, but in 1891 Purdue dismantled Wabash College 44-0, and the local press didn’t hold back writing about that result. The Daily Argus headlined his story saying “Slaughter of innocents,” followed by “Wabash snowed completely under by the burly boiler makers from Purdue.”
Since then, all of Purdue’s teams have been known as Boilermakers, an alias that had great acceptance, probably also because Purdue’s engineering students often worked directly with the tools. In fact, Purdue’s engineering department kept an operational steam locomotive from 1891 to 1897, The Schenectady, as part of their research work.
Today, the university’s official mascot is a mini-locomotive known as the Boilermaker Special, although Purdue Pete is the one showing up in the games in Purdue’s sporting events.