Bob Hunt is not a football player. Actually, he’s not
much of an athlete whatsoever. But he is a wannabe soccer hooligan
who likes to go on road trips. As a football writer for The
Michigan Daily, Bob will travel to each Michigan road game and
chronicle his experiences.
- Angela Cesere
- At 3 a.m., Bob decided not to “Go Ugly Early.”
This week I headed off to West Lafayette, which, before this
weekend, was my least favorite town in the Big Ten (I’ve been
to all of them except for Iowa City). Unfortunately, this week did
little to change that.
• The epicenter of the campus nightlife at Purdue is the
strip of bars that align State Street. By far the most famous of
the establishments is Harry’s Chocolate Shop, which has been
at its current location since 1919 and is right below the current
residence of quarterback Kyle Orton. Although the place started as
the first soda fountain in West Lafayette, there weren’t too
many people drinking Coke. The place also featured a help yourself
popcorn machine. Harry’s is most famous for all the
memorabilia it sells with the slogan “Go Ugly Early.”
The phrase apparently means that a guy down on his luck should talk
with the ugly girls at the beginning of the evening instead of
trying after he has been rejected by the good looking ones (another
bar nearby has a sign outside that read “No Uglys
Allowed”). While I don’t know for sure, I’m
guessing the phrase stems from the large engineering presence at
Purdue. It was clear that it was a male-dominated campus. This was
most evident in the late-night burrito line, which at one point
featured 24 guys and just one girl. That can’t all be
attributed to the place’s freaky mural featuring
burrito-headed basketball players in bizarre poses.
• After recent trips to Bloomington and Champaign, the
campus bar scene here seemed pretty tame. I don’t want to
sound too derogatory, but the one thing I noticed was that the town
seemed much more blue-collar than any other place I have been to
this year. I could definitely tell that I wasn’t on Main
Street in Ann Arbor. But ironically, a colleague of mine was denied
access from two bars for wearing sweatpants.
• Other than what was shown on television, the most amusing
part of Saturday’s game was the Captain Planet-style
introduction shown before Purdue took the field. It started with a
spaceship featuring a Michigan logo crashing near the field, and a
gigantic robot walking out. This prompts Purdue coach Joe Tiller to
hold up his special ring, creating a light that could be seen all
over campus. Orton and his friends came to the rescue. If you want
to learn more, make sure to check out the “Jumbo
Heroes” trading cards available by the Purdue athletic
department. But I’m sure that these people were much bigger
heroes three weeks ago.
Bob Hunt wanted everyone to know what he did with his weekend
instead of studying for his accounting test tomorrow. He can be
reached at
“mailto:bobhunt@umich.edu”>bobhunt@umich.edu.