Becoming Purdue Pete

A group of 36 students stood in a line, silent, gazing at the other end of Cardinal Court. By the end of the day, two of them would be selected for an opportunity that would change the trajectory of their college career.

It wasn’t a scholarship or a job interview these people were hoping for though; they all wanted to be the next Purdue Pete.

The university hosted tryouts to be Pete on Saturday. Among them was me, an Exponent reporter, taking in the sights and sounds of what this tryout process looked like.

The callout

The night before the tryouts, I attended the callout meeting to become the university's next mascot.

There I filled out a form gauging my interest. It asked what activities I am involved in and I disclosed that I was a part of the Exponent.

Being Pete brings several benefits to those who earn the privilege. Seniors are granted an endowment, the university will fly you out of state to events, travel with sports teams to games, get official merchandise, have access to athletic gyms and trainers; you name it, Purdue Pete probably has it.

But to be Pete, you had to earn it. The Petes ran through what the next day's tryouts were going to look like.

There were two phases of the tryouts - Round 1 was a physical test and the second round was an interview.

As I left the Spurgeon Club that night, I knew what the day ahead of me held, but nothing could have prepared me for what the three-hour tryouts truly had in store.
The tryouts begin

It was an overcast and slightly chilly day on my walk to Mackey Arena the morning of tryouts, and here I was in Lululemon shorts and a Purdue dri-fit t-shirt. A chill ran up my spine, one I wasn't sure stemmed from the icy breeze or my nerves.

At the entrance of Mackey, a paper was taped to the door with the original Purdue Pete on it. Below it read “PURDUE PETE TRYOUTS ENTER HERE.”

I walked through the doors and chatted with a few of the wannabe Petes before we were sent down the stairs to Cardinal Court.

Once there, we all signed a liability waiver and were given numbers that would be our identity for the duration of the process. I was given the lucky number 13.

Out of 36 candidates, only two would leave the tryouts knowing they would be the next Purdue Pete.

At about 10:10 a.m., one of the former mascots asked us to get in line without speaking to one another. We obeyed as the former Petes walked off to talk among themselves.

As we were standing in the line, two other men entered the court and walked up to the free throw lines at two different baskets; those men were sophomore forward Trey Kaufman-Renn and senior forward Mason Gillis. The wannabe Petes were losing their mind but not one said a word to one another in fear of what it may do to our chances.

They soon returned and it became clear that the judges for this entire process were people who were already Purdue Pete. They went through what the day was going to look like, that everyone would be doing a physical assessment and then go through a series of four different stations.

We jumped right into the physical assessment, partnering up with another candidate to do as many push-ups, sit-ups and air squats as we could in a moment.

When we finished, arms and legs sore (or maybe that was just me), the Petes walked off and started to prepare for the part of the test that may matter the most: They were about to see what we could do with the mask on our heads.

The figure 8

Divided into four different groups of nine, the station I started at was the flag-carrying station.

One at a time, we were to put on the Purdue Pete mask (without the signature hard hat and strips of hair flailing at the sides) and run down the court with a giant Purdue “P” flag, wave a figure eight at the end of the gymnasium, run back and finish the fight song in whatever way we saw fit.

The task seemed simple enough.

When the time came, I was sent to the front of the line and picked up the head of my school’s mascot from off the wooden tile of the court. Inside of the head was a baseball helmet that I could squeeze my head into and click on a chinstrap.

Once the helmet was on and my face was gone, a new wave of confidence rushed over my body. I wasn’t the person I was before I put on the mask anymore … I was Purdue Pete.

I picked up the flag with both hands and one of the judges asked me if I was ready. Instead of saying anything (because Pete doesn’t talk), I eagerly nodded my head and waited for my cue.

At the bang of the start of the fight song, I lifted the flag high and sprinted down the court, getting to the end in no time at all. I wasn’t sure how to do the figure eight with the flag, but I could try.

I brought the closest part of the flag between my legs and using my arms, did the figure eight motion and miraculously, everything just worked.

It was tricky to get the flag to stop moving, but when it began to slow down, I turned around and ran back down the court. I was on cloud nine and I wanted to stick out from the crowd.

I took one hand off to get the crowd wild. As I did that, I almost dropped the flag and made a complete fool of myself.

Almost.

I recovered and set the flag back down where it started and immediately started jumping, clapping and doing everything I thought Pete would do to the fight song. I didn’t realize it, but I was entirely out of breath. Every breath and pant I had reverberated in the mask and my dancing was starting to slow down.

The song seemed like it would never end.

When it did, I was a sweaty, albeit smiling, mess. The Pete persona evaporated and wouldn’t return until I put on the mask once more.

Whitewater rafting

For my next task, I was to come up with and perform a creative skit as Pete in just a minute.

My group and I huddled outside doors as we all walked in and out a stairwell where the judges privately watched the skit.

For the last station I had an idea what I was going to do. But for this one, I was almost entirely in the dark.

When I walked in, the judges greeted me with a smile and instructions. Around me were a variety of several bizarre props with seemingly nothing in common: Lightsabers, a giant flamingo inflatable, a golf club, you name it, it was probably there.

My mind went blank when I was told to perform a skit using the props laid out in front of me. As I frantically looked around through the pile, I saw it: a longboard.

At that moment, I felt the spirit of Pete course through my veins.

“Are you ready?” the judge asked, pulling out his iPhone to record my skit. I nodded once more and hid behind the stairwell, waiting to hear start.

When it began, I emerged from behind the stairwell, sitting on the longboard with a long, double-ended hammer in my arms. I used the hammer as a paddle and began a fictional expedition through a raging river.

I rocked back and forth on my longboard, the judges entertaining me and going “woah” with each rapid I rolled over. I tried to fall off a couple times and as I would, the judges would respond likewise with a quip.

When I thought time was running short, I decided that I needed to have an ending to the skit. I acted as if I hit a shore, rolled off the beach and exasperatedly celebrated my arrival.

There was a moment where I stood staring at the judges, waiting for them to tell me I was done.

They didn’t.

I had no clue what to do, so I did the only thing I thought of. I put my arms up, and the judges cheered.

I felt embarrassed as I left the room, but shame was the last thing going through my mind when I wore the mask.

Drunk IU fans and dancing

The last two stations had me responding to gameday scenarios and dancing to a mix of 10 or more different songs.

The gameday scenarios were daunting, but out of all the stations, it seemed the most fun. A group of judges were going to throw a candidate into a series of different prompts and see how they would react.

As I watched other wannabe Petes perform, I noticed that there were some interesting requests.

“Be a crocodile!” one judge yelled.

“Now be an alligator!” another yelled a moment later.

One of the former Petes got up and pretended to be a drunk IU fan, getting in his face and calling him stupid. Another former Pete pretended to be an elderly lady.
One even asked a candidate to be internet personality Andrew Tate.

The possibilities were limitless and I was eager to adopt the persona once more.
When the mask came on and the remnants of who I was before evaporated, I had my tasks thrown out at me.

“Tell me a story!” one of the judges yelled.

I pretended to grab a book from my back pocket and slowly went through the fictional pages.

“Tell me a story without reading a book!”

My mind blanked. I ran over to the judge and started waving my hands in their face, acting like I was talking.

I then began to go through a story of being a cowboy. I stroked my fictional mustache and pulled out a revolver, shooting my opponent before twirling it back into its holster.

“Oh no, Pete! You’re being arrested!”

I ran away from the police with Purdue Petes mask on until I got apprehended by fictional policemen.

“You’re guilty of tax fraud!”

I looked at the judge and shook my head, slipping imaginary money into their pocket.

I got launched into a few other scenarios, but soon my time was up and I squeezed the helmet off for the second to last time.

The last time I wore the helmet was for the dancing station. Me and one other Pete walked into the hallways of Mackey and were told to dance to music like Pete.

When the other Pete and I stepped in front of the judges, I was nervous. Dancing wasn’t exactly a strong suit of mine, but I could get by.

I wasn’t sure what I was planning on doing, so like most things with the tryout, I was just going to jump into it.

However, this mask felt different. It looked more like firm wrestling headgear and I couldn’t for the life of me squeeze it on my head. I gave it a firm shove, hurting my ears a good deal, but it was on and I was ready.

The songs ranged in all different types of genres, mainly consisting of country, dubstep, rock and roll and R&B.

For the rock songs, I acted like a member of the band. Whether singing with a microphone stand or sliding on my knees shredding an air guitar.

For one of the country songs, me and the other Pete locked arms and circled around each.

The mix was no longer than five minutes (or at least felt that way) and before we knew it, the first round of tryouts were over.

As I took the Pete helmet off though, the headgear didn’t quite seem like it wanted to escape my head. For a brief moment, I was stuck in Purdue Pete’s head, the spirit of the mascot seemingly keeping me from taking it off.

I shoved the thing off one last time, walked away from what may be my new identity.

Not good enough

When the stations ended, we all got back in a line and were told by the former Petes that they would put up a sign at 2 p.m. saying who would move onto the last phase of the tryout process: the interview.

I knew while leaving that I didn’t have a good chance to be the next Pete, and as I sat sore and exhausted in the Panda Express on Northwestern Avenue, I got a text from a friend with the numbers going through to the interview process.

“PETE TRYOUTS INTERVIEW ROUND. 2, 14, 24, 9, 15, 29, 10, 20, 33.”

I searched for my number.

But there was no 13.

Though the tryouts didn’t turn out in my favor, having the opportunity to try was truly an experience.

I’ll always remember the 15 minutes when I was Purdue Pete.

In Lululemon shorts.