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f r o m e d i t o r b r i a n n e u b e r t Open-Door Policy Well Worth It P urdue had maybe a dozen or two, sometimes more, fans dot the sidelines at its training camp practices every day, a few hundred on the occasions it took to Ross-Ade Stadium. So it's not like the Boilermakers' newly opened practices were flooded with onlookers. But openness comes in many more forms than just that of an unlatched gate, and to Darrell Hazell's credit, his freshly implemented culture of inclusion and transparency has paid off. On paper, Purdue is not a Rose Bowl team. I don't think I'm being bold in that assertion. Yet, rarely around here — at least lately — have you seen the sort of anticipation and enthusiasm among Purdue's fan base prior to a football season, even for a team that can be safely (or politely) described as an unknown. You could sense it simply in chatting with some of the fans who attended practices or from reading our message boards at GoldandBlack.com. But you could really sense it on Twitter, which lit up like a pinball machine during our staff's real-time reporting from the Boilermakers' open practices. Twitter, where idiocy meets immediacy, is a lot of things, but it might be the greatest tool known to man right now for generating excitement from all ends of the earth. Mind you, Hazell doesn't just need the support of the locals, those capable of attending practice; as he said when he was hired, it takes everyone. By allowing the media and fans into his practices and not fearing the smartphone like it's some sort of WMD, Hazell opened his program to everyone. A fan in Frankfurt enjoyed nearly as much access as a fan from Frankfort; a fan from London could know just as much as one from Logansport. And we knew enough to give you a fair and realis- 21 IllustrateD volume 24, issue 1 tic portrayal of things. I think I can safely speak for our entire staff when I say it's comforting knowing full well that what you are writing is absolutely true. Instead of just being told something, we saw it, a luxury we've not been afforded since the mid-2000s and one that's become increasingly rare anywhere you go for a myriad of good, legitimate, perfectly understandable reasons. Coaches have every reason in the world to close their practices; but Hazell, in the position he takes this program over in, had every reason to open his. I don't know how Purdue's going to be this year. Opening practices shined a light on many things about the Boilermakers this season, the good, the bad and the ugly, not that there's all that much of the latter. This was a roster Hazell inherited with more problems than Freshman Algebra, one that very much remains a work in progress with a harrowing schedule approaching. No doubt, Hazell and staff have their work cut out for them. But no reasonable person should have thought otherwise. Hopefully for everyone's sake, people take a realistic eye to things, understanding from our reporting or your own observations that Player X standing out against Player Y on the practice field in August promises absolutely nothing when Player X is standing across the line of scrimmage from a Buckeye or Badger or Fighting, um, Irishman. Nevertheless, fans are excited. But what Purdue needed first was for them to simply to care. That's the first win of the Hazell Era in West Lafayette. j Neubert can be contacted at BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com f