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PECK OUT TO PROVE SOMETHING Errick Peck always knew he could play at this level, in the Big Ten, where the Cornell graduate has landed as a one-year transfer to Purdue. It's been a circular journey, though, from Indianapolis, to the East Coast, then to West Lafayette. Even though Peck was an outstanding high school player and an Indiana All-Star years ago, the market for 6-foot-6 post players wasn't exactly booming, as it rarely is. So Big Ten schools, and other high-major programs, passed, including Purdue, which was already in the Cathedral High School gym anyway to recruit Kelsey Barlow at the time. "I guess people didn't think I was going to develop into what I am now and didn't think I was going to have the work ethic and skill to step out on the perimeter," Peck said. "They thought I was always going to be a post player, so that was frustrating. I had a couple offers fall through, but I'm not going to live in the past. It is what it is. Everyone has a naysayer so I just take it as motivation. I still have that chip on my shoulder coming from Cornell because I feel like a lot of people don't believe I can play." Peck says he's living in the present, which has him situated at Purdue under the most roundabout of circumstances. The Indianapolis native went to Cornell, where a knee injury suffered as a junior prevented him from finishing a productive career as he would have liked. Ivy League rules prevented him from finishing his career there at all. In the academically prestigious conference, graduated players are ineligible to participate in athletics, unlike other leagues, where it's not uncommon at all for fifth-year seniors to compete with degree in hand. So in a small bit of irony, had Peck not gotten hurt and redshirted as a junior, he never would have landed at Purdue. Displaced by his ineligibility to compete any longer at Cornell, Peck became a free agent, open to pursue a one-year scholarship elsewhere and as it turned out, finally get the chance he coveted out of high school: To play at the highest level he could. 34 IllustrateD volume 24, issue 2 "Things have come full circle," Peck said. "I didn't expect to be here and I'm happy to be here and I plan on making the most out of it." In high school, Peck was mostly a post player, more or less a center. At Cornell, where he was part of a Sweet 16 team, he developed into more of a wing. With the Boilermakers, he projects to play the "power" forward position, where he hopes to be a productive rebounder and defender and a skilled enough player offensively to play away from the basket and complement A.J. Hammons or Jay Simpson or whoever's playing center. "I think I'm strong enough to hold my own inside so I'm not worried about that," said Peck, who's 6-6, 225 pounds or so. "Rebounding the basketball is more effort than anything. I just need to make sure I come out and just be consistent when I get on the floor. "From an offensive standpoint I feel like I have the tools that if the player guarding me is slower, I'm going to blow by him; if he's fast I'm going to try and post him up and score inside. It just depends on who's guarding me. I don't want to pigeon-hole myself as this or that. I just want to do whatever it takes to score the ball." Peck and fellow fifth-year senior Sterling Carter were brought in this spring not only to contribute as players but to also provide solid, experienced, mature presences for a team that needed such things. "It's funny because when I first went to Cornell I was more of an immature player," Peck said, "and I see a lot of the guys do the same stuff I did when I was younger. It's one of those things where you've f