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ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 3 65 f pectation next year? Burke: "My expectation is for them to get better. I hope we do more than that. But I'm going to tell you, you don't go into any season pinning yourself down here, you do that, you're going to be a loser. You've got to put your expectations up here. That's why it hurts when you don't get to where you want to be. But anybody who has been an athlete or a competitor, you can't go in saying, 'Geez, I hope we can get to .500.' That may be good cocktail table talk, but that's not how you lead and manage a program. Our aspirations will always be to be up here and that should never change." Q: Is there something you can do incentive-wise right now — before the south end zone is done — to encourage fans to come back? Whether that's changing ticket prices or something else? Burke: "We'll look at all that as part of the football marketing plan. We have some bright young people in our marketing area. I think they've done a good job on social media, interacting with the students. I'm sure they'll come forward with some suggestions. But at the end of the day, our ticket prices aren't overpriced in the Big Ten. I don't think it's about getting yourself into the situation where the fan sits home until they get the discount offer, then they come to the stadium. That's a dangerous situation to get into. I'm particularly sen- sitive to the young families. I'm particu- larly sensitive to Tippecanoe County and wanting to make sure moms and dads can bring their sons and daughters to a Pur- due game, whether they went to Purdue or not. We have a huge fan base that we need to cultivate on both sides of the riv- er. That's why Darrell stays in Lafayette. That's a symbolic statement, staying in the hotel in Lafayette. … We've got to find a way, we haven't found a way yet, to make the Tippecanoe County people embrace Purdue the same way that people em- brace Clemson and Auburn. The difficulty is, those schools don't have professional teams. You're sitting there with the Colts and the Bears. … You could have brought a family of four this past year for $50 or $60. That's almost what it'd take a family of four to go see a movie. So I don't think pricing is the only issue." Q: Have you made a decision on turf or grass in Ross-Ade? Burke: "No. We'll look at that. We've agreed we would study that. We've got the turf people on our own staff looking at it. I am concerned about something — there's a lawsuit that was filed in, I think, the East Coast that talks about whether there are any harmful effects from the infill. I want to make sure we under- stand that a little better. We have two FieldTurf fields now. The issue is, 'Do you want something that looks pretty year-round or do you want a surface that I think most players say they prefer to play on?' I'm not sure where we'll end up on that." Q: What improvements are you looking for in 2015? Burke: "I'd like to see the offense and defense con- sistently play at a high level. Last year, it was about the variability of the play from game to game. This year, it was about the variability about one side of the ball in a game and the other side. If both sides of the ball played at their best level this year, I think we would have been ... all the services ... all the food ... all the comfort ... all the fun YourWindow_GoldandBlack_August10_electronic.indd 1 8/20/2010 2:26:24 PM