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GOLD & BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 4 62 BY ALAN KARPICK AKarpick@GoldandBlack.com R oosevelt Barnes is not afraid to express himself, always calling it like he sees it. That is the way he was when he was a student-athlete at Purdue from 1977-81. It is the way he is now as a successful sports agent. It's the only way he knows how to be. Barnes was a one-of-a-kind performer as a Boilermaker, the school's most recent athlete to com - pete in three team sports during his college days. Basketball was what earned him a scholarship to Purdue from his home in Fort Wayne, but football ended up earning him a liv- ing both on and off the playing field. But Barnes was talented at base- ball too, spending three years on Coach Dave Alexander's team, lead- ing the Boilermakers in homers in his freshman and sophomore sea- sons of 1978 and '79. "He was a talented outfielder, but he just couldn't consistently hit a curveball," Alex- ander said. "And eventually guys on the other team figured that out." Barnes on his former coach's assess- ment: "He's right." Still, it took an abundance of self-confi- dence for Barnes to thrive while growing up. And he relied on it to get through what, at times, was a rocky experience for him at Purdue. But Barnes has made efficient use of his brash, in-your-face personality from an early age. "He wouldn't back down from the older guys," said Boilermaker standout guard Eugene Parker who, three years Barnes' senior, played the role of Barnes' older brother while growing up together on the streets of Fort Wayne. "He would give it back verbally, just like he was one of the older guys. That is what stood out the most, his confidence. We're talking about inner-city basketball where it can get kind of rough. There might be two battles, the battle during the game and the battle after the game. But Rosie didn't shy away, not at all. He was like Muhammad Ali out there." Barnes is considered one of the great athletes the city has ever pro - duced. He was an all-state running back who Indiana coach Lee Corso prom- ised would win the Heisman Trophy his junior year and begged him from his knees to don the Cream and Crimson uniform. In baseball, he could hit the cover off the ball, especially if the oppos- ing pitcher was bringing the heat. But basketball was his true pas- sion. "I ended up choosing Purdue be- cause I really liked that they had two guys from Fort Wayne (Parker and All-Big Ten forward Walter Jordan), and Joe Barry Carroll was a fresh- man and he was a 7-footer," Barnes said. "So I felt like that would be the best place to go because I felt they had the best chance to win a nation- al championship. Even though Bob- by Knight was in his heyday at IU and he was interested in me as well, I just did not like him. I didn't like his personal- ity, I just didn't like anything about him." Barnes did like Fred Schaus, the Purdue basketball coach who loved the fastbreak style. And while Barnes didn't play a lot as a freshman under Schaus, he felt his time was coming. What Barnes didn't plan on was for Schaus resigning after the 1977-78 sea - son. Lee Rose was hired to replace Schaus, and at first Barnes thought that was a good thing for him. Rose had recruited Barnes while at his previous employer, UNC-Char- lotte. He had become smitten with Cedric The Confident Fighter Barnes spread his talent to multiple sports during Boilermaker days P R E S E N T S : L A F A Y E T T E L E G E N D R O O S E V E L T B A R N E S Roosevelt Barnes (44), shown here trapping Isiah Thomas in the 1981 game, didn't back down to any- one, including the Hoosiers' All-America guard. What transpired between the two is how legends are made. Wayne Doebling