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22 GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATE VOLUME 26, ISSUE 3 it an act of unconditional love. But Barnes is a professional sports agent — a very successful one — and the player Swanigan has transformed into now looks like it was quite the in- vestment, critics would argue. But his best defense against such criticisms is an air-tight, iron-clad one: The kid was like 350 pounds. He could hardly run and he could barely jump, playing a sport in which the abil- ity to run and jump is typically kind of important. The notion that it could have been foreseen that he'd one day be a Mc- Donald's All-American, two-time gold medalist and almost certainly an even- tual NBA draft pick is a stretch of the highest order. But with that said, it didn't take long for something to reveal itself about Swanigan, something special. Barnes is asked about the moment he knew Swanigan would be good, when he realized what the kid might one day be capable of. He points to that day in that gym, when he had to force an obese, but atypically driven, eighth-grader off the basketball floor, despite him being on the verge of collapse. "That's when I saw he wouldn't quit," Barnes said. That was one of the first indicators of the relentlessness Swanigan would team with his massive frame and in- nate basketball skill and understand- ing to become what he's become today. People look at Swanigan in his current form and see a fit 6-9, 250-pounder with wide shoulders, long arms and thick legs, a player so big and so powerful and so unre- lenting that he's leading all Big Ten players in rebounding as an 18-year- old. They see a player who can pun- ish opponents offensively with his back to the basket or manipulate them by stepping out and making jump shots, with passing skills that would put a lot of guards to shame. It's that passing and that cunning as a basketball player that have served as a game-changing complement to 7-footers Isaac Haas and A.J. Ham- mons and made them each that much better. That high-low action Purdue can hit opponents with, with Swanigan as the entry man for one of the centers at the rim, it's quite a weapon for the Boilermakers. "I'd say it's pretty lethal," Haas said. Swanigan — "Biggie," as he is uni- versally known, for fairly obvious rea- sons — is 6-9, 250. But if he were 6-2, 200, he'd still be a very good basketball player. He came to Purdue as one of the best high school players in the country, on a trajectory toward becoming one of the best college players in the country. Why? Because he's big and talented, yes. But more so because of the work, the work and the personal discipline that make him an outlier among his peers, among just about anyone, really. He is, quite honestly, a machine, a meticulous, detail-consumed worker with a thoughtful mind and a deeply analytical way about him. He is busi- nesslike to his very core, only breaking his stoicism to occasionally get mad at himself for making a mistake on the floor or losing a rebound he got a hand on. That's the standard he holds him- self to: Perfection. To achieve it, he's again ma- chine-like in maintaining a grueling workout schedule on top of what's re- quired of him in Purdue's program. He's a seemingly constant presence in an otherwise-empty Mackey Arena, or on an otherwise-unused Cardinal Court, Purdue's practice floor. If not every day, then on most days, Swanigan remains after Pur- due's practices, shooting extra shots, Barnes at his side to serve as his rebounder/sounding board. He's practically as consistent a pres- ence around the facilities as the paint on the walls, whether it be the playing floors, the training rooms, the weight Tom Campbell (Barnes)/Brian Neubert (Swanigan) Roosevelt Barnes formally adopted Caleb Swanigan and has kept watch through Swanigan's early battle to maintain a healthy weight. Barnes, a rare three-sport letterwinner at Purdue (1978-81), knows what it takes to compete.