Gold and Black is a multi-platform media company that covers Purdue athletics like no one else.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/620595
24 GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATE VOLUME 26, ISSUE 3 cipline atypical of a person his age. Swanigan pushes himself so hard he has actually built up a tolerance to work. Seriously. "He's built such a high capacity for doing work," said Josh Bonhotal, the team's sports performance coach, "that the things we'd call a recovery workout for him, most people would call conditioning." Swanigan is so diligent in his process that he said, perhaps jok- ing, perhaps not, that when Pur- due played on a neutral floor in Connecticut earlier this season, he struggled slightly because his rou- tine was thrown off. He says later that in games this season he's felt the effects of the foods he ate beforehand, only to cut those foods out and turn out better for it next time out. Again, machine-like. It was just a few years ago that Barnes chopped up spinach and used chili as a Trojan horse to trick Swani- gan into eating "anything green." It was just a few weeks ago that Swanigan crashed on the couch in his apartment alongside his adopted dad, eating from an oversized bowl full of those very leaves when he could have been eating anything he wanted. Instead, just a bowl of spinach, with grilled chicken and fruit. No dressing, even. This work ethic, this personal dis- cipline, fit Swanigan well as he joined Purdue's program. Much has been made of the Boil- ermakers' re-established "culture," some of his bedrocks being work eth- ic and the intangible of keeping one's mouth shut and doing, as Matt Painter so often says, "what you're supposed to do." When Swanigan committed to Pur- due, he did so as perhaps the most significant recruit in program history, maybe even more so than Rick Mount or Glenn Robinson given the changing times and shifting contexts. There can be perils to such things. Maybe if Swanigan were different, if he didn't work as hard, if he car- ried himself with a little more entitle- ment, he wouldn't have assimilated as seamlessly as he has to a winning team that returned largely intact after thriving last season without ego, and would have done so again this sea- son even if the elite recruit had opted elsewhere. Upon his enrollment this summer, he immediately endeared himself. "I think he lives the type of life where that is his fun, that is his plea- sure, being businesslike and working hard," said Rapheal Davis, Purdue's alpha from a leadership perspective. "He's a guy who enjoys his work, en- joys his craft." Purdue has a really good, maybe even great, team this season. If the first dozen games are any indication, there might not be a cap on what the Boilermakers are capable of. Haas and Hammons are huge parts of that. So are Davis, Vince Edwards and all the others who are contributing critically for a team that's running 10 men deep. But Swanigan may already be the biggest piece. The offensive dynamics he's brought to the floor in the context of Purdue's big — literally — pic- ture have made the Boilermakers unique. He is already a game-chang- ing presence on the glass. When Purdue played Florida in Con- necticut, the Gators fouled Swani- gan at least five times on rebounds. He changed the game barely even touching the basketball and he sent a message: That Purdue was going to be the physical aggressor. Probably not coincidentally, op- ponents have had a funny way this season of buckling down the stretch. Part of that is Purdue's depth. Part of it has been some timely three-point shooting. But part of it too has been the constant strain Purdue's physical nature and size puts on other teams. It's taxing. Swanigan puts a face on it, a mean, mean face. His size, power and sheer will are more than a lot of opponents can handle and those who can may not be able to for 40 minutes. Davis is Purdue's emotional leader, the face of the heart the Boilermakers pride themselves on playing with. Haas, with his believe-it-or-not di- mensions, is the symbol of the physi- cal gulf opponents must overcome to have success against Purdue. But it's Swanigan's relentlessness, that nastiness, that might send the strongest message of all: Any team that tries to take a rebound from him or a win from his team is going to have a fight on its hands. That's the sort of mentality that's helped make Purdue good this season and could make it special in the long run. Swanigan's special, or so Barnes told him immediately upon bringing him into his Fort Wayne home. That was the message, that Swani- gan would be "special," whether it be in sports or whatever walk of life he chose. Anything short of excellence wouldn't be accepted, Barnes told him. That was the message, because that's what he saw in the then eighth-grad- er, as much intellectually back then as