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54 GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATE VOLUME 26, ISSUE 3 Q: You mentioned the emotion of the fanbase. It's fair to say a lot of people were frustrated. Was there a point at which you thought that keeping the fan base believing you were moving forward required making some sort of a personnel change? Burke: "No, because I'll tell you what happens: You can make the fan base happy in November by hitting the reset button only to make it worse next year. All you have to do is look at programs that have gone through this. Football is not like basketball, where if you get two or three kids you can flip the program. It takes a steady, consistent pipeline. … I'm going to make the fan base happy by not hitting the reset button because we're go- ing to deprive ourselves the opportunity to see if the path we're on is going to get us where we want. That's the decision Virginia Tech made (with Frank Beamer). That's the decision Iowa made. And I've been around long enough — and maybe for some people too long — but I'm going to make that call. That's my call to make. I conferred with the President. I conferred with the Board chair. I shared my logic. They concurred with my rec- ommendation. But it's not popular to people who have already made up their minds. But, hitting the reset but- ton just starts things all over again. I think throw(ing) in the towel right now would be really premature, given some of the names of the young people I mentioned ear- lier and the way they performed this year." Q: Before the season, you talked about being in the "fourth quarter" of your tenure. How import- ant is it for this fourth quarter to be a good one? Burke: "Every year should be a good one. I could be hit by a bus tomorrow. You don't know when the good Lord is going to come calling, so I'm not going to get into one of those things. It's important to me because we've invested a lot of time, energy and effort into the process of Darrell's selection, the things we've done to enhance sports performance, the things we've done to try to enhance elements of that plan and you'd like to see it be successful. "Next year is no different than any other year for me. Purdue athletics will move forward beyond my days at a point in time. I'd like to see all the teams (do well). I still think 25/85 is within our reach right now. Men's basketball is 11th (in early December), the women got some votes. You look at the number of teams that are nationally ranked, I like some of the things that I see that I haven't seen before. "But this one (football) has to work because it's the financial lynchpin of being a self-supporting auxiliary. I thought we'd show more progress. We didn't. We didn't meet our expectations and we know we let a lot of peo- ple down." Q: In the change of objective with the facilities, where do things like sound, video board fit into the picture? Burke: "Phase 1 is the concrete repair in Ross- Ade. … Phase 2A is the football performance complex. (Phase) 2B is the renovation of the Brees Center, the lower level. (Phase) 2C is the repurposing of the Mol- lenkopf, upstairs. (Phase) 2B and 2C have no timeline. We just know they need to be done. But they're not a critical path. (Phase) 3A — and these are my terms — is the technology in the stadium. That would be the lights, the sound system, large video board in the north end and a ribbon board. … So there will be a pathway to the future that will, I think, make sense to people, but our focus right now will be on the performance complex. That'll be Job 1. "My hope is we'll put ourselves in a position where the technology piece doesn't lag too far behind. We know with 14 teams and the network agreements being negotiated, while we don't know the output of those ne- gotiations, we do expect there to be more night games. So permanent lighting is absolutely essential. If we don't have it in right away, we can use the temporary solution of Musco (Lighting) and the like and that will get us over the hump. But the technology piece affects all fans, whether they're in the premium areas or the non-premium areas. I think we have some room for im- provement in those areas. To me, 3A has a higher pri- ority than 2B and 2C, but we need to have a road map for how we're going to move forward. You really can't do anything in Brees Center until you move the team and get some permanent space and locker room space in the stadium because they have to have space on game day. So we'll have some issues like that to work through, but my hope is we'll be able to show you at least a pathway to the future and what it could be and then take the next bite, which is the performance complex." j