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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 26, ISSUE 6 66 together as frequently as possi- ble, remembers the time well. "When I played for Jim, we were all almost intimidated because he's a bigger-than-life guy and it was very much of a coach-play- er relationship," said Quinn, a captain for two seasons. "I got close to him (again) at our 25th reunion (of the 10-win '79 team) and I reached out to him because I wanted to make sure that team had a lot of guys back. That's re- ally when I started to make an effort to keep our team together, and Jim came back for our 25th anniversary and the time melted away. "Then the following February, Mark Herrmann, Bart Burrell and I went out to Tucson to play golf over a couple days with him and ever since then it's been nonstop. I see him at least once a year and sometimes two or three times a year. We have a reunion every year for our team in Chicago, and he came to that this year. We had about 45 guys back. We're a very close group of guys, the coaches too." At the 12th-annual Honors Din- ner for the Joe Tiller Chapter of the NFF, Quinn was instrumental in getting back about 40 former players and players' wives. "It was great to see all those guys back to honor Coach Young," Quinn said. Quinn may not admit it publicly, but he knows better. True, those players came back to honor Young, but the man that keeps the team united is Quinn. "Pete has a wonderful gift of keeping everyone together, and that is because he does it like he does everything else — he works at it," said Herr- mann, a 1980 All-American who introduced Quinn for induction at the NFF dinner and successful- ly got Quinn out of his comfort zone with some friendly barbs. "He is relentless in his approach of reaching out to others and it has made all the difference in keeping us all together and supporting each other as we go through life." Quinn came to Purdue after being recruited by Young's predecessor, Alex Agase. But it didn't take long for Young to rely big on Quinn. In his redshirt freshman year of '77, Quinn be- came a starter in Week 5, which happened to be the most one-sided loss of the Young Era, a 46-0 Purdue Quinn brought leadership and optimism to Purdue football during one of the most successful periods in its history.