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VOLUME 27, ISSUE 2 43 — for the Boilermaker big man. He's spoken often of being more comfortable, more relaxed than he was at any point in time last season. But "relaxed" is a relative term and in this case, shouldn't be taken as any reason to believe that the things that have made Swanigan tick, that have made the former high school All-American great, have been compromised. This is a player that's taken pride in carrying himself like a professional, the player last season who'd show up for practice already drowning in sweat from his pre-practice workout, who'd then stay after that prac- tice to shoot more jump shots on his free time than many of his peers would shoot in a month. By no account will any of that change this season. Swanigan's always been defined by his drive and all that comes with it, and with potential college stardom, significant team success and an NBA career in his sights, that's not about to change. What might change — or what has changed — is that now, he might just have a little more fun along the way. Prior to that Spain trip, Swanigan took to Instagram to lampoon his teammates, one by one, an online roast of sorts with just him as the roaster. It endeared Swan- igan to the Purdue fan base in a way unseen since he (sort of) announced his landmark commitment two springs ago with a simple "boiler up" tweet. The social media skewerings showed a more human side to a player with an almost robotic approach to bas- ketball and a singular focus on just that. "I have just learned to enjoy Purdue more off the court, and with my teammates," Swanigan said. "It's not to say I wasn't happy last year, but this year it's just a different type of happiness." Coming up as a basketball player, Swanigan has worked and willed himself into a position where he could make things look easy on the floor, in the sense that he was simply better than most of the people he played again. As a freshman at Purdue, things weren't easy, for any number of reasons. He arrived on campus in West Lafayette mid-sum- mer, later than usual for freshmen. He had a good reason — he was overseas winning his second gold medal — but it made for a shorter run- way to acclimate to his new team and his new campus. And his coaches. As Matt Painter says, "trust isn't handed out at the door," and that was a process. "It definitely took time (to trust them), and it took time for them to trust me," Swanigan said. "It took time, and it's hard for coaches to trust a freshman the way they do two seniors." It was indeed a process. Swanigan handled recruiting with a certain distance about him, a businesslike approach that didn't compel him to take many campus visits or spend a lot of time Tom Campbell Caleb Swanigan is showing a lighter side, but his intensity has not waned.