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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 27, ISSUE 4 81 An extensive conversation helped the team whittle down dozens of options for core values, starting by eliminating similar words, like "family" vs. "sisterhood," until the team ultimately settled on four. Then, they met with Purdue's leadership advisor Cathy Wright- Eger to define what each word meant. That process essentially took the entire fall semester. Why so much emphasis and time spent developing core values? Why exhaust so much intellectu- al energy on that piece of a program that has finished above .500 only once in the past four seasons and has had only one winning Big Ten season in that same span? For De Oliveira, it's simple. "Character drives winning. Bot- tom line," De Oliveira said from her office in early February, a week before her team started its season with a 1-5 trip at the Kajikawa Clas- sic. "If we're going to have strong, independent women in our pro- gram, we want to make sure we're doing our part to develop character. They're already good ballplayers. We have to fine-tune them and help them get to the next level, but they got here because of their talent. What's going to take them to the next level is continuing to develop that team character as a whole." To that end, grit, family, dis- cipline and fortitude have been burned into the consciousness of everyone involved in the soft- ball program. As is often the case these days, it's become the hashtag (#gfdf) that punctuates all of the coaches' and program's tweets. The "grit" piece seemed natural, What's in a name? Amanda Rivera had heard of her. Mostly because of the name. "We played against each oth- er when I was at University of Illi- nois-Chicago and she was at Wis- consin. We weren't friends, but I knew who she was be- cause her name was Boo," said first-year Purdue softball assistant coach, now Amanda Rive- ra-Eberhart. "I mean, wouldn't you be like, 'Who's this clown behind the plate?'" Rivera-Eberhart is laughing, at her introduction to Boo Gillette. Laugh- ing, too, at the interesting turn of events. More than a decade later, Eberhart is coaching alongside Gillette, now De Oliveira, whom she calls a "good egg" and the type of person you want to surround yourself with. Naturally, though, everyone questions what the real name of that good egg is. Certainly, Boo is a nickname? It started that way. She was born Laura Gillette. But she also was born very fair with plat- inum blonde hair. "From the day I was born, I was called Boo," De Oliveira said. "Pre- school, school, you name it, everyone called me Boo." As she got older, she kept pestering her parents to legally change her name. They told her to hold off, wanting to make sure it wasn't a decision she'd regret working "in a board room when you're older." By the time she graduated from Wisconsin — the school that sent a national letter of intent with her name as Boo, not Laura — she made the move to change her name. It is now legally Boo Laura Gillette De Oliveira. "I wouldn't even turn around if someone said 'Laura.' It would not even occur to me that they're talking to me," De Oliveira said. "My husband — his name is Emerson — when he tries to explain to people, 'My wife's name is Boo,' it's always a giggle because they're like, 'Oh, that's what you call her?' 'No, that's her name.'" — Stacy Clardie Purdue Athletics