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FOOTBALL MORGAN BURKE Hope's dismissal. Current Purdue players spoke about what Danny Morgan Burke spoke at a press conference on Sun- day night, after firing Coach Danny Hope earlier Hope meant to them in the days leading up to "The great thing about Coach Hope is he'll always back his players 100 percent. He does so much for us, a lot of which is never really even known or put out there. He re- ally does always have our back and that's why we try to have his back in ev- erything we do on the field and off the field. I re- ally couldn't have asked to play for a better guy. I don't really know how other programs are run, but just from talking to other people and things I've heard, I know it's not always the same atmosphere it is here. I think I'm very fortunate to have a coach like him who really does care about us and wants us to be successful. Senior tight end Crosby Wright Crosby Wright will leave Purdue as a starter and scholarship player, and he credits Danny Hope for giving him a chance as a walk-on. Tom Campbell " in the day. Q: What factor did declining attendance play in your decision? Morgan Burke: "We've lost a third of the fan base. We've gone from about 54,000 paid attendance in 2007, 2008 to 37,000 this past year in paid attendance. The hard thing as I talk to the student-athletes ... I ex- plained to the young men that it's not their fault, they didn't do anything wrong, they certainly gave it their all. I'm delighted the way they ended the season. But we can't do what we need to do resource-wise with los- ing a third of the fan base. Everybody has all kinds of ideas and rationale on what we can do. But at the end of the day, obviously, we've got some work to do to both thank the people who have been with us and stayed with us, but also encourage those who jumped off the boat to get back in. "I don't care whether it's Purdue or Michigan or Penn State, this is a consumer-driven organization. We're self-supporting. Losing $3 million in revenue op- portunities, it's a big deal. I quite frankly think Danny was making inroads, but we didn't win enough games. Q: Was it your decision unilaterally for Danny to not coach in the bowl game? Was that Danny's pref- erence? Was it a mutual decision? Burke: "I talked to an awful lot of people about the " through a month-long period of time when the focal point, instead of being on the student-athletes and on the game, is on the coach who is not going to be there next year. There's family, all kinds of personal issues. I don't want to put a guilt complex on anybody. I just don't want to put a person in a position where it would be very, very difficult. I explained that to the student- athletes. given was, you're better off to allow the focus to be on the kids, and the way to do that is have an interim coach." Q: What's been most disappointing for you this I think at the end of the day the advice that I was year? see the faces on the young men after they lose. I don't like to see the long faces on the coaches whom I have a lot of respect. This is not my athletic department, this is Purdue's athletic department. I happen to be the cur- rent landlord. I know how hard they've worked and how close they've been. It's a game of inches. You always say football comes down to a handful of plays that make a difference every game. We also had some games where we had wide disparity. We have to be accountable that we didn't get the results we wanted to get. "I'm not going to sit here and talk about 25/85 and Burke: "I don't like to walk in the locker room and pros and cons of doing that. The thing that was the most striking to me was the undue pressure you put under the head coach to do that. You're going to go not walk the talk. We said we want to be consistently top 25 in each of our sports, and 85 percent gradua- tion success rate. That is what we're doing. We're going to create the best atmosphere we can for these young people. The effort, the work, the character, there are a lot of great things happening. Those things we want to build on as we go to the next coach. We don't want to lose those. " GOLDANDBLACK EXPRESS • VOLUME 23, EXPRESS 13 • 8