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BS Reader Athlete Stories: Home Court Advantage

You may recall a long time ago, I asked you to send in stories regarding Purdue athletes. Then that feature died on the vine because I'm lazy and also because my life interfered. However, we didn't forget about them and the best ones ran over the past couple weeks. Today's is the last one, for now, and is my favorite. Enjoy.

Today's story is from a gentleman who prefers to remain anonymous.

Though this is not about meeting an athlete, its about my time spent on the floor of Mackey as a photographer for the DEBRIS, Purdue’s yearbook, in the late 80’s early 90’s.

As a perk I was able to sit on the baseline of many home and away basketball games and taking pictures.  Many don’t know this, but the yearbook had large remote strobe lights mounted to the light bar on the ceiling of Mackey. I had a remote attached to my camera that when I snapped the shutter the strobe would go off to help the poor light situation.

One game against IU, I was on the opposite end of the court from where an IU player was shooting free throws. I manually keep hitting the strobe trying to throw him off. He missed the front end of a 1 and 1. He complained to the ref about the lights and the ref kept looking around trying to figure out who was controlling the strobe light.

I played stupid and never got caught. I was the 6th man; Purdue won the game by one point.

Home court advantage.