Purdue got win but night belonged to Tyler Trent
Cancer-battling student saw prediction play out
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The miracle wasn’t what was happening on the field, though what was happening on the field was rather remarkable: Purdue was beating No. 2 Ohio State, beating up the Buckeyes, moving all over the field and getting into the end zone and denying Ohio State the same privilege. This was a Purdue team that began the season with three consecutive losses, and the Boilermakers blew out the undefeated and No. 2 Buckeyes, the scoreboard showing a 49-20 victory as tens of thousands of Purdue fans swarmed the field, covering it from sideline to sideline, from end zone to end zone.
That wasn’t the miracle. Games never are, you know? But people are miraculous, and what was happening in a suite high above the field at Ross-Ade Stadium was something along those lines. It was a Purdue student named Tyler Trent, a young man from Carmel, a sophomore who has battled cancer and battled it and battled it — and here he was, at this stadium, in this suite, making a return to campus that doctors said couldn’t happen. He withdrew from classes this semester to come home, where he is in hospice care, refusing to give cancer what it has come several times to take from him.
“Had to be here,” Tyler is telling me before kickoff, though that’s not the last time I saw him Saturday night. After the third quarter, with Purdue leading 21-6 — before D.J. Knox busted a 42-yard touchdown run to make it 28-6 — I’m leaving the press box for the suite level, where the Purdue pep band has come to play the fight song outside Purdue President Mitch Daniels’ suite. One door down is Tyler, in the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research’s suite. Daniels has spent time Saturday night with Tyler as well, because Tyler is the magnet attracting the rest of us like steel shavings, and after the third quarter Ty- ler is sitting in his wheelchair, in his gaudy Purdue blazer, overlooking the field. Tyler is sitting next to his father, Tony, and he is beaming.
“Told you,” is what Tyler tells me, and he’s right, he did. He has been telling anyone who would listen that Purdue would win this game, which is why he had to be here, even as his kidneys are failing him and the nephrostomy tubes placed in his kidneys are failing him — the tubes leaked several times during the week, sending him to the hospital — and weeks ago he lost the use of one arm and both legs.
How Tyler made it to this suite, well, that’s a story. Condensed version: A Carmel police escort led the family out of their neighborhood, past the stone column with the yellow “Tyler Strong” ribbon on it, past the neighbors who were standing on the side of the road, cheering Tyler toward what could be his final trip to Purdue. In the car with them is a Secret Service agent, the kind who protects the president and vice president, an agent who had come from West Lafayette to ride with the family. With a wave of a credential, the agent got them through checkpoints near the stadium.
How does a Secret Service agent end up in Tyler Trent’s car? Well, the Secret Service was at Purdue anyway Saturday, doing training with local officials, but also this happened a few weeks ago:
Tyler’s cellphone rings. He doesn’t recognize the number, but he’s been getting calls and visits from all sorts of new friends. Purdue football coach Jeff Brohm has been here, and Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri, and even Tom Rinaldi and the ESPN “GameDay crew,” which aired a feature on Tyler earlier Saturday. Tyler answers the phone. “Tyler?” says the voice on the other end. “It’s Mike.”
Mike who, Tyler asks.
“Mike Pence.”
It’s been like that.
Tyler Trent’s fight with cancer has captivated all of his campus, much of the state and even parts of the country, and Saturday night was something that everyone who loves Tyler Trent — that list is long, and I’m on it — wanted to see happen:
We wanted Tyler at this game. And, yes, we wanted Purdue to win it. For Tyler, you understand? Win it for Tyler. Which is what Purdue’s captains had told him they would try to do a few weeks ago when they visited him at his home, bringing the game ball from their victory at Nebraska.
At kickoff, after a social media campaign that went viral — urging Purdue fans to replace “IU sucks” with “Cancer sucks” as the kickoff descends — the crowd does it: “Cancer sucks!” yelled thousands of people, and in the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research suite, Tony and Kelly Trent are cheering: “Woo hoo!” And now Tony is leaning into his oldest son, into Tyler, and Tony is saying just as tenderly as you can imagine:
“All for you, son.”
Tyler’s lower lip is quivering. What gets him emotional through this process, so much more than his own plight, is the way the world around him has responded. His roommates at Purdue tattooed Tyler’s T-squared logo onto their bodies. Colts mascot Blue, also known as Trey Mock, met Tyler the first time in costume and then just kept coming back to Tyler’s house, over and over, not as Blue but as Trey, as Tyler’s friend, bringing him hugs and sandwiches and pizza, whatever would give Tyler a sliver of happiness. Those are the things that make Tyler emotional, as did the sound of thousands of strangers yelling in his honor: “Cancer sucks!”
Down on the field, during the game, this was Purdue coach Jeff Brohm in all of his swashbuckling glory, going for it on fourth down on one drive and faking a field goal on another, and being rewarded by a touchdown payoff at the end of each. The first fourth-down play was a success because the design was genius, while the second was a success because the punter is one tough son of … well, Joe Schopper is a tough dude.
This night belongs to Purdue. And because he represents the very best of Purdue, because he has been embraced and championed by Purdue, this night belongs to Tyler Trent. As the blowout is unfolding in the fourth quarter, I visit Tyler one last time. He’s watching from his wheelchair and his Purdue blazer, and he’s beaming, and he’s telling me: “It’s beautiful.”
In my head, as I’m walking out of his suite, past the pep band, past Mitch Daniels’ suite, I’m correcting this miracle of a young man:
No, Tyler. You are.