Boiler Suit Guys fixture at Purdue's early season tournaments

Adam Weber and Joe Jud added a new wrinkle to their already snazzy Purdue Boilermaker-themed gold, black and white checkered outfits for this year’s Maui Invitational.

A tie with Zach Edey’s face plastered on it.

It matches everything in their Purdue-related wardrobe, regardless of the color or design. It’s just another conversation piece for Weber, Jud and his friends, who receive cheers and high-fives from Boilermaker fans and draw stares from non-gold-and-black supporters.

They’re the topic of conversation in Mackey Arena and during these Thanksgiving tournaments, where they wear colorful suits. The TV cameras usually find them.

“Boiler Suit Guys” – Weber, Jud, Pat McLaughlin, Kyle Werkmeister and Jon Cothran are considered the core group since they have the full suit outfits – and they follow the Boilermakers to the holiday tournament destinations.

And here they are again in Honolulu supporting coach Matt Painter’s program at the Maui Invitational, despite the detour from the original destination in Lahaina. But only Weber and Jud made the trip to Hawaii – along with their wives – after the tournament was moved due to wildfires on the Island of Maui in August.

Playing the games at the University of Hawaii compared to the Lahaina Civic Center opened up more tickets, even though this year’s field is loaded with highly ranked teams and All-American talent.

“Every single game has a ranked team and Joe and I were looking through and seeing what games we’re going to skip and spend time at the pool,” Weber said. “We couldn’t decide on any of them. We just love watching basketball. Our wives are going to have a hard time pulling us out of the gym and come back and hang out at the beach and the pool.”

VIEW FROM FRONT ROW AT PURDUE TOURNAMENT GAMES

The group begins the process of finding tickets – preferably in the front row underneath the basket but they settled for seats in the second row for this tournament – a year in advance. Weber is already searching for tickets to the 2024 event in San Diego, which features Purdue, Notre Dame, Arkansas and Brigham Young.

“We were having a real hard time getting tickets to Maui because they ended up not releasing any tickets to the public,” Weber said. “We had the flights, hotels booked, and we were scrambling for tickets the last few months.

“The change in destination helped us out quite a bit. We’ll be in the second row – we like to be in the first row – after the tickets opened up a month ago.”

Weber and Jud arrived four days before Monday’s opening round, staying at North Shore on the Island of Oahu before shifting to Honolulu on Sunday and playing a round of golf.  

“We’ll have the shorts on while we’re playing golf,” Weber said. “It’s interesting that the last few days, we’re starting to see other Boilermakers as the tournament gets closer.”

HOW IT STARTED FOR ’06 PURDUE GRADS

After graduating from Purdue in 2006, one method to stay in touch was a trip to Las Vegas to watch March Madness. They started attending basketball events in Puerto Rico, New York, and traveled to the Maui Invitational in 2014 to support the Boilermakers.

That year is when the suits idea started to take shape.

“I think I saw an ad for something and was searching through prints and said, ‘Hey, these might work for us,” Jud said. “We didn’t have bottoms at that time.”

A.J. Hammons drained a last-second shot to help Purdue beat Brigham Young and Weber hugged big man Isaac Haas, who was wearing a vest underneath his jersey.

“I’ll remember that the rest of my life,” Weber said. “He wore a vest for the beatings that he took. It was a great trip. At that point, we were hooked.”

They had shorts in 2014 and started searching for jackets the next year and found gold ones online but couldn’t find the right style of pants. In 2016, they wore full suits to the Cancun Challenge.

The fabric for the pants came from John Daly’s company since its gold was closer to Purdue’s color. They worked with the company for six or seven months in hopes of bringing back the patterns. When Jud contacted Daly’s company, they were discontinuing the materials.

“How much material do you have?” Jud asked. “We bought it out. We took everything they had. Adam made bow ties and vests.”

“PART OF THE PURDUE BAND”

They updated suits in 2019 when the Boilermakers played at the Emerald Coast Classic in Florida.

“The suits were running late, and it was Pat’s first time getting the suit,” Weber recalled. “They were delivered to the hotel the morning of the game. We were ripping through the boxes to see our new suits.”

They walked into the arena before Purdue played VCU.  

“ ‘Oh, I was going to wear that tonight,’ ” one person told them.

Or, this from another bystander.

“ ‘How did you steal that out of my closet?’ ”

They’ll jump in an uber, or a cab and the reactions are what you would think.

“A lot of people staring and wondering what’s going on,” Werkmeister said. “People wondering if we were part of the band. A lot of people now recognize us, and they want to take a picture and join in the fun.”

Purdue was scheduled to return to Cancun in 2020 but COVID moved the tournament to Florida. The Boilermakers played in the Hall of Fame Tournament in Connecticut in 2021 and traveled to Portland for the Phil Knight Legacy last year.

They’ve decorated their jackets with lapel pins from each tournament.

“We try to keep ourselves positive,” Weber said. “The coaches know us and thank us for coming. We’ll talk to the players in the lobby and one player told us in Portland that they were talking on the plane whether we were going to be out there and how it makes us feel at home when see us under the basket when we come out for shootaround. I’m glad we inspire them.”

Not everyone is happy to see the Suit Guys.

“Opposing coaches in pregame, they don’t always have great things to say. Opposing players as well but some are really friendly,” Weber said. “When we played Virginia Tech, one of their players said, ‘You guys rocked it at this tourney.’ They beat us and came up and thanked us. Other players say not so kind of things but we’re here to support the team.”

“I DON’T WANT IT TO GO AWAY”

Jud said attending the tournaments creates a “personalized experience that you can’t get many other places,” by interacting with players, parents, fans and John Purdue Club members. McLaughlin admitted he wasn’t a basketball fan growing up and didn’t follow college sports, preferring to watch hockey, but the trips to Las Vegas started to change his perspective.

“The Vegas trip got me looking at who’s on the team next year, recruiting and started going down that rabbit hole,” McLaughlin said.

Werkmeister didn’t embrace the idea until later when Weber and Jud needed another Suit Guy. He stepped up.

“They got me a pair of pants and a jacket,” he said. “I started going on the trips.”

They opened a Twitter (now X) account (@boilersuitguys) to post pictures and interact with Purdue fans. During last year’s tournament in Portland, they gained 500 followers, and they now have more than 2,000.

How much longer will the “Boiler Suit Guys” continue their travels?

“We’ll be the creepy old guys at the game at some point,” Jud said. “We’re resigned to it. At this point, you have to own it, but I don’t want it to go away.”

Related: Purdue-Gonzaga recap