'When I’m back in Toronto, I’m just Julia.' Zach Edey's mom reflects on Purdue journey and more

In Toronto, she’s known as Julia Edey. However, in West Lafayette, the mother of the reigning Big Ten and national player of the year has become a magnet for selfies and autographs and receives one of the loudest cheers when she appears on the video board inside Purdue’s Mackey Arena.

“When I’m back in Toronto, I’m just Julia,” she told GoldandBlack.com during an hour-long sit-down interview at a West Lafayette coffee shop. “A friend of mine who came up from Toronto said, ‘Another person asked for a selfie?’ It’s really bizarre.”

That can sum up the journey Zach and his family have been on since arriving in West Lafayette four years ago. From a possible redshirt candidate who started taking basketball seriously at 16 to logging 35 minutes per game against the nation’s top programs and helping the program earn the No. 1 spot in the polls the last three years, Zach Edey – and his 7-foot-4 frame – has become one of the best stories in college sports, and not just basketball.

The odyssey continues Saturday when fourth-ranked Purdue takes Edey to his hometown of Toronto to face Alabama as part of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame series inside the nearly 8,000-seat Coca-Cola Coliseum.

The game was announced before Edey had decided to return to the Boilermakers after considering entering the NBA Draft last spring.

“It’s amazing and they’re excited and it’s neat because Zach is embraced for being different and being the same,” Julia said. “Everyone feels like he’s one of their own but there’s this specialness that he’s our Canadian guy. I love that the John Purdue Club is going up and supporting it and seeing Toronto.”

But a big piece of that story is Julia. She has been embraced by Purdue, local and college basketball communities due to her infectious and outgoing personality and her involvement in local charity organizations, leading to her enormous popularity.

She grew up in the suburbs of Toronto where she worked at her family’s restaurant – “Chinese food, mostly take out,” she said. Julia is a mechanical engineer by trade but held various jobs for 30 years, including teaching nuclear theory. She’s always enjoyed gardening and now operates three beehives in the spring and summer and shares the honey with the coaching staff and players.

She’s volunteered at the local Food Finders Food Bank and Natalie’s Second Chance Dog Shelter in Lafayette where she walks dogs in the winter. She adopted Natty, named for the shelter after Julia changed it from Gabby, in the spring of 2022.

“I wanted to give back to a community that’s been really great to Zach,” she said.

During the COVID season, Julia invited the team over to her West Lafayette Airbnb on a regular basis and cooked meals for the players. It’s still ongoing. She worried the players were not eating enough fruits and vegetables and would set out cucumbers, peppers, carrots, grapes and strawberries before the main course.

“It was a trick I learned when my kids were young,” said Julia, a mother of two – Zach and Doug. “While they’re hungry, give them fruits and vegetables because they’re going to think this is the best thing ever.”

She’s prepared a variety of meals, including a cream of mushroom and white wine chicken dish that prompted Mason Gillis to ask for the recipe. She’s considering putting together a cookbook of the dishes for a fundraising project.

She does, though, want partial credit for Will Berg’s commitment.

Zach and Ethan Morton were Berg’s recruiting hosts during an official visit and Julia made waffle ice cream sandwiches, a favorite of the players.

“They guys sat around, and I do believe, probably for Will, it was a different recruiting visit than most,” she said. “ You’re hanging out with parents, at least a mom, and they’re playing cards, and it is really low key. It’s the vibe of his team. And then afterward, and Will is a sweet kid, a day or two later, he committed. I was like, ‘It was the waffle ice cream sandwiches.’ ”

On the eve of Zach’s return to his hometown, Julia reflects on the journey since arriving at Purdue, how she’s been embraced by the fanbase and community, her background as an athlete, why she paid $110 for a sushi lunch in Florida and goes through her son’s process of deciding whether to return for his senior season.

GoldandBlack.com: I don’t know how often you reflect on this, but from the time you first came to Purdue to where things are right now, how often do you think about that and how do you put that into perspective?

Edey: It’s funny. I think that because this is my last, his last year at Purdue – I feel like I’m getting my degree at Purdue. I think I’m reflective because it’s his senior year and because in a way, it’s a bonus year. After the second year, coach Painter was saying ‘We’re not getting Zach for four years.’ He was pretty sure. I think it was between the second and third year before Jaden (Ivey) left, I actually said to him: ‘Where’s Zach going? Are you cutting him? Is he transferring?’ He said these are conversations I’m having with Jaden. And you know coach Painter, he’s super upfront, right? He said he just wanted to prepare us for where we were going. That was the year Zach was going to go to the Junior National stuff in Latvia. He and I were talking a lot because we were trying to figure out how that space looked and how we were going to make this work. I remember that was the first, ‘OK, he might not be at Purdue for four years?’ It’s been a pretty tumultuous path in a good way. And we knew it would be a bit crazy when he got to IMG he had been with one AAU team. It was really busy and had lots of interest, but we didn’t know what we were doing. Is he going to come out as a 2021 and all sorts of stuff and then he reclassified. It was really busy before that and that was part of his recruitment that got messed up.

I’m more reflective this year because this fourth year is a bonus. It really is. I’m happy for him. It’s amazing. I thought maybe between the third year and maybe we’ll see what happens in four years, but when Painter talked to me after the second year, I was like, ‘Whoa.’ He’s telling me he’s not expecting to see him, and so I better get ready for that.’

GoldandBlack.com: And that’s a good thing?

Edey: It was a great thing. And it’s a strange thing when your kid starts basketball and the first goals – I wonder if he could get a D-I scholarship? For him, he wanted a D-1 scholarship for baseball. And then it turns out it’s going to be basketball. Who knew? And then, wow, it’s going to be a Power 5 school. Holy smokes. That’s cool. And then it’s going to be in Indiana where basketball is a religion. OK, here we go. And then to have the coach tell him after a couple of years in, I don’t think I’ll get to keep him for four years. It’s a really good thing. Zach takes it in stride. I do all the things like, ‘Let’s see, how does that fit?’ That’s the way I work. It is amazing and funny because this year is more reflective particularly because it’s a bonus year for sure. Besides that, I’m determined to make sure that I do the things that I want to see, too. I have friends who haven’t been able to come up because of COVID or distance – and this Toronto game is going to be ridiculous. It’s amazing because he’ll be able to play in front of a home crowd. I have friends who were up here a couple of weeks ago, and I have another friend in Canada who’s up right now, and she’s never been to a college game.

GoldandBlack.com: When they announce Zach’s name, the whole crowd chants “Edey.” How does that make you feel?

Edey: That’s so much fun. When they did it the first time last year, did I hear that right? I literally thought that didn’t really happen and when you reflect and it’s so fun being here with you because of the reflection – and I do enjoy interviews sometimes because it takes me back to those kinds of pieces. I remember the first couple of games, they called him “Eddie.” I remember saying we’re going to have to fix this really quickly because otherwise, it’s going to be mispronounced for the rest of his career. You have the whole stadium, not only saying his name but pronouncing it right.

GoldandBlack.com: That has to make you feel …

Edey: “Goosebumpy.”

GoldandBlack.com: When you got here, you probably never expected that.

Edey: No. I’ve seen it, and I don’t do it very much now, but in the beginning, I was very much tracking social media. What’s the feeling around him? There was a lot of skepticism, right? Who’s this kid? He’s not very athletic. We’ve got Matt Haarms, why do we need another one? We’ve got Emmanuel Dowuona. We’ve got Trevion (Williams) and it was, ‘Come on Painter and that type of thing.’ I remember being like, ‘OK, buddy, you’ve got your work cut out.’ And then all of sudden, COVID year and Matt Haarms leaves, and I remember messaging Zach saying, ‘Are you ready? He replied, ‘I guess so. Let’s do this.’

GoldandBlack.com: Your status and I don’t want to call it celebrity status, but you’ve become a community icon.

Edey: It’s lovely. They’re not intrusive. I don’t look at social media to know what other fan bases think of me. I don’t need to know that. There’s a lot of gratitude from myself but also from the people. It’s a little bit strange, but at the same time – in a weird way – Zach and I are people that have always stuck out. I don’t stick out as much as he does but there’s not a lot of 6-foot-3 Asian women walking around. You get a little bit, not used to being unusual, but maybe those little pieces, and you think, ‘Oh, wow, this is just another step of the journey or whatever it is.’ It took a little adjusting. Last year, when it started coming up, this was weird. This is really weird. How is it that I walk around, and people might know my name? It’s all because of Zach.

The place I’m staying at right now, the neighbors said, and it was very sweet, and it came from the heart, ‘I’ve been a Purdue fan for 20 years, and I’ve never seen a parent embraced like this.’ It’s easy, though. The community is great. The kids on the team have been great for years. Zach allows me to be part of it. Some weird things like COVID have lent itself to it and otherwise, I might not be doing things like I did. It didn’t make sense to go back to Toronto a lot that first year because I’d have to quarantine for two weeks every time I went. It’s pretty darn neat.

GoldandBlack.com: You mentioned the Toronto game. What will that mean to you, the family, and his friends to play in a game in his hometown?

Edey: It’s weird because people ask me, ‘Is Purdue going up to Toronto just for Zach?’ I say, ‘They’ve never been up there before so I’m not sure.’ They scheduled the game before Zach knew he was coming back. It’s going to be amazing and it’s neat because he’s a hometown boy. Last year when Purdue – I don’t know if you knew –  but Purdue bought those billboards and had some across Indianapolis, one in Bloomington, one in Kokomo. They had one in Toronto right in the heart of Toronto. I hadn’t seen it because I was up here for Naismith and all of Zach’s stuff. I had people messaging me saying, ‘I ‘ve just been to Young-Dundas Square and Zach’s head is on the billboard.’ That’s pretty crazy. We’ll have a block of 50 people that’s my family and friends and Zach’s people. Another set of friends of about 20. It’s going to be peppered with people. It is special. You know this is something Purdue doesn’t do normally. Why on earth would they decide to go up to Canada? The fact that they do something like this does speak volumes.

GoldandBlack.com: What’s your athletic background? Did you play sports?  

Edey: I did. I started basketball super late just like Zach.

GoldandBlack.com: Were you playing hockey beforehand?

Edey: I was not (laughing). I was playing baseball and running track. It was funny because I’m between two brothers and there’s a bunch of siblings, but I happened to be sandwiched between two brothers and my older brother, the poor guy is only 5-9, and it was hard for him because he had a sister who was 6-1 at that time. He was helping coach a women’s (basketball) team and he said, ‘You know what – can I get you to start playing basketball next year?’ I always liked sports. When you grow up between two brothers, you’re either going to love it or hate it. I was a bit of a tomboy. I started in Grade 9 like Zach did. Women’s basketball – this was a long time ago – really wasn’t what it is now.

When I started playing, there was no 3-point line. The WNBA wasn’t a thing yet. And culturally, my parents were like, you know, sports is fine, but it’s just a game. It’s recreation. There were marks (grades), piano, and work at the restaurant kind of thing (to focus on). I ended up running track and did running and triple jump and stuff like that and my brother threw the discus. I was getting bored with the track events and then I was with him – he’s four years older than me – and he’s great. I picked up the discus and asked: ‘How do you do this thing?’ He showed me and it was pretty cool. Most girls who throw the discus are a lot thicker than I am, but I have the levers because I’m so long.

My two bits of fame is when I was in Grade 10 I broke the city record throwing the discus. The record was held for seven years but I still came in second because the other girl broke the record as well. I broke a record and got a silver.

GoldandBlack.com: Where do you get your height from?

Edey: My dad is 5-10. My mom was about 5-9 but she’s gone now. For a woman, that’s very tall. I actually take the blame and credit for Zach because I do believe that it comes more from the mom’s side than the dad’s side. In my family, there’s always a cousin that sticks out not to my extent because my older siblings are about 5-9. I’m 6-3 and my younger brother is about 6-1 ½. I’m the spike for sure. There’s a spike that happens every once and a while. There are cousins who are on the taller side, especially for Asians. Generally, we’re not that tall. Zach is a crazy spike, and his younger brother is about 6-5. There’s still some height going on for sure. Zach’s dad is 6-4. I don’t know. There’s some kind of recessive gene that keeps popping up.

GoldandBlack.com: You’ve had trouble finding size 20s shoes for Zach.

Edey: We’ve had so much trouble. When he was in that spurt from middle school to high school, one summer his shoe size grew two or three different sizes. If you found one, you didn’t stockpile them because a month from now those shoes are going to be no good.

The worst was when he was in baseball and changed over to steel cleats. He was so excited that year because they were going to be using wooden bats and steel cleats. All the kids were so excited that year. His feet were already past the size, and we couldn’t get him into steel cleats. He was in plastic cleats and then we had to find any shoe that we could and custom cleat them in the States and get them sent back. There was one pair of shoes that I thought was a deal. We bought them for 40 bucks and by the time we sent them, cleated them and the mailing and going through customs, it was about $300. I said to Zach; ‘You had better treasure these.’ As a pitcher, he would “toe off’ those shoes and they didn’t last long. Are you kidding me? I thought he should pick up beach volleyball where there were no shoes at all. This is crazy.

GoldandBlack.com: What were Zach’s dimensions when he was born?

Edey: He was 11 pounds, 3 ounces. The average baby is about 7 pounds. That’s a pretty substantial uptick. He was almost two feet, and the average kid is 20 inches. The first words from the doctor – this baby never ends – and followed by this kid’s head is huge. 

GoldandBlack.com: You mentioned you were knitting at a game, and you played the piano. Are those two of several hobbies that you’ve done?

Edey: I used to knit like a crazy person and I’m not very good at it. I learned when I was a kid and tinkered around and wished I had paid more attention. I’ve become a beekeeper. This is my bee tattoo, the first place I got stung (finger). Started that when I was 50.

GoldandBlack.com: Do you do that here or in Toronto?

Edey: I do it in Toronto. I have brought some honey. The coaches have some jars of honey from my beehive and so do the guys.

GoldandBlack.com: Do you sell the honey?

Edey: Depends on how much there is. I do know enough people who ask, ‘Hey, do you have any honey?’ The raw honey is different. It’s amazing. I’ve been building it up. I now have three beehives and it’s starting to get more and more steady. It takes a lot to learn. It’s perfect. In the winter, the bees don’t do anything and guess where I’m at?

GoldandBlack.com: Why the interest in bees?

Edey: I was a big-time gardener. I loved gardening ever since I was whatever. As I got older, I had thought I would open a little hobby garden center, and then I turned 40, and then at 45, I was like, I can’t imagine hauling dirt. This is crazy. Let’s find something else. I started getting interested in the plight of the bees, and that concerned me more with the flowers. I wondered if I could get a little hive to support my garden. I started looking into that and I ended up when I turned 50, this is the year – ‘Let’s do this.’ This is my marker. Most people get a sports car, but I was like, ‘Let’s get some bees.’ That’s what I did. I loved it and now it’s flipped. I keep the garden for my bees, and I thought I was going to keep my bees for my garden. Having said that, it wasn’t well planned. Beekeeping is really heavy work. You’re carrying 60 or 80 pounds, and I wasn’t going to carry dirt but I’m going to carry these boxes around.

Zach likes the bees. He’s a funny guy. I’m 56, and six years ago, he would’ve been 15. He’s very supportive but he doesn’t get too involved. We’re pretty separate, even though I know everybody thinks we’re super connected. We are (connected) but we’re fairly separate. I remember coming back from my beekeeping course and I was telling him – ‘I’m buzzing’ – and I was excited. I remember him saying, ‘You are making me want to be a beekeeper.’ He thought it was so cool.

And for me, I guess, turning 50, I thought I had learned about his whole new universe. You’re in the middle of your working career but it really got me going, He thinks it’s pretty neat. He has some friends who are really into nature and stuff and he’s seeing it through their eyes. It’s cool what my mom does. It’s quirky. At one point when he said he wanted to be a beekeeper, I said, ‘OK, maybe I’ll get a hive and call it Z’s Bees.’ My younger son is Doug, and maybe I’ll make one for Doug, and it will be ‘D’s Bees.’

GoldandBlack.com: NIL opportunity?

Edey: It sure is.

GoldandBlack.com: You’re retired now, right?

Edey: I am retired.

GoldandBlack.com: Where does that interest in engineering come from?  

Edey: I’m a mechanical engineer by trade. I was an engineer in the nuclear sector in Ontario for 30 years. I graduated in 1990. We were on the edge of a recession. I was looking at GM and big plants, and I was in manufacturing, and it’s a special branch of mechanical. Looking at GM, Ford and they were recruiting hard. All of sudden, we hit kind of a recession and GM was laying off but they were still hiring engineers, but I thought if the car plants were laying off, the steel plants were going to be on their heels. It was more of, ‘OK, it’s a pretty stable place to go’ and the year before, I had worked in their maintenance shop.

It’s a big enough company,  a well-respected company – Ontario Power Generation. It used to be called Ontario Hydro. I got into there, and there were a couple of branches I could’ve picked. I went into inspection, which was neat because it was varied work. Either you’re out in the fields, or inspections at the power plant doing stuff and taking results. I did that for 30 years. It’s a big enough company that you move around. I spent 22 years in the field. I spent three or four years teaching nuclear theory … I remember I’ve always thought teaching would be interesting. I went and applied, and they had a course – science fundamentals. I’m an engineer. I can teach people science. No problem. The first day they said, “and it’s nuclear theory. Oh, my god what did I just do?’

It was a lot of fun.  After I realized I’m not teaching nuclear physicists; I’m teaching people who are learning how to operate the reactor. The way I taught them was very much how I would want to learn. It is given to them in bite-sized chunks. It was a great job. For the last couple of years I worked in regulatory affairs end of things. That’s a little stickier and lots of paperwork. I wanted stability with the recession coming and I wasn’t into the oil rigs. You make money hand over fist, but I didn’t know if that was the lifestyle I wanted.

GoldandBlack.com: Growing up, did you do engineering things in school?

Edey: I was mechanical-oriented and was good at math and science. I wanted to be a veterinarian but didn’t think I had the brains for it. I suck at biology, and I thought, ‘You kind of need that.’ My mom wanted me to be a pharmacist. I didn’t like chemistry and my sister went into engineering. She’s a civil engineer. I wondered what’s that all about. It’s a bit of a jack of all trades – you can go anywhere in it and seemed like a good one.

When Zach was being recruited to Purdue and the coaches were trying to establish a relationship and coach (Steve) Lutz was on one of my calls and he said, ‘I was talking to Zach and Zach told me my mom is an engineer and coach Lutz said, ‘Purdue is a great engineering school. I told him, ‘I have my degree and Zach is not going to be an engineer.’ And then I came to campus and I geeked out. I was like, ‘Neil Armstrong went here. The Amelia Earhart (Residence Hall).’  What’s happening?

GoldandBlack.com: You found an engineering home here.

Edey: I didn’t think that was going to be something that would influence me but I’m proud of the fact that he’s at this really technical school. I love that The Paint Crew has these four people dressed up like Astronauts. Last year, I went and found them and took a picture. It was so crazy. It’s really neat. It’s nice to be part of a culture that’s really about education.

GoldandBlack.com: When did you start feeding Zach sushi?

Edey: The first summer he played basketball, he had an insane schedule. He had AAU tournaments and games, baseball practice with the Toronto Huskies, and ‘Oh yeah, how about a recovery day? I had an insane spreadsheet. Yes, I am an engineer.

I mapped out a rest day, homework, blah, blah because it’s easy with these three or four competing entities to forget about resting. He’d be with one team and run to another team. It was crazy. One of those times, we were going from North Toronto to an AAU team in Hamilton. We were trying to figure out what to eat and stay healthy because it was between games. I said, ‘What about sushi?’ He said OK. We stopped, and in Canada, all the grocery stores carry sushi. It was a ready box of sushi and watermelon – I was just trying to give him healthy foods. He had it and said, ‘This is pretty good’ and he played really well. When he tried out for the Canadian Junior Team – he’s only been playing basketball for a couple of weeks – and I remember asking him, ‘What do you want to do while we’re waiting for the next tryout?’ He said, ‘Let’s go for sushi.” That’s when it started. Basketball and sushi went hand in hand.

Zach’s bucket list of places to go – Japan is on there. He wants to try all the different sushies.

GoldandBlack.com: Matt Painter says Zach eats his pregame meal and has an order of sushi waiting for him.

Edey: It’s absolutely insane. It’s a clean food. It’s a comfort food even though we’re Chinese, not Japanese. It’s pretty cool. I have to admit, when he first started and we went down to (IMG Academy in Florida), I had to find all-you-can-eat sushi places. But there was one time we went out and couldn’t find one. I said, ‘It’s fine.’ I told him to sit down and order what you want. We left and I just paid $110 for lunch. It was ridiculous.

GoldandBlack.com: I would like to ask what your monthly grocery bill was for Zach.

I’m traumatized. That was my joke – it was very nice getting the scholarship, but it was the grocery bill where I was, ‘Yes, that’s over.’

GoldandBlack.com: When Zach is deciding whether to come back or not, was that a crazy time? A pretty thoughtful time?

Edey: I would say it was very intense. Very thoughtful. He’s got good people around him. He’s very thoughtful. He was really tired. The season ended, it was heartbreaking, and he was feeling exhausted. This kid hadn’t had a break for two or three years because in the summer when everybody is breaking, he’s playing with the Canadian team. He literally doesn’t get a summer off.  He might get a week or two but even then, the season is starting, and he can’t eat too many jujubes. He’s been grinding and continuing – that’s the way he’s built.

When we were going into it all, he knew he had a decision (to make). It was interesting. There were a few things in play. In his head, should I go back? I’ve done these crazy things or maybe I should start making my living. I remember talking to him and I just said to him, that his heart is still with Purdue, but his mind says this is my livelihood – I’ve got to go. There’s always the nagging what if I get injured? What if the draft changes? What if …

He was trying to decide and I remember talking to him after all those awards and I’ve been down here for a good month after the season ended and I remember before I left, I told him, ‘It’s OK if you don’t know what you want to do?’ I think he needed to hear that and I think he needed to know it’s OK because you have these amazing choices and that’s why it’s so hard. If it was obvious, there would be only one choice. You have really good options. Think about it this way, you have nothing to lose. How often in life do you get win-win? Hardly ever. Go through the process and learn what you learn about yourself and then decide and try not to keep thinking, ‘I’ve got to make a decision.’  

He did. He went through the process open-minded, asking questions, being analytical, touching back, reflecting, and then, up until the last minute, he had no idea. It was decision day. We were on calls with his agent, and all sorts of things and what’s happening, what contracts might be out there. Up until the last minute, it sounded like there was a chance he could get what he was hoping for in order to go. Before that happened, we were talking and he said, ‘I think I’ll just go back to Purdue.’ I said, ‘OK.’

His agent said, ‘Let me talk to this team again and see. Maybe we can figure out what it really looks like,’ and Zach said, ‘I think I’m OK. I don’t even need to know what they want to do.’

What I was happy about and I told him, ‘You knew what your heart wanted, you knew what your mind thought you should do. You went through the process and now you can trust your gut? What does your gut say?’ He said, ‘I want to go back.’ And then I said to him, ‘Why are you going back because I really wanted to know what you’re thinking.’ He said, ‘This group is special.’ He loves Purdue and he said ‘I don’t want to have any regrets and I don’t want to look back and say I should have’ … because I’ve always said to him to have the real college experience. I want you to have a real college experience. I don’t want you to go to a school just for basketball. This last year would be part of his college experience. It’s a big deal.

His agent said this: ‘If you’re in the NBA and Purdue is playing, will you be looking over and saying, ‘Damnit, they’re playing IU again and I want to be there.’ Or if you’re at Purdue and there’s a team looking at you and they’re playing, ‘Oh, damn I should be on that floor.’ Zach said, ‘I will be very upset if they’re playing IU.’ Good enough.

I’ve said this to him before: I’m not proud of what he’s doing, I’m proud of how he’s doing it. Honestly, of course, I’m proud of what he’s doing – it’s insane – but that’s not where the pride comes from. It’s how he’s doing it.