Purdue's Rose Bowl Season Reflections--Tim Stratton

In our August 25 edition, we talk with former Purdue tight end Tim Stratton about his experiences during the Boilermakers’ Run For The Roses season. Stratton, the 2000 John Mackey Award winner as the nation’s top tight end, is one of the most colorful players in Purdue football history and played a pivotal role in helping the Boilermakers to the 2000 Big Ten title and subsequent trip to Pasadena.

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Discipline, Attention To Detail A Lesson Learned for Stratton

If you know anything about Purdue’s Rose Bowl season 25 years ago, you know that talented tight end Tim Stratton was one of the free spirits on a squad full of personalities. And you also know that the coaching staff often matched the players wit for wit.

Stratton, who now spends some of his free time as a high school coach following his day job as director of business development for Skitch Electric in the Chicago area, learned a lot of lessons.

“I appreciated the coaches sticking with me,” Stratton said. “I am sure they had their moments.”

Stratton recalls a prolonged running session supervised by offensive line coach Danny Hope that has proved instructive despite the painful experience at the time.

“Dsnny was very intimidating, but he was also the type of guy that you would do anything for,” Stratton said.” “I had a session with him where I had to run for quite a while, and he thought he killed me after, because everything just shut down in my body. Looking back, it was pretty comical, but you know what? People are like, how could you look him in the eye or deal with him or like him?

“I go, I love him. He put me through something because I was at fault. I missed class. He taught me a lesson. If he called me tomorrow, and said ‘I need you’ I’m there.”

Stratton feels the same about Joe Tiller too, but admits some of the things he learned from Hope has helped his as a high school coach.

“He was great to our offensive line,” Stratton, the coach who succeeded Tiller. “He taught us a lot, even though I didn’t block very much. He taught us the techniques. As a high school coach, I’ve been teaching some of the methods that he had passed on to us.”

Stratton’s well-documented lost helmet after the dramatic win over Michigan became national news at the time. But once again, it was a lesson he can call upon now.

“People thought we didn’t get along, but the opposite was true,” Stratton said. “I was a pallbearer at his funeral, and I looked at him as a father.”

And Tiller’s overall tough-love approach lives in Stratton’s dealing with the modern-day high school athlete.

“I’m more of an old school coach,” said Stratton, who remains Purdue’s all-time leader in receptions for a tight end (204) and fifth on the overall list and was named to the Purdue Athletics Hall of Fame last Fall. “I’m not all about the participation trophies and, oh, hey, you did great when you weren’t.

” I’m the one who’s going to tell a kid if he didn’t play well, what he did wrong, and how we fix it B’m more truthful with these players, because that’s how we were treated. And you’re seeing that it is a big difference in the generations now, like this more entitled generation with kids and the transfer portal, all this stuff. I don’t think the kids playing now could handle the coaching that we had back then, and that was only 25 years ago.”

Stratton’s has three daughters, the middle one a freshman volleyballer at Youngstown State. His youngest daughter plays flag football and Lacrosse and oldest lives and works in Chicago.

“There’s not a drop of testosterone left in my body,” said Stratton, with a laugh.

More: Rose Bowl Reflections: Chukky Okobi | Vinny Sutherland | A.T. Simpson | Scott Downing | Ben Smith | Craig Terrill | Akin Ayodele

Gold and Black Illustrated Archives–2000 season game stories

Game 1: No. 15 Purdue 48, Central Michigan 0
Game 2: No. 14 Purdue 45, Kent State 10
Game 3: No. 21 Notre Dame 23, No. 14 Purdue 21
Game 4: No. 21 Purdue 38, Minnesota 24
Game 5: Penn State 22, No. 22 Purdue 20
Game 6: Purdue 32, No. 6 Michigan 31
Game 7: No. 21 Purdue 41, No. 17 Northwestern 28
Game 8: No. 17 Purdue 30, Wisconsin 24 (ot)
Game 9: No. 16 Purdue 31, No. 12 Ohio State 27
Game 10: Michigan State 30, No. 9 Purdue 10
Game 11: No. 17 Purdue 41, Indiana 13
Game 12: No. 4 Washington 34, No. 14 Purdue 24