A funny thing happened to Ryan Walters and the Purdue Boilermakers yesterday. They went to a football game and a NASCAR race broke out.
I say this because the Boilers and Virginia Tech got chased off the field by lightning down in Blacksburg, Va., and they didn't come back for five-and-a-half hours. This was reminiscent of some of NASCAR's epic weather delays, which have sometimes stretched the Daytona 500 (and, once, the Brickyard 400) into day-long sit-arounds that began in early afternoon and didn't end until far into the night.
Get it in it takes all night: You want a mantra for the American stock-car boys, that's traditionally been it. (Unless it was "Surely we can squeeze another corporate sponsor into this deal. Here, Chase Elliott, let us slap this Goody's Headache Powders sticker on your helmet visor. It's small, you can see around it.")
Anyway, "Get it in if it takes all night" was what happened in Blacksburg. A noon start turned into an 8 p.m. or so finish after lightning and four inches of rain -- yes, you read that right -- turned Tech's football stadium into an Olympic swimming venue.
The good news for Purdue was good things came to those who waited. Much, much later, Hudson Card threw for 248, ran for a score and set a record in the individual medley (OK, so not really), and the Boilers outlasted Tech 24-17 to give Walters his first W as a head coach.
Then, in the postgame, Walters resisted the obvious by not quoting Tom Petty.
The waaaaiiiting is the hardest part ...
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