Breakfast Club @ Purdue

Submitted by IncrediblySTIFF on

This weekend marks the first time since November 13th, 2010 that Michigan has played a game in West Lafayette at Ross Aide stadium.  As dismal as Purdue's football team tends to be, they do have one of the best tailgating traditions that I have ever partaken in: Breakfast Club.

Now, I know that some of you are going to be at the Airport with your RV's and busses, I know that there are always a few Michigan camps set up in the parking lot and golf course, but I will be attending breakfast club on State street.  The bars open at 7AM, it is essentially a halloween party that starts at when the sun comes out.

Breakfast club is something that everyone should experience at least once, especially for those of you still in college.

For those of you that are already planning on it, I'm curious to know some of the outfits you might be wearing.  Someone had mentioned a few months ago that they were planning on wearing a stormtrooper outfit with a Maize and Blue helmet.  I will probably be dressed up as a cop, making everybody think twice about what is going on.

Here's a photo of waiting in line to get into breakfast club before the bars opened from 2010.

 

Photobucket

IncrediblySTIFF

October 4th, 2012 at 12:53 PM ^

does not have breakfast club.  One bar opens at 7am.  Also they don't have football.  Also the bars are well over a mile from the stadium.  Also, why would you go to Roys to hang out with underage coeds as opposed to go to their obviously superior tailgating fields.

Outside of breakfast club, however, I absolutely agree with you that IU has better bars and is generally a much more fun place to be than West Laffalot.  And the girls.

WolverineinSB

October 4th, 2012 at 1:44 PM ^

Dunkirk opens as well which is next to KOK. I don't go to breakfast club to stay for more than a couple hours. And KOK passes out shirts. The tailgate fields are better and basically complete chaos. I have actually never seen a similar atmosphere as there is in the Greek lot.



I have never gone to a bar at Purdue that was any fun tho but I have never gone to their breakfast club.



And football isn't important to IU everyone knows its a drinking and basketball school and we are good at it haha.

Budinski

October 4th, 2012 at 5:37 PM ^

Breakfast club at Purdue is basically halloween for every home game so it is a completely different animal. I agree that the bars at Purdue are lame. Having spent 3 years there in grad school I can actually say I'd rather spend time in Mt. Pleasant at the bars. But breakfast club is pretty epic. The students put a lot of creativity and time into the costumes and the atmosphere is great despite it being the crack of dawn. I have tailgated for many levels of college football (MAC, Big Ten at several schools, and even DII) but I've never seen anything like breakfast club at Purdue. It's definitely worth the early wake up to see it at least once.

Even if you don't attend breakfast club in costume it is defintely worth seeing. Drive down state street at 7-8 am and you'll see a pretty hilarious S*%& show of drunken students in crazy costumes.

 

mgobleu

October 4th, 2012 at 12:28 PM ^

Are you gonna be like, goofy village people cop, or like, "possibly gonna get arrested for impersonating an officer" type cop?

Think about it...

 

IncrediblySTIFF

October 4th, 2012 at 12:47 PM ^

Won't be the first time I've worn this outfit.  It was more of a difficulty to make sure that I wasn't overly intoxicated when I was younger, my outfit is from a security detail I worked at an abandoned warehouse.  I have found that as long as I'm not stumbling around threatening to arrest people, the real cops don't mind.  Also, I'm on a first name basis with several of the local guys from growing up in West Lafayette.

I used to cruise around with them in their cars (on the way to jail)

IncrediblySTIFF

October 4th, 2012 at 12:58 PM ^

Especially on breakfast club, because 1)thats when the girls put on their sluttiest outfits, and cover their faces with masks so's that you cant see that their not pretty, and 2) because there are prety girls at Purdue, the ratios are way off.

My theory there was always that if I met a girl, and she was good looking, it wouldn't take more than 24 hours to find one of my friends that has either had sex with her or has a friend that had sex with her.

That being said, breakfast club is one of the few opportunities that young college coeds may have a chance to be hammered and get laid before 10AM

Budinski

October 4th, 2012 at 5:24 PM ^

Those unfamiliar with Purdue's bars, Harry's is one of the more popular ones. Their motto, "Go Ugly Early". They have t-shirts with the motto. It's on the stools (spent most of one evening brainstorming with friends on how to remove a stool from the bar without being noticed).

As a Purdue Alum and former grad student who has also witnessed all Michigan has to offer, I can honestly agree with the assessment of the girls on this thread! Go Ugly Early!

 

Balrog_of_Morgoth

October 4th, 2012 at 1:53 PM ^

"Someone had mentioned a few months ago that they were planning on wearing a stormtrooper outfit with a Maize and Blue helmet."

Hey, that's me! I will be wearing a winged stormtrooper helmet and blue onesie. My friend will also be wearing a stormtrooper helmet and yellow suit jacket. Look for us! Beers are on me.

TheBlueAbides

October 4th, 2012 at 3:00 PM ^

Very excited to see this for the first time, I have a friend who ran track at Purdue and told me I should see this. I have never been down to Purdue, any advice from fellow MGoBloggers for a first timer?

Shop Smart Sho…

October 4th, 2012 at 4:04 PM ^

I love it when people complain about the service at Jakes.  When I went to Purdue, my friends and I had a reserved table there for about three years.  It was just passed down from group of seniors to the next.  We always got great service.  It probably helped that our medschool friends often footed the bill and left stupidly large tips.  We actually got a group of brahs removed from our preferred seating on a Friday.  

 

That being said, Breakfast Club is fun, but it just isn't the same as it was in the mid to late 90's when there were more bars on campus.

Shop Smart Sho…

October 5th, 2012 at 12:10 AM ^

Fair enough point.  Reading about breakfast club just made me nostalgic.  My favorite was a friend of a friend stumbling into the party house at 10 AM wearing a toga and one shoe.  He had left 4 hours earlier dressed as a ninja.  We never did get the full story on that one.

Yinka Double Dare

October 4th, 2012 at 3:27 PM ^

Probably would be more possible if the game wasn't at 4pm Eastern, which made it basically a perfect one-day thing from Chicago.  Wake up at a fairly normal time, drive down, big family tailgate, see the game, drive home, all in one day.

Kevbot

October 4th, 2012 at 4:31 PM ^

For anyone who will be itn West Lafayette on Saurday, if you're getting bored with the tailgating, feel free to come watch the Purdue Men's Rugby team play against Sparty. The pitch is just west of the tailgating fields at 168 McCormick Rd, West Lafayette. The A Side kicks off at 1, so they'll be done by 2:30, which leaves plenty of time to get to the stadium and watch warmups or to go continue tailgating. The rugby game is free admission (but if you bring alcohol, keep it in a cup), and there's nothing wrong with coming out to cheer against Michigan State!

timtebro

October 4th, 2012 at 5:34 PM ^

and a 21-year-old I will be going ugly early, pass out, then wake up at 3. Last time Michigan came here I sat in the student section, first row, and displayed a Michigan flag the whole game... it set a serious fire under the student section's ass, which is hard to do at a football game. Now, it is October break weekend so I expect the student section to be more than pathetic.

Anyway, i won't be sitting in the student section this go around.

 

GO BLUE

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

October 5th, 2012 at 3:17 AM ^

Funny thing about Breakfast Club (according to my Boilermaker brother) is that it really kills attendance at football games.  Makes sense to me: the people most likely to want to go to the game are also the ones most likely to be in no shape to.

zlionsfan

October 5th, 2012 at 1:03 PM ^

a little drinking isn't going to change it much. Well, other than the fact that the stadium is uphill from the bars (and some of the tailgating areas). Bad planning.

Burke's approach, and that of George King before him, was that by God this is Big Ten football and you are going to show up. Actually improving the quality of the product on the field wasn't really a consideration (Exhibit A: every single coach under those guys; Tiller had partial success by running an offense people hadn't seen before and getting lucky with Brees, as much as it pains me to say).

Hiring a guy with no I-A experience on nothing more than Tiller's say-so did a lot to kill attendance. True, bar drinking does have a way of keeping people from getting to the game itself, but who wants to sober up watching Purdue fart away a lead against a MAC school or get crushed in Big Ten competition? (Not every game can be as exciting as you-know-which-one ...) And really, there can't be more than a thousand or so in the bars. That wouldn't even make a dent in IU's Memorial Stadium.

Burke seems to assume that he can focus on building competitive programs in other sports (which, TBH, he's done a pretty good job at) and that football will simply take care of itself. Younger fans might prefer to watch BTN; older fans have been through this many times already, thank you, no need to spend money on another 6-6 team. (It was one thing to have optimism in the mid-'80s with Jim Everett, or in the '00s with NFL-caliber QBs and Curtis Painter. Now, though ...) Burke's fortunate that a number of Big Ten schools travel well, or there'd be a much more noticeable drop in attendance.