WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue and vice president - director of intercollegiate athletics Mike Bobinski finalized a contract amendment through June 30, 2024. The board of trustees approved the extension at its meeting Friday.
Buoyed by Bobinski, Purdue Athletics is becoming a broad-based force athletically while sustaining their academic excellence - spurring renewed interest among alumni, donors, fans and media.
"Nothing else brings us all together like athletics," Purdue president Mitch Daniels said to "Forge" magazine in March. "There is no question that when things are going well, Purdue becomes a happier place. People are more cooperative with each other, there is maybe a little more energy, and you can just feel that. The second equally as obvious thing is the way our coaches and players conduct themselves reflects well on the university. It is something we all can be proud of, that our teams achieve excellence without cutting corners and coloring outside the lines."
Purdue was one of merely three schools in the nation to play in a football bowl game, the NCAA men's basketball tournament and the NCAA women's volleyball tournament in 2017-18 and 2018-19 (also Kentucky and Michigan).
Over the last three years under Bobinski's leadership, 14 teams finished in the top 25 at their respective NCAA Championships, highlighted by men's basketball (Elite Eight in 2019), women's outdoor track & field (eighth in 2018) and women's golf (ninth in 2019). Men's basketball has won two Big Ten Conference championships (2017 and 2019), pushing its conference-leading total to 24 all-time. Women's outdoor track & field won the 2017 Big Ten title. Thirty-five Boilermakers earned first-team All-America honors.
Academically, following the spring 2019 semester, the cumulative grade-point average for all current Purdue student-athletes was a record-high 3.12. The Boilermakers have maintained better than a 3.0 cumulative GPA for 21 consecutive semesters, and they continue to regularly perform equal to or better than the student body. The current four-year average Graduation Success Rate is 85 percent.
Bobinski, who was named the ninth full-time athletics director in Purdue history Aug. 9, 2016 - the first with no previous ties to the school - is primed to take the Boilermakers to greater heights.
"In evaluating where we sit today, I believe we have built a solid foundation," Bobinski says. "We now have a way of carrying ourselves; a way of working to improve on a day-in, day-out basis; a way of looking at ourselves from a possibility perspective. We have raised our own sights - and expectations."
Bobinski is just the fourth full-time athletics director at Purdue since 1942, following Guy "Red" Mackey (1942-71), George King (1971-92) and Morgan Burke (1993-2016).
Buoyed by Bobinski, Purdue Athletics is becoming a broad-based force athletically while sustaining their academic excellence - spurring renewed interest among alumni, donors, fans and media.
"Nothing else brings us all together like athletics," Purdue president Mitch Daniels said to "Forge" magazine in March. "There is no question that when things are going well, Purdue becomes a happier place. People are more cooperative with each other, there is maybe a little more energy, and you can just feel that. The second equally as obvious thing is the way our coaches and players conduct themselves reflects well on the university. It is something we all can be proud of, that our teams achieve excellence without cutting corners and coloring outside the lines."
Purdue was one of merely three schools in the nation to play in a football bowl game, the NCAA men's basketball tournament and the NCAA women's volleyball tournament in 2017-18 and 2018-19 (also Kentucky and Michigan).
Over the last three years under Bobinski's leadership, 14 teams finished in the top 25 at their respective NCAA Championships, highlighted by men's basketball (Elite Eight in 2019), women's outdoor track & field (eighth in 2018) and women's golf (ninth in 2019). Men's basketball has won two Big Ten Conference championships (2017 and 2019), pushing its conference-leading total to 24 all-time. Women's outdoor track & field won the 2017 Big Ten title. Thirty-five Boilermakers earned first-team All-America honors.
Academically, following the spring 2019 semester, the cumulative grade-point average for all current Purdue student-athletes was a record-high 3.12. The Boilermakers have maintained better than a 3.0 cumulative GPA for 21 consecutive semesters, and they continue to regularly perform equal to or better than the student body. The current four-year average Graduation Success Rate is 85 percent.
Bobinski, who was named the ninth full-time athletics director in Purdue history Aug. 9, 2016 - the first with no previous ties to the school - is primed to take the Boilermakers to greater heights.
"In evaluating where we sit today, I believe we have built a solid foundation," Bobinski says. "We now have a way of carrying ourselves; a way of working to improve on a day-in, day-out basis; a way of looking at ourselves from a possibility perspective. We have raised our own sights - and expectations."
Bobinski is just the fourth full-time athletics director at Purdue since 1942, following Guy "Red" Mackey (1942-71), George King (1971-92) and Morgan Burke (1993-2016).