Bob Griese's Rose Bowl watch. Glenn Robinson's locker. Chris Pate has 'em--and other Purdue treasures

There’s Purdue quarterback legend Bob Griese’s Rose Bowl watch.

There’s Rod Woodson’s gold jersey from 1986.

There’s Zach Edey’s shoes.

There’s Joe Tiller’s fedora.

There’s Gene Keady’s comb. Not really, which is a surprise.

You name the piece of Purdue sports memorabilia, and it’s probably in this ultimate Boilermaker man cave located in of all places … Bedford, Ind., which is deep in IU territory in southern Indiana.

Meet Chris Pate, the 49-year-old owner of a treasure trove of Boilermaker trinkets. It’s a collecting passion that morphed into an obsession that evolved into an addiction.

“I love Purdue,” says Pate.

Unconditionally.

Pate is an unlikely curator of Rick Mount’s Big Ten MVP trophies (Two of them!), Stephanie White-McCarty’s jersey (Remember when she was married while at Purdue?) and Red Mackey’s Sigma Pi paddle (Thank you sir! May I have another!).

Pate was born in North Carolina and raised in Jackson, Tenn. But pursuit of an engineering degree brought him from the heart of SEC country to West Lafayette. A love affair was born between a Purdue electrical engineer and all things Boiler sports after Pate rolled onto the red brick campus in 1995.

“I thought Auburn was where I’d go, but my last visit was to Purdue,” says Pate. “It was cold and snowing, but it just felt right. My dad looked at me and said, ‘You sure you want to come up here and freeze your ass off?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I think I do.’ “

Over 30 years later, the marriage is stronger than ever.

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Pate works for the Navy. (Yes, there is a Naval base in southern Indiana: Naval Support Activity in Crane, Ind., approximately 25 miles southwest of Bloomington, and 75 miles south of Indianapolis.)

“I’m a civilian engineer for the US Navy,” says Pate, who married a Purdue pharmacist and has a 12-year old son named Grayson. “I work on the variant of the F-18 fighter jet that does radar and radio communications jamming. Anytime there’s a strike mission, like when we bombed Iran a couple months ago, our planes are the ones that go in alongside the bombers and jam the enemy radar so that we don’t get shot.”

That career has helped him forge a de facto Boilermaker hall of fame hidden in a house that sits on a golf course. Baseball has Cooperstown. Football has Canton. Purdue has Chris Pate’s basement.

It’s impressive enough that even John Purdue would shout “Boiler Up!”

“I walked on to the golf team,” says Pate. “I realized pretty quickly I wasn’t going to go pro, but I still wanted to stay involved with athletics. I got a job working in the equipment room doing laundry, washing towels and things like that.”

It was a golden era at Purdue. Keady was wrapping up a three-Pete of Big Ten titles, Joe Tiller arrived in 1997 along with Drew Brees and women’s basketball would win the national championship in 1999.

“I knew a lot of those athletes through the equipment room and study tables,” says Pate. “After I graduated, one of the first significant things I bought was a (1995) Big Ten championship ring on eBay. That really started everything.”

The seller—a man named John Pfeiffer—lived in Bloomington, while Pate was nearby in Bedford. He asked if he could pick up the ring instead of having it shipped.

“I drove over during an IU basketball game and discovered the guy had probably the largest IU collection in the world,” says Pate. “His basement floor was made from the Assembly Hall court—including the section where the chair was thrown. My eyes were opened. I thought, ‘This is freaking cool.’ “

That was 2000. Now, over 25 years later, Pate’s basement drips with gold and black baubles. Rings, watches, trophies, jerseys, balls, posters, pennants, helmets … there isn’t enough space to display it all. It’s like Christmas morning for Purdue Pete. Lift the lid on a storage trunk in a back room of Pate’s basement and you’ll pull out an Aidan O’Connell jersey. It’s like magic!

How crazy is Pate for Purdue? He has two French bulldogs named for Boiler icons.

“Leslie is named after the only Purdue grad who has been Indiana governor, Harry “Skillet” Leslie,” he says. “And Amelia is named after Amelia Earhart.”

In his own words, Pate dishes on his boffo collection …

Oldest piece of memorabilia:
 The oldest thing that’s actually dated is a program from the 1893 Purdue vs. Illinois football game. I’ve also got a ticket from an 1893 football game and some pennants from around that era, maybe earlier, but those aren’t dated.

I found (the program) through what I call the “good old boy network.” This was before Facebook and when eBay was just getting started in the early 2000s. I met an IU collector who became my IU guy, and he introduced me to a Michigan guy, and we all kind of traded and helped each other out.

Most expensive item purchased:
I love jewelry and championship rings and charms. Back before championship rings were common, players got little gold charms for winning championships or big games. The most expensive piece I’ve bought is a 1943 charm that belonged to Alex Agase, who captained Purdue’s undefeated national championship team. It says “Big Ten and National Champions” and has his name engraved on it. I paid about $15,000 for it.

I found it through an online auction with Golden Auctions. Heritage is another big auction company that gets a lot of good sports memorabilia.

Hardest item to track down:
 I now have a ring and a watch from every bowl game Purdue has ever played in. One of the toughest was a ring from the 1978 Peach Bowl. I didn’t even know one existed. I asked guys like Mark Herrmann and Pete Quinn and they didn’t remember getting one. Eventually I found one that belonged to coach Jim Young.

Coolest item in the collection:
 Probably the 1967 Rose Bowl football that was given to astronaut Roger Chaffee. It’s signed by the team and was presented to Chaffee after Purdue won the Rose Bowl. He was a Purdue graduate and one of the astronauts killed in the Apollo 1 fire just 25 days later. I bought it from his son and didn’t even know whose ball it was until after I got it.

Weirdest item:
 My wife thinks the weirdest thing is this football helmet ice bucket. You lift the top of the helmet up and reach down inside like you’re reaching into somebody’s brain to get ice. She hates it. I think it’s awesome.

Craziest story behind finding memorabilia:
 My IU collector buddy once called me and told me to come to Bloomington immediately with old clothes. We ended up digging through a landfill because IU had supposedly thrown away old Indiana Classic trophies, footballs and memorabilia from the union building. We didn’t find anything then, but years later a custodian contacted us and said he had secretly saved a bunch of it instead of throwing it away. That’s how I ended up getting several old trophy footballs.

One thing you always show visitors first
: The Roger Chaffee Rose Bowl ball. I also like talking about the 1903 Purdue train wreck because a lot of people don’t know that history. And people always love the Drew Brees Rose Bowl display jersey and helmet.

(Note: As Pate details in the above video, Chaffee was killed along with Purdue grad Gus Grissom on the launchpad in the Apollo 1 accident, just 25 days after Purdue beat USC in the 1967 Rose Bowl.)

Something out there you’re searching for:
 Absolutely. I have a program from every Old Oaken Bucket game dating back to 1925, and I’ve also tracked down tickets from every Bucket game except the first two in 1925 and 1926. Those are the holy grail items for me right now.

Farthest traveled to pick something up: 
I’ve driven all over Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. I’m talking with a guy in Texas now about driving down there for an item. I’ve never flown to get anything, but I’ve definitely made some long road trips.

What his wife thinks about the collection:
 Her name’s Corry. We met at Purdue during Boiler Gold Rush and she’s a Purdue Pharmacy grad. When we built this house, our agreement was that the whole basement was mine for the collection. She’s supportive, especially when I occasionally sell something and show her the check.

What collection is worth:
 Probably somewhere between one and two million dollars total.

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Plans for the collection:
 A lot of this stuff belongs at Purdue. My dream is to help create a Purdue sports museum someday, maybe in the south end zone at Ross-Ade Stadium. I’d love to see rotating exhibits, championship rings, historic memorabilia–all of it accessible to fans instead of sitting in my basement.

Items displayed publicly: 
I’ve got some pieces displayed at the new Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex clubhouse — old pennants, signs, Coach Keady items, posters and eventually some championship rings.

Favorite non-football or non-men’s basketball item: 
One of my favorites is Stephanie White’s jersey from the 1999 national championship season. I actually have both her home and away jerseys and the shorts, too, which is pretty rare.

Famous Purdue people who have visited your collection:
 Leroy Keyes had been by a few times. I’d love for more people to see the collection because I think a lot of this history deserves to be shared.

Long-term plan: 
I’ve got a house a block from Mackey Arena in West Lafayette and eventually we’ll retire there. We also have a place in Gulf Shores, Ala. The dream is to split time between the two and maybe, someday, help run a Purdue sports museum full-time.

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