Tiller to serenade baseball fans during seventh-inning-stretch

By Keith Thomas
Editor in Chief

Purdue football coach Joe Tiller is used to having his performance critiqued by thousands of sports fans.

Tiller, however, will be opening himself to a new kind of criticism on June 24. Tiller will be singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at Wrigley Field this month as the Chicago Cubs host the Milwaukee Brewers.

As any successful coach will attest, practice makes perfect.

Said the jovial Tiller about his practice sessions, "I got the dogs howling at the house," he joked. "And the neighbors don't talk to me anymore."

Maybe the fact that Tiller has guided the Boilermakers to bowl games in each of his first four seasons — culminated with a Big Ten Conference tri-championship and Purdue's first trip to the Rose Bowl in more than three decades — is a reason that Tiller isn't nervous, yet.

"Not right now, but I probably will as I get closer to it," said Tiller.

"I think I really kind of lost track of baseball during the nine years we were in Canada," said Tiller. "I actually went up there, not a hockey fan and a baseball fan and nine years later, came home a hockey fan and not near the baseball fan I once was."

When Tiller takes the microphone during the seventh-inning-stretch at Wrigley, he will be extending the Boiler baseball amateur singing streak to two straight years.

Last year, former Purdue quarterback Drew Brees sang the song Harry Caray made famous during a Cubs game. Tiller, said however, Brees got off easy.

Brees' singing wasn't solo, as he joined NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach for the traditional rendition.

"The dirty dog did it as a duet with Roger Staubach," said Tiller, who isn't as lucky. "Maybe Brittany Spears will come and do a duet with me."

• The Cubs game starts at 1:20 p.m. on June 24 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

Tiller to serenade baseball fans during seventh-inning-stretch

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