Purdue to honor Tyler Trent with memorial at Ross-Ade Stadium gate where he camped out
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue announced Wednesday that a memorial gate leading to the student section entrance at Ross-Ade Stadium will be erected in honor of the late Tyler Trent.
Purdue President Mitch Daniels made the announcement outside Gate E honoring the Purdue graduate who died Jan. 1. The Tyler Trent Memorial Gate will be in place prior to the start of the 2019 football season. It will include gold lettering and include ‘T2’, Tyler’s signature mark. A plaque will be placed on the brick façade with Tyler’s image and will read ‘Forever Our Captain.”
Trent, a Purdue student and superfan of the school’s athletic teams, died in January after a nearly five-year battle with osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer.
Trent’s story worked its way into the mainstream starting in September 2017 when the he and his friend, Josh Seals, camped outside Ross-Ade Stadium prior to the Boilermakers facing Michigan.
The Journal & Courier published a story about the pair and Trent started to share his personal situation to help raise money for cancer research. The football program quickly embraced Trent and he served as honorary captain for the Hammer Down Cancer games in 2017 and 2018.
AN INTRODUCTION: How we got to know Purdue superfan Tyler Trent
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Last year, Trent’s health forced him to leave school and receive hospice care at home. He made the announcement on social media the day the Boilermakers beat Nebraska in Lincoln. However, when ESPN featured Trent’s story on GameDay, the nation was introduced to his fight and courage and a flood of support began.
As of late January, a fund started in Trent’s name raised more than $1 million for the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research.
In December, he won Disney's Wide World of Sports Spirit Award, given annually to college football's most inspirational individual or team. He attended Purdue’s appearance in the Music City Bowl in Nashville in late December, serving as an honorary captain.
Daniels also announced that Sean English, a freshman in exploratory studies, is the inaugural recipient of the Tyler Trent Courage and Resilience Award, a scholarship in Trent’s honor.
The scholarship will be awarded to a Purdue undergraduate student who has encountered serious physical or similarly daunting adversity in their pursuit of higher education.