Doyel: 3 men walk into a bar and steal Old Oaken Bucket
Mike Cord is a lawyer in Kokomo, which may or may not matter for the sake of this story. There are guilty men in this story. Thieves. Mike Cord says he's not one of the guilty, which might be true, and which also might not matter.
Roger Robison is a retired doctor in Bloomington. He's one of the guilty, and ready to talk about it. To clear his conscience? No, Robison doesn't care about clearing his conscience.
Robison likes to laugh, and the story is a hoot. It's a thievery the likes of which has never been seen again, if only because it could never happen again, not like this, not with three incompetent thieves from Indiana University engaged in a battle of wits with the incompetent security at Purdue over the prize of the IU-Purdue football rivalry: the Old Oaken Bucket.
It's a crime that fell from the cobwebs of an Indiana fraternity house a month ago. It's a crime that goes back almost 60 years.
It's a caper, if you want to call it that.
"It's a two-part story," Cord, 79, tells me this week from his office in Kokomo.
Tell me both parts, I say.
"Let me take you back to the beginning," he says.
***
Well, they'd been drinking.
What, you thought a crime like this would be attempted by three sober college kids? Not this crime. Not these kids. Maybe they weren't drunk — let's hope not, because they did drive 100 miles to make this heist — but they'd been drinking that Friday afternoon in 1958 at the Bloomington sports bar "Nick's."
They started talking football.
The Hoosiers hadn't beaten Purdue since 1947. Entire classes of IU students had enrolled and graduated without laying eyes on the moss-covered bucket that was pulled from a well on old man Bruner's farm in 1925 and given to the IU-Purdue winner every year since. And these three IU students, these three criminal masterminds, they wanted to see it.
Full of liquid courage, Roger Robison and two friends concocted Mission: Incompetent. Drive to West Lafayette and steal the Old Oaken Bucket.
One problem.
"We couldn't get anybody interested in such a harebrained scheme," Robison tells me from his home in Bloomington, and he's howling with glee. "We went around Nick's asking for volunteers! It's amazing, after it went missing, that people didn't turn us in."
What's amazing is that it went missing at all.
***
These were future pillars of the community. In a few years Robison was an oncologist. His two buddies, who shall remain nameless — and you're welcome for that, you goofs — received advanced degrees and became respected professionals. They were brilliant young men.
They were terrible burglars.
They drove to West Lafayette on Sept. 26, 1958 — the day before Purdue's opener against Nebraska — parked outside Lambert Fieldhouse at dusk and walked inside. Their plan, if you can believe it, was to hide in the bleachers until 2 a.m. and then emerge from the darkness to steal the Old Oaken Bucket from its trophy case. Like a scene from a movie. Or The Three Stooges.
The only man in their way was from central casting as well.
"One security guard in the whole fieldhouse," Robison says, "and he was out smoking a cigarette. They were having a big pep rally for the Nebraska game, and he was outside watching the band. We just walked in."
Listening to the Purdue pep rally outside, Robison and his cohorts used a complicated glass-cutting tool — OK, a screwdriver — to pop open the trophy case and pull out the Old Oaken Bucket.
Well, things started to go wrong.
"The bucket had this big chain that came out, rattling and making all kinds of noise," Robison says. "We shoved all the links inside the bucket and headed for the door."
Holding Purdue's unmistakable football trophy, with a pep rally and the Purdue football team outside, our burglars opened the fieldhouse door and slammed it shut. Loudly. And started cursing each other.
What could save them? Dumb luck, the only kind these guys were going to have. This was Purdue's old basketball arena, remember, and there was a large burlap bag near the door. Why was it there? Robison thinks maybe it was for carrying basketballs. All he knows is, the bag was there, and they shoved the Old Oaken Bucket inside.
The Purdue band was still playing when three IU students walked the Old Oaken Bucket to their car and drove away.
And then this story gets really stupid.
***
"After they stole the bucket," Mike Cord tells me from his law office in Kokomo, "they didn't know what to do with it."
Of course they didn't. Robison eventually stashed it in a busted washing machine at his brother's house in Frankfort, and for several hours the caper seemed to have gone undetected.
"We waited for the big news, but they didn't know it was gone," Robison said.
Of course they didn't.
"We had to call the Star and tell (the sports department) it was stolen," Robison says, and he's howling again.
When the newspapers started writing about the theft, they included a line that terrified the bungling burglars: Purdue had called in the FBI. Was that true? Maybe, maybe not. Robison didn't want to find out. He wanted to be a doctor, for crying out loud. FBI? It was time for Roger Robison to seek help. He called his friend and fraternity brother, Mike Cord, who as president of Sigma Pi had some semblance of stature.
This story is about to get smarter. Eventually.
Cord, future lawyer that he was, started brokering the bucket's return. He contacted IU Dean of Students Robert Shaffer, who contacted Purdue Dean of Men O.D. Roberts. They hatched two possible avenues of return.
"Neither of them worked," Cord says.
Of course they didn't.
Plan A was to take the Old Oaken Bucket to a neutral party, a frat house at DePauw in Greencastle, halfway between IU and Purdue, and let that fraternity drive it to West Lafayette. The Star was called, and a photographer showed up. The bucket did not.
"We weren't about to do that," Robison says.
Plan B was to give the bucket to IU officials at a football pep rally at Dunn Meadow. Robison and his cohorts nixed that one as well. So Cord brokered the bucket's return through Robison, directly to the Sigma Pi house on the Purdue campus.
The morning of the IU-Purdue game on Nov. 22, 1958.
"What could go wrong?" Cord says.
Robison borrowed a friend's big old Cadillac, pulled the bucket from his brother's washing machine and drove it to West Lafayette with Mike Cord. When they arrived at the Sigma Pi house, Robison walked the bucket to the front door.
"A couple Purdue guys just about mugged me," he says.
Of course they did.
The press had been called, again, and pictures were taken. Robison stayed with the Caddy until it was time to drive back to Bloomington. He didn't like the way those boys from Purdue were eyeing him.
Why is this story coming out now, nearly 60 years later? Because Mike Cord can keep a secret. But he received an email in April.
***
The heist made the papers in 1958, and after the bucket was returned Cord's picture was in the Star. His family knew he'd been part of something. But what? For years Cord wouldn't say. Family finally stopped asking.
"I guess we just forgot," says Cord's daughter, Lynda Woodard.
The story bubbled to the surface last month when a Sigma Pi brother from the 1950s, Paul Schneff, found that photo in The Star and emailed it to Cord. Cord forwarded the email to his family. They demanded more.
"For two weeks he was silent, and then he said the story was too much to email," Woodard was telling me this week. "So I emailed you. We were hoping you could get the whole story out of Dad. Settle this family folklore, once and for all."
So I called Mike Cord. He was ready to come clean. He was ready to reminisce, is what he was, and he told the story in a series of dry one-liners. Roger Robison told it almost in tears.
"It's a strange tale," Cord was saying.
"But if you want a real story," Robison was saying, "dig into what happened the next year when Lambda Chi went up to Purdue and stole that big bass drum. That'll be the dumbest story you ever heard."
Second dumbest, Roger. Maybe second.
Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.