Big Ten bass
From dream to reality
In the summer of 1990, 18-year-old Shad Schenck received some exciting news: He had been accepted to Purdue University in Indiana. Schenck had sincere intentions of becoming a professional bass angler and felt that a college degree was an important step in achieving his goal. Consequently, he enrolled.
There was a problem, however. Purdue University was not exactly hip on bass fishing. At the time, going to Purdue to further a bass-fishing career was like going to NASA to study roller-skating.
But Schenck had a vision that included bass fishing at the prestigious university. From the moment Schenck’s feet hit campus in the fall of 1990, he had a mission: to introduce collegiate-level competitive bass fishing to Big Ten schools. “I wanted to provide college students an opportunity to experience tournament bass fishing through a university-sanctioned club,” he said.
From small fry to bass club
Schenck’s vision of blending higher education with competitive bass fishing was foggy at first. He thoroughly researched all of the requirements that a student organization needed to be recognized by the university and went to work fulfilling those requirements.
Schenck discovered that he would need four officers, a constitution and a faculty adviser to be acknowledged by the dean of students as an active student organization affiliated with the university.
Acquiring the four officers was the easy part: Schenck and a few college fishing buddies adequately filled the bill. For the constitution, Schenck visited Indiana University to examine the charter of the Indiana University Bass Club.
“They already had a bass club in place, but it did not include tournaments,” Schenck said. “I wanted to make organized tournaments a fundamental part of Purdue’s Bass Club charter.” Schenck borrowed the basic organizational structure from the Indiana University Bass Club and then incorporated tournaments into his constitution for Purdue.
With the officers in position and a constitution written, Schenck was lacking the third leg of the stool: a faculty adviser. “I could not find a dean, professor, teacher’s assistant or anyone that even knew what a plastic worm was,” he said.
“One day, I was walking through campus, and I overheard a groundskeeper talking about bass fishing,” Schenck said. “I got about 50 yards past him when the light bulb went off in my head. I sprinted back to him and basically barged in on his conversation. It turns out he was an avid bass angler, and the dean of students let him qualify as a faculty adviser since he was an employee of the university.”
Schenck had the makings of a collegiate-level competitive bass-fishing club in place. But would college students join a bass club?
In the fall of 1991, Schenck did the first university-wide “call out,” an invitation to students to join the newly established Purdue University Bass Club. “Sixty-five people came to our first meeting,” Schenck said. “I was excited then. I knew this would work.”
An old minnow bucket
In the bylaws of the club, Schenck designed three types of tournaments. The first contests are called paper tournaments. In these events, teams of three are given Golden Rule measuring sticks and official score sheets to record the number and length of their bass. The club meets at an agreed-upon location and then disperses in scavenger hunt-like fashion across the lakes, ponds, rivers and streams of Indiana.
“Those tournaments are a blast,” Schenck said. “Some teams have small boats or canoes they trailer to public lakes. Some teams wade smallmouth streams. Others drive an hour to walk around the bank of a private pond. Everyone has to be back at a certain time to tally up scores.”
Schenck says the paper tournaments are designed to introduce anglers to the basics of bass fishing through competition. “Those tournaments prove that you do not need a $20,000 bass rig to fish. With a single rod and a handful of lures, you can compete and have fun.”
The next level of competition is the intercollegiate series. At this level, the club borrows 10 to 20 boats from area bass clubs and club members’ families. These events follow a more traditional tournament format, with paired anglers fishing the same lake and the winner determined by a weigh-in.
The pinnacle of Purdue University’s bass-fishing competition is a head-to-head competition with long-standing football rival Indiana University.
“In Purdue-Indiana football lore there is the Old Oaken Bucket, a fabled traveling trophy that the winner gets to keep until the rivals meet again the following year,” Schenck said. “So we dubbed our fishing competition the Old Minnow Bucket. We have a painted minnow bucket that acts as the series’ traveling trophy.”
Purdue University Bass Club members have to qualify for the Old Minnow Bucket tournament. Besides earning points for their performance at previous tournaments, club members also gain points by coming to meetings and working events. At the end of the year, only the top 20 anglers are allowed to compete for the Old Minnow Bucket.
The Old Minnow Bucket tournament is held every spring. The two clubs get local bass anglers to volunteer their time and boats to the Old Minnow Bucket contest. The tournament site alternated between Purdue University (Lake Shafer) and Indiana University (Monroe Lake).
“A Purdue angler is paired with an Indiana angler, and both are assigned a boat driver,” Schenck said. “The boat drivers are like guides and could only drive the boat and make fishing suggestions.”
The winner of the Old Minnow Bucket is determined by totaling up the weights of the 20 anglers from each university. The school with the largest combined weight wins.
“It’s a real formal deal,” Schenck said with a laugh. “We wore coats and ties to the awards banquet, and the chancellor of Indiana University awarded the first Old Minnow Bucket in our initial event.”
Bigger shad to fry
As president of the Purdue University Bass Club, Schenck kept himself busy with bass-fishing activities. “I spent 30 to 40 hours each week organizing some kind of bass-fishing function,” he said. He also arranged a guest speaker from the fishing industry for each club meeting.
Along with tournaments, the Purdue University Bass Club conducts other functions as well. The club hosts specialty events for charities and donates time to boys and girls clubs to take kids fishing.
“We held a Purdue University tackle auction each year, which was a lot of fun, too,” Schenck said.
While it would seem that too much bass fishing would get in the way of a normal college social life, Schenck says he was committed to the club and his grand vision of collegiate bass fishing.
Schenck was in a fraternity, but frat parties and football were not his main concern. He had bigger fish to fry.
“I joined Alpha Gamma Rho so I would have contacts with other AGR chapters at other universities in the Big Ten to spread the good word about competitive bass fishing,” Schenck said. “My grand vision was to have collegiate-level bass fishing throughout the whole conference.”
Despite his efforts, Schenck never witnessed Big Ten collegiate bass fishing during his time at Purdue. But thanks to his solid framework, Schenck’s collegiate competitive bass-fishing vision did eventually manifest.
Two years after he graduated, enough bass-fishing clubs were started at Big Ten schools to constitute a Big Ten championship. In September 2002, nine of the 11 Big Ten schools (Minnesota, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue, Ohio State, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin) participated in the Big Ten collegiate bass-fishing championship, and Purdue won.
Between club meetings, tournaments and tackle auctions, Schenck graduated from Purdue with a degree in agribusiness. Schenck still keeps up with Purdue’s fishing activities by telephone, but now he is busy trying to orchestrate his own professional fishing career as a member of Team 7 UP on the Wal-Mart FLW Tour.
Schenck is stepping into a bass-fishing career with caution and has yet to give up his day job as a seed corn salesman for Specialty Hybrids in Indiana. “I have a good job, and I can still fish,” said the seed salesman/bass angler. “The seed business is slower in the spring, so it gives me time to fish the FLW Tour. I still have a lot to learn before I can go fishing full time.”
While it is unlikely that bass fishing will ever be a major course of study at any university, at least college students in the Big Ten can experience the thrill of competitive bass fishing thanks to Shad Schenck.
Asked & Answered
Purdue Bass Club questionnaires…
Amie Dick
• What would be your dream job? Owning a women’s clinic
• Who rates as the ultimate bass professional? Jimmy Houston
• What major are you trying to obtain? Nursing with a masters in women’s health
• Do you have a favorite fishing cap or lucky shirt? No, I kiss the fish for luck (just like Jimmy Houston)
• What percent of fishing is luck? 10%
• What percent of fishing is talent? 90%
• On a scale of 0-10, zero being rookie, 10 being extremely talented, how do you rate your own fishing prowess? 7
Jim Gokenbach
• What would be your dream job? Boat salesman or pro fisherman
• Who rates as the ultimate bass professional? Rick Clunn
• What major are you trying to obtain? Ag. sales and marketing
• Do you have a favorite fishing cap, lucky shirt? Yes, a Ranger Boats hat
• What percent of fishing is luck? 15%
• What percent of fishing is talent? 85%
• On a scale of 0-10, zero being rookie, 10 being extremely talented, How do you rate your own fishing prowess? 7
Craig Jurgonski
• What would be your dream job? Winning the Powerball and retiring
• Who rates as the ultimate bass professional? Kevin VanDam
• What major are you trying to obtain? Building construction management
• Do you have a favorite fishing cap, lucky shirt? No
• What percent of fishing is luck? 30%
• What percent of fishing is talent? 70%
• On a scale of 0-10, zero being rookie, 10 being extremely talented, How do you rate your own fishing prowess? 8
Michael Murphy
• What would be your dream job? Pro fisherman and teaching
• Who rates as the ultimate bass professional? Rick Clunn, Denny Brauer & Kevin VanDam
• What major are you trying to obtain? Fisheries & aquatic sciences/selling & sales management
• Do you have a favorite fishing cap, lucky shirt? No
• What percent of fishing is luck? 10%
• What percent of fishing is talent? 90%
• On a scale of 0-10, zero being rookie, 10 being extremely talented, How do you rate your own fishing prowess? That is really not for me to answer, that one is a question to ask the fish. Honestly, you are only as good as your last tournament.
Ryan Engle
• What would be your dream job? Pro bass fisherman
• Who rates as the ultimate bass professional? David Fritts
• What major are you trying to obtain? Landscape architecture
• Do you have a favorite fishing cap, lucky shirt? Yes, a Justin Boots cap
• What percent of fishing is luck? 5%
• What percent of fishing is talent? 95%
• On a scale of 0-10, zero being rookie, 10 being extremely talented, How do you rate your own fishing prowess? 8
Mark Shirai
• What would be your dream job? Fishing on a professional trail while working as chiropractor
• Who rates as the ultimate bass professional? Kevin VanDam & Gerald Swindle
• What major are you trying to obtain? Health movement sports & science
• Do you have a favorite fishing cap, lucky shirt? Yes, a Detroit Tigers hat & a lucky hook
• What percent of fishing is luck? Luck is being prepared
• What percent of fishing is talent? 75%
• On a scale of 0-10, zero being rookie, 10 being extremely talented, How do you rate your own fishing prowess? 9