WEST LAFAYETTE ‒ Bill Elbert is an optimistic sort, "the most optimistic and positive person we all know," says his daughter, Nancy Elbert.

When he played high school basketball, he really didn't play; he mostly sat the bench. Yet, he tried out for his college team. That's optimism.

When Elbert coached high school basketball, he knew what it felt like to "warm the pine board" and so, with his rosy outlook, he played every single one of his players just about every single game, his record proving that optimism doesn't always mean wins.

"I've got to admit, you can't be that way. But I knew what that kid felt like at the end of the bench," Elbert, 92, said Tuesday as he sat at his kitchen table in West Lafayette. "I should have been more like Bobby Knight."

Instead, Elbert has always looked for the good, hoped for the best, been loyal to a fault and dreamed big.

Even when it comes to Purdue basketball ‒ and that's saying a lot. From the time Elbert attended his first Purdue basketball game at Lambert Fieldhouse as a kid in the 1940s, he's been smitten with the team.

All he has ever wanted was to see Purdue win an NCAA title. Alas, in his 80 years of fandom, they have been to the Final Four just twice, in 1969 and 1980, and to the championship game just once, in 1969.

And last year, as the No. 1 seed, Purdue was ousted by No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson, just the second time in the history of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament that a first seed lost.

Elbert doesn't have much to say about last year except. "Oh, I've been a Purdue fan since about 1942. That is a long haul."

But now with 7-4 Zach Edey dominating alongside Braden Smith, who Elbert says "is taking advantage of his talents more than any kid that I know of," he's feeling more optimistic than ever as the team heads to the Sweet Sixteen in Detroit this weekend.

"Surely, they can win. Can," Elbert says, smiling, as he puts extra emphasis on the last word. But will they?

"I guess I'm optimistic. I'm still a Purdue fan," he said. "So, you've got to be an optimist to do that."

Love of the sport? 'Oh, Lord, yes.'

Elbert's love of Purdue basketball was a natural thing, he says. It started in Goodland, Ind., where he grew up, 39 miles northwest of West Lafayette.

"Purdue was only 40 miles away," Elbert said. "And so, I became a fan. It was just automatic."

He remembers the magic of gathering around the family's big, clunky radio with his two brothers, Dick and Jim, to root for the college team "just up the road" from them. He remembers wanting to be just like those players the announcers raved about.

"He knew as a boy that you had two jobs: Help your family eke out a living and play basketball," Elbert's son, Steve, wrote in a 90th birthday post about his father. "In the evenings, the hardwood boys of summer would walk up town next to the pool hall. That was the best place to play basketball."

In the mornings, six days a week, a young Elbert would be up by 4:30 to run a milk route before school, delivering full bottles up and down the streets of Goodland and bringing back the empty ones.

Every morning, Elbert's mother, Beulah, would yell from the kitchen, "Billy get up." Eventually, his dad Earl would open the door of the stairwell and give out a short and firm "Bill."

"Dad's feet would soon be on the unheated wood floor eager to take on the day," Steve wrote. "One of dad's favorite childhood memories? Sleeping in on Sunday."

And playing basketball. "If you were a boy and went to Goodland, you'd play basketball," Elbert said. "But I wasn't one of the stars."

As a freshman, Elbert was 5-2 and 105 pounds soaking wet. By his senior year, he had grown to 5-9. He never started a high school game, and he averaged 4 points a game as a senior.

But Elbert had a love of basketball he still can't quite explain. "Oh, Lord, yes," he said. And he had that optimism. And he also had a good friend who decided Elbert needed to try to play at the next level.

First, Elbert would have to convince his dad to let him go to college.

'What mother wanted, mother got'

Earl Elbert had a wholesale business selling flour and sugar to all the mom-and-pop stores in the area, so Bill Elbert's work didn't stop with the milk routes in the morning.

"I had a lot of lifting," Elbert said, loading trucks at night to get ready for deliveries the next day.

Earl assumed, after high school, his three boys would join his business. Neither he nor Beulah had gone to high school, both quitting school by the seventh grade. But Beulah was determined to have at least one of her boys go to college.

Dick, the oldest of the three, joined the Navy. Next came Elbert who was the valedictorian of his Goodland class of 14.

"The Elbert family had one rule, and that was, 'What mother wanted, mother got,'" Steve wrote. "Earl decided college would be allowed if (dad) was home in the evening to help load the trucks."

The closest college to Goodland was St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, 19 miles northeast. It was close enough for Elbert to be a day student, meaning he commuted to classes, and was home at night to work.

Shortly after he enrolled, Elbert ran into a good friend of his named Gene Wing, who was also a day student at St. Joseph's. Wing, 6-4, had been the area's star basketball player at neighboring Wadena High School. The two started commuting to college together.

"But that became kind of a problem," said Elbert. "He decided he was going to go out for the basketball team, and he convinced me that I might be able to make the team." Wing convinced Elbert with these words: "You can try out for the team or go home and load trucks."

Elbert was nearly 6-3 by then and thought playing basketball at night sounded a whole lot better than lifting bags of sugar and flour. And he was still optimistic.

Both he and Wing tried out for the freshman team, but when they posted the names on the roster, Elbert wasn't on the list. Not until a few days later when Wing quit the team to go work for his family on the farm, get married and start a family. "I went to the science hall the next morning and on the list of the members that were chosen for the freshman team, Gene's name was penciled out," Elbert said, "and I was written in at the bottom."

And a starter, to boot

Elbert, the high school player who never started a game, came off the bench his freshman year of college and soon became a starting forward.

"According to dad, the secret to becoming a good basketball player was not hours of shooting hoops, but the mornings of running the milk route," Steve wrote. "He had developed a pair of massive rebounding legs, legs he never had in high school and he could finally rebound the basketball."

Those were some of the best years of his life, said Elbert, playing college basketball, traveling all over the Midwest. He said he felt so lucky to even be on the team that he was shocked when his coach called him into his office and offered him a scholarship.

"Is your dad rich?" the coach asked him. "I don't think so," Elbert replied.

"Why haven't you asked for a scholarship?" his coach said.

"I'm just tickled to death to be playing." Elbert was put on scholarship and his senior season averaged 10 rebounds a game, making him one of the leading college rebounders in the nation.

After college Elbert went on to serve in the military during the Korean War, then came home and married Leona Sell, who he started dating after spotting her at a New Year's Eve Ball in Rensselaer. Leona was a really good dancer.

He spent his career as a teacher, coach, athletic director and principal, mostly at South Newton, where he retired. Along the way, he and Leona had five children, 16 grandchildren and nine great grandchildren and Elbert earned a Master's degree from Purdue.

Through the years, especially in his later years, Nancy Elbert says her dad has always said one thing over and over: "I hope I live long enough to see all my grandchildren graduate from high school, the Cubs win a World Series, and the Boilermakers win a basketball NCAA national title."

The first and second are under Elbert's belt. And now he waits.

'I don't have that much power'

In all these years, Elbert has had Purdue season tickets just one year. He prefers to put on one of his five Purdue shirts that Leona says he wears everyday year-round, grab popcorn and potato chips and watch from the comfort of his home.

Elbert isn't one of those rowdy, obnoxious, loud fans. He mostly sits quietly, cheering loudly in his head. "He might say every once in a while, 'Why don't they put him in?'" said Leona, 90, who is also a devout Purdue fan.

He doesn't have any superstitions either. No lucky charms he holds or chair he sits in or game day routines. "I don't have that much power," he says, laughing.

"Come to think of it, I haven't had too much luck as a participant in athletics, as a coach or as a fan," he said. "Oh, well. It's good for you to lose once in a while."

Or, in Purdue's case, lose every single year. It builds character, which Elbert most certainly has a lot of.

But when asked the million-dollar question ‒ what would he do if Purdue actually won the title this year? ‒ Elbert simply doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to think about it. He doesn't want to jinx it. He can't even imagine.

As always, he is optimistic.

"I can't die until Purdue wins one," he said. "I've still got a chance to live long enough."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Lifelong Boilermakers fan, 92: 'I can't die until Purdue wins one'