College Streaking - Part 41

 Purdue University Nude Olympics

Student nudity is nothing new at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.  This photo shows students skinny-dipping in the Wabash River in 1898.

Purdue's Nude Olympics started in 1969.  Male students (and only males) got naked and ran laps around the courtyard of Cary Quad on a cold winter night.  Unlike Nude Olympics events in some other places, it did not involve Olympic-style competitions, just running around the courtyard.

The event was male-only until 1980.  In 1986, the university president banned the event, not only because it violated nudity laws, but it was viewed as a health risk to students (the temperature was reportedly minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit one year).  Campus police started taking pictures of the participants to identify them.  If caught, students faced probation or expulsion.  Students continued running naked and fought back by wearing masks so they couldn't be identified.  Above are students with masks in 1987.

Above, runner in 1989 is maskless but seems to have escaped arrest.  Unfortunately, the photo, from the yearbook Debris, has been censored.

Another 1989 student was not so lucky and got arrested (above).

A runner in 1990, from the yearbook Debris.

A runner in 1991, from the yearbook Debris.  The photo spanned the crack between pages.

The naked run finally petered out, so to speak, in 1995.  It was replaced by a university-sanctioned event called the Nearly Naked Mile, held in fall or spring when the weather wasn't as cold (above, in 2014).  Sorry, but nearly naked is not the same as naked.