Oliver Purnell

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Oliver Purnell
Title	Head coach
College	Clemson
Sport	Basketball
Born	May 19, 1953 (age 53)
Place of birth	Berlin, Maryland
Career Highlights
Championships
CAA Tournament Championship (1992) CAA Regular Season Championship (1993, 1994)
Awards
Big South Coach of the Year (1991) CAA Coach of the Year (1993) Atlantic Ten Coach of the Year (1998)
School as a player
1972-1975	Old Dominion
Coaching positions
1975-1985 1985-1988 1988-1991 1991-1994 1994-2003 2003-present	Old Dominion (asst.) Maryland (asst.) Radford Old Dominion Dayton Clemson

Oliver Purnell (born May 19, 1953) is an American college basketball coach at Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina.

[edit] Early years

Purnell was born in Berlin, Maryland and attended Stephen Decatur High School. Purnell was recruited to play basketball at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. While at Old Dominion, Purnell enjoyed a highly successful playing career, finishing 18th on ODU's all time scoring list with 1,090 points and leading the Monarchs to the 1975 NCAA Division II national championship.[1]. The Milwaukee Bucks drafted Purnell in the sixth round of the 1975 NBA Draft.[2]

[edit] Coaching career

Purnell became a graduate assistant coach at ODU in July 1975, eventually becoming a full time assistant at the university. During Purnell's tenure as a full time assistant, he helped ODU reach the post season seven times (3 NCAAs and 4 NITs).[3] Lefty Driesell hired Purnell in 1985 to serve as an assistant on his Maryland staff. Purnell served three seasons at Maryland before being selected as head coach at Radford University. Purnell is credited with one of the biggest one year turnarounds in NCAA history as his 1990-91 Radford club posted a 22-7 record, a 15 game improvement over the previous season.[4]. In 1994, he accepted a position as head coach at the University of Dayton where he led the Flyers to multiple NCAA tournament appearances (2000,2003) before accepting the head coaching job at Clemson University shortly after losing to #13 Tulsa in the 2003 tournament.

[edit] External links

• http://www.coachpurnell.com/bio.html
• http://odusports.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/purnell_oliver00.html
• http://clemsontigers.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/purnell_oliver00.html

Preceded by Jim O'Brien

Dayton Flyers Head Coach 1994–2003

Succeeded by Brian Gregory