2010-11 DePaul Basketball the Associated Press. It was the first top 20 final ranking for the Dayton program since 1969. Purnell was named the head coach at the University of Dayton on April 8, 1994, and inherited a program that had won just 17 games the previous four seasons combined. The team was ranked 209th in the Sagarin rankings in 1993-94. In his final year he had the program ranked in the top 20 of the AP poll much of the season. In 1997-98 Purnell was named Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year by the league’s coaches and was the NABC District Coach of the Year that same season. It was the third time he was named a conference Coach of the Year, the third different conference to honor Purnell. He had been named Colonial Athletic Association Coach of the Year at Old Dominion in 1993 and the Big South Conference Coach of the Year while at Radford in 1991. Prior to taking the reins at Dayton, he spent three years as head coach at Old Dominion, his alma mater. He compiled 57 wins in those three years and took the program to three postseason appearances. His team won the Colonial Tournament in 1991-92 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament. In each of his final two seasons at Old Dominion his teams claimed the CAA regular season championship, won 21 games and advanced to the NIT. Following the 1992-93 campaign, he was honored as the CAA Coach of the Year, NABC District IV Coach of the Year, and the Coach of the Year in the state of Virginia. Purnell began his collegiate head coaching career at Radford in 1988-89. In 1990-91, his third year, he led Radford to a 22-7 record, a 15-game improvement over the previous season. It was the third-largest single-season improvement in NCAA history at the time. Prior to his career as a head coach at the Division I level, Purnell served as an assistant coach for 10 seasons
at his alma mater, Old Dominion, and at the University of Maryland. He was on the Maryland staff as an assistant coach from 1985-88. Maryland went to the NCAA Tournament in his first and third years with the program. He served as an assistant coach in a full-time capacity at Old Dominion from 1978-85. All seven of the Old Dominion teams he served as a full-time assistant advanced to postseason play with three NCAA Tournaments and four NIT appearances. Purnell earned three letters and was a three-year starter as a guard at Old Dominion before he graduated with a degree in health and physical education in 1975. He earned a master’s degree in physical education administration in 1978. He was the senior co-captain and MVP of the 1975 Old Dominion team that won the Division II National Championship. He averaged 14.4 points per game and finished his career with 1,090 points and 476 assists. He still holds the school record for steals in a game with eight against Washington & Lee in 1975. He was named a Converse honorable mention All-American as a senior and also received the Tom Scott Award as Old Dominion’s Outstanding Gentleman Student-Athlete. A sixth-round selection of the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1975 NBA Draft, he was inducted into the Old Dominion Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988. In 2006, he was named to Old Dominion’s all-time team. A native of Berlin, Md., Purnell was born May 19, 1953. He and his wife Vicky have two children: Olivia, who graduated from the University of Southern California in 2004 and earned a master’s degree from NYU in 2007, and Lindsay, who graduated from Boston College in May 2007 and graduated from the Wake Forest School of Law in May 2010.
OLIVER PURNELL AND USA BASKETBALL
For a decade, Oliver Purnell was prominently involved in the USA Basketball program from 1994-2004. His USA Basketball experience culminated with the 2004 Summer Olympics in Greece. Teams he was affiliated with in the USA Basketball program as a head coach or assistant coach accumulated a 45-4 record and won five gold medals in international competition. He is one of five USA Basketball coaches in the history of that competition to win five gold medals. He served as an assistant coach under Larry Brown on the 2004 U.S. Olympic team, the seventh time in his career he was selected as a coach of a USA Basketball team. He coached prominent NBA players, such as Tim Duncan and Allen Iverson, in Greece at the 2004 Olympics. Purnell was the head coach of the 1999 USA World University Team and led the squad to an 8-0 record and the Gold Medal in Brisbane, Australia. He was the recipient of USA Basketball’s 1999 Developmental Coach of the Year Award for that accomplishment. Year Team Position Record 1994 US Olympic Festival Head Coach 3-1 1995 World University Games Assistant Coach 8-0 1996 COPABA 22 & Under Qualifying Tournament Assistant Coach 5-0 1999 World University Games Head Coach 8-0 2001 Goodwill Games Assistant coach 5-0 2003 Olympic Qualifying Assistant Coach 10-0 2004 United States Olympic Team Assistant Coach 5-3 Totals 45-4
42
Medal Silver Gold Gold Gold Gold Gold Bronze 5 Gold 1 Silver 1 Bronze