Man on a mission
posted by LW, Wednesday, April 07, 2010
The above image is a picture of Oliver Purnell rappelling into Littlejohn Coliseum last year for the annual "Rock The John" festivities.
Wonder if he saved his grappling hook and is going to do the special-forces thing when he returns to his (former) office to get his stuff?
Doubt he'd do that. He's always been a classy guy, so you'd think he'd properly address his former teammates and coaches the right way when he does return to the Upstate.
But given that the folks he's leaving behind were left to discover the news of his departure via early-morning tweets and Facebook posts, you never really know.
Not a whole lot of time to blog today given the constant demands of covering this coaching search, but I did want to throw out some reaction to Purnell's abrupt departure.
If OP thought he'd be universally embraced in Chicago, he was mistaken.
The reaction up there can be summed up by saying ... meh.
The peals of laughter on the other end of the phone told me everything I needed to know about local reaction to DePaul's recent foray into relevancy.
I asked Nick Irvin, the head coach of Morgan Park High School and young lion of the influential Irvin coaching family, what he thought of DePaul's hire of Oliver Purnell as its new head coach, and he started laughing.
"Very surprising," he said.
Now, Nick Irvin is a jovial guy. He laughs a lot; it's part of his patois. Or maybe my voice just cracks him up. He wasn't laughing at Purnell, just chuckling at the incredulousness of DePaul seemingly mangling another coaching search.
Oliver Purnell may be a big name in South Carolina, but in Chicago he's got less name recognition than Oliver Peoples.
OP better start making some serious inroads with the AAU folks up there.
"I've been CEO of the Fire for the past five years," said Mike Irvin, whose AAU team possesses a good portion of the area's top talent. "I've been at my father's side for the last 15 years assisting him with the team. I've never seen him. I've never seen a Clemson coach. That's bad, because in Chicago it's about the relationships, the ties. Chicago's a different animal, a different city.
"The mistake that [DePaul athletic director] Jean Lenti Ponsetto keeps making is she gets coaches who can't recruit Chicago. Maybe they want to recruit the South. Maybe they don't believe the Chicago players are good enough. Basically, my point is I guess they don't need Chicago. I don't understand how you don't need Chicago when you're in the middle of Chicago."
More on that here.
This Chicago Tribune writer is skeptical of the hire.
"It has been done here before," Purnell, 56, said with the optimism every new coach has. "Therefore, there's no question that it can be done again."
You have every reason to like this guy — but absolutely no reason to agree with him.
In a Big East Conference the university eventually may want to leave for the good of its program, and limited by an athletic administration rooted in the past, in fact many questions remain as to whether it can be done again at DePaul.
And later...
The oddest thing about the news conference came when I asked Purnell if, in the process of discussing his seven-year contract, he addressed the possibility of building an on-campus arena during his tenure. It seemed natural that any coach weighing a move from South Carolina to DePaul would ask about traffic, weather, cost of living — and a new arena.
"We did not,'' Purnell said. "Our facilities are good enough to do the things that can be done.''
Spoken like a guy who never has tried to get from Belden Avenue to Rosemont at 5:30 p.m. on a weeknight. The condition of Allstate Arena as a facility only represents part of the problem. The bigger issue is location and how its suburban address inhibits enthusiasm on campus.
As we have noted, a lot of little frustrations for Purnell at Clemson might've added up to big frustrations that made it easier for him to leave here. But he won't be without frustrations at DePaul -- or anywhere, for that matter.
Ron Morris laments Purnell's departure, and I think he summed it up by noting that even South Carolina fans couldn't rip the guy.
Frankly, Purnell never was going to establish basketball as the sport of choice at Clemson.
Some pretty darned good coaches have tried and failed to do that, and none probably moved the program further in that direction than Purnell.
Whatever the reason, his departure made Tuesday a sad day around the Clemson campus and across the state of South Carolina.
Gene Sapakoff says TDP's first call should go to Duke's floor-slapping assistant Steve Wojciechowski.
LW
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The above image is a picture of Oliver Purnell rappelling into Littlejohn Coliseum last year for the annual "Rock The John" festivities.
Wonder if he saved his grappling hook and is going to do the special-forces thing when he returns to his (former) office to get his stuff?
Doubt he'd do that. He's always been a classy guy, so you'd think he'd properly address his former teammates and coaches the right way when he does return to the Upstate.
But given that the folks he's leaving behind were left to discover the news of his departure via early-morning tweets and Facebook posts, you never really know.
Not a whole lot of time to blog today given the constant demands of covering this coaching search, but I did want to throw out some reaction to Purnell's abrupt departure.
If OP thought he'd be universally embraced in Chicago, he was mistaken.
The reaction up there can be summed up by saying ... meh.
The peals of laughter on the other end of the phone told me everything I needed to know about local reaction to DePaul's recent foray into relevancy.
I asked Nick Irvin, the head coach of Morgan Park High School and young lion of the influential Irvin coaching family, what he thought of DePaul's hire of Oliver Purnell as its new head coach, and he started laughing.
"Very surprising," he said.
Now, Nick Irvin is a jovial guy. He laughs a lot; it's part of his patois. Or maybe my voice just cracks him up. He wasn't laughing at Purnell, just chuckling at the incredulousness of DePaul seemingly mangling another coaching search.
Oliver Purnell may be a big name in South Carolina, but in Chicago he's got less name recognition than Oliver Peoples.
OP better start making some serious inroads with the AAU folks up there.
"I've been CEO of the Fire for the past five years," said Mike Irvin, whose AAU team possesses a good portion of the area's top talent. "I've been at my father's side for the last 15 years assisting him with the team. I've never seen him. I've never seen a Clemson coach. That's bad, because in Chicago it's about the relationships, the ties. Chicago's a different animal, a different city.
"The mistake that [DePaul athletic director] Jean Lenti Ponsetto keeps making is she gets coaches who can't recruit Chicago. Maybe they want to recruit the South. Maybe they don't believe the Chicago players are good enough. Basically, my point is I guess they don't need Chicago. I don't understand how you don't need Chicago when you're in the middle of Chicago."
More on that here.
This Chicago Tribune writer is skeptical of the hire.
"It has been done here before," Purnell, 56, said with the optimism every new coach has. "Therefore, there's no question that it can be done again."
You have every reason to like this guy — but absolutely no reason to agree with him.
In a Big East Conference the university eventually may want to leave for the good of its program, and limited by an athletic administration rooted in the past, in fact many questions remain as to whether it can be done again at DePaul.
And later...
The oddest thing about the news conference came when I asked Purnell if, in the process of discussing his seven-year contract, he addressed the possibility of building an on-campus arena during his tenure. It seemed natural that any coach weighing a move from South Carolina to DePaul would ask about traffic, weather, cost of living — and a new arena.
"We did not,'' Purnell said. "Our facilities are good enough to do the things that can be done.''
Spoken like a guy who never has tried to get from Belden Avenue to Rosemont at 5:30 p.m. on a weeknight. The condition of Allstate Arena as a facility only represents part of the problem. The bigger issue is location and how its suburban address inhibits enthusiasm on campus.
As we have noted, a lot of little frustrations for Purnell at Clemson might've added up to big frustrations that made it easier for him to leave here. But he won't be without frustrations at DePaul -- or anywhere, for that matter.
Ron Morris laments Purnell's departure, and I think he summed it up by noting that even South Carolina fans couldn't rip the guy.
Frankly, Purnell never was going to establish basketball as the sport of choice at Clemson.
Some pretty darned good coaches have tried and failed to do that, and none probably moved the program further in that direction than Purnell.
Whatever the reason, his departure made Tuesday a sad day around the Clemson campus and across the state of South Carolina.
Gene Sapakoff says TDP's first call should go to Duke's floor-slapping assistant Steve Wojciechowski.
LW
Click here for the "Eye On The Tigers" blog archive.
Link to this entry - Discuss this entry - Return to Blog Home
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