Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 18, 1995 TAG: 9503210045
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: DAYTON, OHIO LENGTH: Medium
``This is a fine mess you've gotten yourself into.''
Except Purnell didn't laugh. His first season as the Dayton men's basketball coach didn't just produce a 7-20 record. His team wasn't just one of three in NCAA Division I that failed to win a conference game. It didn't just finish the season with 10 consecutive defeats.
It was worse.
``The worst thing was the league blowing up in our faces,'' Purnell said. ``It was then I wondered if I'd done the right thing. That was the only time I had any regrets.''
Purnell had built success at Radford in three years, and his three seasons as the bench boss at his alma mater, Old Dominion, included success and the promise of more.
Then he stunned some by moving to a program that had won four and six games, respectively, the previous two seasons. He got a six-year contract and a total annual package reportedly worth $300,000, but it was climbing another rung on the coaching ladder that intrigued him most.
``The level of the program, the tradition and the support were the big things,'' Purnell said Thursday at Dayton Arena, where he watched the NCAA Midwest Region first-round games. ``ODU was the the top of the Colonial [Athletic Association], but this is a step up, the Great Midwest.''
Then, it wasn't. The Flyers' conference brethren told Dayton to get lost. It was the only one of the Great Midwest schools not included in plans for what basically was a merger of that league and the Metro Conference.
``That was bad enough; the timing was even worse,'' Purnell said. ``It happened during the early recruiting period. You're out there selling a league, and then you aren't in it. The day we got in the Atlantic 10 [Conference], people here were thrilled.''
Purnell was one of them. When Dayton goes into the 12-team Atlantic 10 next season, it will be playing in its third league in four seasons. The Flyers spent only two years in the Great Midwest after crashing in the weaker Midwestern Collegiate Conference.
``The only thing that was good about the league situation is that it maybe deflected some of the attention from the fact we weren't playing well,'' Purnell said. ``All people were talking about was the conference, where we were going.
``The Atlantic 10 is wonderful. It was the only option for us. It makes the job the same one I took, again. It's the level we wanted to be before.
``It actually broadens our recruiting base. We can still recruit the Midwest, but now we can work the East. And there's Virginia, where all of our staff has ties.''
Purnell will be returning at least once each winter to Montgomery County, where he started his head-coaching career at Radford, because Virginia Tech is in an A-10 division with the Flyers. His assistants are former VMI and ODU aide Pete Strickland, former Monarchs guard and Radford assistant Frank Smith and former Keydets assistant Dave Manzer.
So, how are they coping with life in the Midwest? Wonderfully. Ask anyone familiar with the Dayton program and they rave about Purnell, his program and the future.
``What's been most gratifying and stunning to me has been the loyalty of fan support,'' Purnell said. ``To see people continue to come to games considering where we were told me how important basketball is here. And they're very knowledgeable about the game.''
The Flyers averaged 10,962 per game at 13,500-seat UD Arena this season, although their last three teams are a combined 17-67. They don't boo. When Purnell walked back onto the floor to do his radio show following Dayton's final home game this season, about 500 fans stood and applauded. They waited, and clapped again when he walked off following his radio stint. That kind of support is why the NCAA Tournament keeps returning to Dayton Arena, too.
What Purnell needs is the kind of turnaround he had in 1990-91 at Radford, when the Highlanders went from a 7-22 record the previous season to an exact reversal of fortunes. He also knows it isn't going to happen that quickly.
Dayton's storied hoops history includes only one NCAA Tournament berth in the past decade, in 1990.
Dayton doesn't just want to be an NCAA site. It wants to be an NCAA team. Dayton has the fans. It has the coach. It has the conference. Now, it has to find the players.
by CNB