Six words best sum up Oliver Purnell in Pete Strickland’s mind: Inch by inch, life’s a cinch.

‘Every year, better kids, better players, better program or structure,’ said Strickland, a former assistant under Purnell and now an assistant coach for North Carolina State.

The step-by-step process Strickland spoke of applies to every program Purnell has run — Radford, Old Dominion, Dayton and Clemson. Each new head coaching opportunity comes as another stop with heavy rebuilding. And DePaul, the program Purnell unexpectedly took over after leaving Clemson last season, is his next challenge.

In his fifth head coaching job, Purnell faces the daunting task of rebuilding a DePaul program at the bottom of the Big East. But the situation is nothing new for Purnell. With his arrival at each program in the past, the team was in bad shape. And each time, Purnell went through the same formula of turning those programs around before leaving to go do the same at another school.

‘You start with things that you emphasize and the things that you talk to your team about,’ Purnell said in the Big East coaches’ teleconference on Jan. 13. ‘You go out and recruit some better players as well to increase your talent level. At the same time, teaching those guys those same principles. Things that you need to do in order to win. Things from being on time to execution to playing hard to the way you conduct yourself on and off the floor.

‘That’s our way of doing things, and it’s a winning way.’

That winning way is something Purnell hopes to bring to DePaul. And if the past is any indication of what lies in store for the Blue Demons program, there is reason for hope.

Purnell’s first head coaching job was at Radford. In his third year, Ron Bradley, his top assistant at DePaul, joined him. The team was coming off a 7-22 record in Purnell’s second year. Then Radford went 22-7 that third year — the third-largest single-season turnaround in NCAA history at the time.

Purnell’s approach, Bradley said, is to build the entire program.

‘Not only does he coach the team and do all those kind of things, he pays attention to what kind of music is played at the games and everything that deals with the program,’ Bradley said. ‘And that’s the kind of challenge that he enjoys.’

For Purnell, the next challenges started with Old Dominion, which had a combined 28 wins in the two seasons prior. In Purnell’s final two seasons at ODU, the Monarchs had 21 wins in each. At Dayton, his next stop, the team won six games the season before Purnell was hired. Shortly after Purnell arrived, they were in the NCAAs.

And Clemson, Purnell’s most recent rebuilding job, gives Bradley hope for their DePaul team.

‘It’s very similar to the first year at Clemson,’ Bradley said. ‘We certainly struggled this year and that first year at Clemson.’

That first 2003-04 season at Clemson, Purnell and Bradley were back together for the first time since the late 1980s and early ’90s, when the two were at Maryland and Radford. The team finished 10-18.

‘He remained very positive and had a great recruiting class, and the next year we really started to turn things around,’ Bradley said. ‘We went from 10 wins, and then the second year we were in the NIT. So the proof is in the pudding, as they say.’

The turnaround Purnell was able to accomplish at Clemson was especially impressive to Strickland.

‘Clemson is maybe the least sought-after job for basketball in the ACC,’ Strickland said. ‘He takes it, turns it around. I think two or three straight NCAAs. I mean, this guy never got a great job and yet every time, he made it into a great job.’

Former Clemson star and current Washington Wizard Trevor Booker was a part of Purnell’s transformation at Clemson. He saw firsthand Purnell’s qualities as a coach.

‘He built the program up,’ Booker said. ‘He did a great job the four years I was there and a couple years before I was there.

‘I expect the same thing (at DePaul). That program was kind of down, so I’m expecting him to build that program up.’

To do that, Purnell has started by doing what he always does: build inch by inch. The team will have six or seven new players coming in as part of next year’s class, Bradley said. And with Chicago, Purnell and Bradley have a new recruiting tool.

Paul Webb thinks Purnell can accomplish a turnaround. When Purnell was an assistant under Webb at Old Dominion in the ’70s and ’80s, he got a sense of what Purnell would become.

‘I always felt, you know, after we got into it, that whatever job that he got and whatever the conditions of that program was when he took the job that he would do a good job,’ Webb said.

It won’t be easy doing the same in the Big East, arguably the best conference in the country. But it’s not impossible.

‘It was a very tough situation that he went into,’ Webb said. ‘It’s going to take a few years. It’s not going to happen overnight.’

And Purnell knows that. It’s that inch-by-inch mantra that has worked for him at every head coaching job that gives DePaul hope. Even if the Blue Demons have just one Big East win this season.

‘There are moments of frustration for me,’ Purnell said. ‘But at every stop and everywhere I’ve been, it’s been a process. … This is what I signed up for. So you have to push that frustration aside.’

Bradley cites Purnell’s optimism and interest in building a complete program — not just going by wins and losses — as traits that exemplify Purnell’s abilities.

And keeping his eyes off of DePaul’s record might be the best thing for him as he looks to rebuild. Strickland, the former assistant, knows if anyone can turn the program around, it’s Purnell. His record at those past schools and more than 400 total wins speaks for itself.

Purnell isn’t going yard by yard. He’s going inch by inch. That, along with his poise and vision, Strickland said, has been — and will continue to be — the key to his success.

‘He has had to go in with his overalls on and start to put in foundations when there was none,’ Strickland said. ‘He never got a job where the foundation was laid and had a semblance of a program already in place.

‘Sometimes you get jobs where good guys go and take a better job. … But he never got one of those. He got jobs where people got fired. And God, has he turned them around each time.’

rnmarcus@syr.edu

Published on March 2, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Rachel: rnmarcus@syr.edu