Brown, a former Tar Heel coach and now head coach of the NBA Champion Detroit Pistons, served as the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball head coach. Purnell and Williams, University of North Carolina’s current head coach, were two of his assistants along with San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich.

If you talk with Oliver Purnell long, you’ll see why Larry Brown wanted him to be part of this Olympic-level coaching staff. When it comes to building a top-flight program, Purnell knows what it takes.

Purnell came to Clemson from the University of Dayton in Ohio, where he put the Flyers back on the national landscape. Dayton, which was one of the nation’s top programs during the 1950s and 1960s, had won only nine games in the two seasons prior to Purnell’s arrival in 1994. After three years of putting his stamp on the program, he led them to 20-win seasons in five of his last six years. That total included two trips to the NCAA tournament and a final season of 24-6.

So why would Purnell leave Dayton to assume the task of building the Clemson program?

“It has always been a dream of mine to coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference,” says Purnell. “Having grown up in Maryland and having spent most of my adult life in Virginia, I know about the ACC.”

Purnell was raised in Berlin, Md. “My mother taught me that if you work hard and believe in yourself, you have a chance to accomplish anything you want,” he says. “We were taught that being African American was not going to hold us back … that there would be pitfalls in life, but with hard work, we could accomplish whatever we wanted. That kind of mindset has served me very well.”

Purnell sees Clemson basketball as a sleeping giant of opportunity.

“With Terry Don [athletic director Terry Don Phillips] here, I trust that Clemson is ready to develop one of the top programs in the ACC,” says Purnell. “There are so many reasons to come to Clemson — It’s a beautiful place. It’s in the South. It’s in the ACC. However, the main reason I wanted to come here is the serious commitment to being a top program.”

Purnell earned his college degree and played basketball at Old Dominion in Norfolk, Va. Following graduation in 1975, he began his coaching career as a graduate assistant there, but not before taking a peek at Clemson. Tiger head coach Bill Foster had offered him a similar position.

“I came down and loved the area,” recalls Purnell. “And I have the utmost respect for Bill Foster. But I had just graduated from Old Dominion, and it was like home to me.”

Following his two seasons as a graduate assistant, Purnell was elevated to full-time status for the next eight seasons. When his head coach, Paul Webb, retired, Purnell took a job with Lefty Driesell at Maryland. It was his first up-close look at ACC basketball.

After three years at Maryland, Purnell accepted his first head-coaching position at Radford University in Virginia. Three seasons later, he left Radford to return to Old Dominion as head coach. During the next three seasons, he compiled a record of 57-33, with a trip to the NCAA tournament and two to the NIT.

He then left to begin the rebuilding program at Dayton. The first few years were tough; after those initial seasons, however, Purnell began to see positive results. During his final four seasons at Dayton, the Flyers won at least 20 games each year and made two trips to the NCAA tournament and two to the NIT. In his last season, the Flyers were 24-6.

Purnell says he feels good about his first year at Clemson. “I would have liked to have won about four or five more games, but we beat some top caliber opponents, and our guys learned about playing hard with a defensive and rebounding mentality.”

With one Clemson season under his belt, Purnell says he’s looking forward to this winter. “You’re always excited about having your first group of guys whom you’ve recruited. We’re also excited about the older guys who bought into the things we were trying to do last year. And we’re especially excited about putting those groups together.”

The Tiger coach sees his Olympic experience from this past summer as a huge opportunity. “To work two summers with Coach Brown and the other guys — that was a great experience for me. I enjoyed the travel and seeing the other events. We obviously struggled with our young team, but we were very proud of those guys for going.”

He fully expects his Olympic experience to help him as a coach at Clemson. “It’s already helped us with this recruiting class,” he says.