The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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JULY/AUGUST 2020 ■ 23 job, working with assistant coaches like Pete Carroll and Johnny Rodgers, and for a defensive genius in Kiffin. He lived with the players at the College Inn, ate with them in the dining hall and ran all their study halls as the program's academic coordinator. On the field, he ran the defensive scout team and worked with running backs, but he had no recruiting responsibilities. The position lasted exactly two years. After the 1982 season, Kiffin and his staff were on the verge of being fired by Casey after a 6-5 season. Kiffin eventually agreed to resign if Casey would give the football staff a few more months of salary. Purcell had no idea what he would do next. "Everybody was in the office making calls and getting jobs, but I didn't have anyone to call," Purcell remembered. "One day, [assis- tant athletics director] Howard Hink came to the office and said, 'Mr. Casey wants to see you.' I thought I was in trouble." Instead, Casey invited him into the office and told him the program needed some sta- bility during the transition time. In his gruff manner, Casey told Purcell he had just been promoted to full-time assistant, with a salary of $18,000 and a loaner car. Never looking up from the work on his desk, Casey tossed Purcell a set of keys to a Chrysler K-car and said: "Now get your ass out on the road and go visit every player in North Carolina we've been recruiting and tell them to wait until we have a new coach be- fore they make their decision." And, Casey warned, "This is not permanent. The new coach will decide if he wants to keep you." The new coach was Tom Reed, who was hired from Ohio University and had few connections to North Carolina. Purcell was the perfect fit to become the staff's recruit- ing coordinator, traveling the state to find football talent. After three consecutive 3-8 seasons, Reed and his staff were also fired, and Purcell was again in limbo — at least until new head coach Dick Sheridan got to know his first- ever recruiting coordinator. "I didn't have a recruiter on my staff at Furman," explained Sheridan, who has been retired to the South Carolina coast since 1993. "I didn't know Bobby, and he didn't know me. I told him we would work together for a couple of months and see how it was going." It went fine. "I couldn't have gone out and found someone better than Bobby for that job," Sheridan said. "He fit like a glove with our staff. He shared the same principles, work ethic and judgment. "I could have searched the whole country over and interviewed coach after coach and never found anyone who would fit with our staff the way Bobby did." From Recruiting to Soliciting In many ways, being a recruiting coordi- nator was the perfect prerequisite for becom- ing a fundraiser. There were successes and failures, big misses and some surprises along the way. There are a lot of rosy scenarios, promises and expectations — some of which come true, some of which just don't pan out. In 1984, Purcell went to California to re- cruit three junior college quarterbacks. All of them decided to enroll at NC State. Probably the least accomplished of the three was a part- time starter for Los Angeles Pierce College who arrived in Raleigh in January of that year. "Bobby came out here on a day that was 70 degrees," recalled 1986 ACC Player of the Year and former NFL quarterback Erik Kramer. "He said, 'You are going to love North Carolina. The weather is just like this.' When I got off the plane, it was probably 20 degrees, and I was wearing shorts and a T- shirt. I had never been so cold in my life. "I asked him, 'Bobby, what gives?' and he just kind of shrugged and smiled." N o t l o n g a f t e r Kramer completed his two-year Wolfpack career, Purcell was recruited by for- mer Wolfpack Club executive secretary K.M. "Charlie" Bryant to replace Mark Moeller as one of the organiza- tion's two associate directors. Purcell with head basketball coach Kevin Keatts. PHOTO COURTESY WOLFPACK CLUB Purcell, from left to right, with late golf legend Arnold Palmer and former Wolfpack Club executive secretary Charlie Bryant, with former NC State basketball superstar David Thompson, and with former Wolfpack head football coach Dick Sheridan. PHOTOS COURTESY WOLFPACK CLUB