PACK POWER: N.C. STATE UNIVERSITY'S KEY ATHLETIC FUNDRAISER HAS KEPT THE WOLFPACK MOTIVATED FOR NEARLY THREE DECADES.

AuthorPomeranz, Jim
PositionNC TREND: College sports

Since Bobby Purcell was named executive director of North Carolina State University's athletic booster club in 1991, the Raleigh school has had six chancellors, four athletic directors, and 10 football and basketball coaches. Meanwhile, its highest-profile teams have had little success in the Atlantic Coast Conference: The football team (119-130-1 in the ACC) has finished second in the league six times, while the basketballers (184-274) have placed no higher than third.

Through it all, Purcell has been the steady hand in building the N.C. State University Student Aid Association Inc., better known as the Wolfpack Club, raising about half a billion dollars and developing a loyal fan base. When he took the job, donations for scholarships and capital projects totaled $3.6 million with about 8,200 club members. Now, donations average $19 million annually, and the club totals about 20,000 members.

"Bobby, no doubt, has been the one person to hold the fans together for the last 27 years," says Chuck Amato, head football coach from 2000-06. "Bobby's smart, level-headed, knows what he's doing and does it well. He's truthful, and that's just one reason people like him. The fans want continuity."

Purcell joined the Wolfpack football program as a part-time assistant for head coach Monte Kiffin in 1981. He later became the outside linebacker coach under Tom Reed and was tapped as recruiting coordinator by Dick Sheridan in 1986. He moved to the Wolfpack Club staff in 1987 as an assistant to longtime executive secretary K.M. "Charlie" Bryant. Four years later, he got the top job.

"Wolfpack fans have always been very loyal to their teams, always looking to the future, not worrying about past results," Bryant says. "But it also takes good leadership to hold it all together. ... It's an understatement to say Bobby has done an absolutely terrific job."

Purcell was born in Laurinburg and raised in Clinton, where he played high-school football and baseball. Following his father and grandfather, he enrolled at N.C. State but transferred to UNC Chapel Hill, where he earned a bachelor's in business administration in 1977. Two years as a regional credit manager for Whirlpool Corp. left him longing for a career in athletic administration. "But I didn't know how to get there," he says, so he arranged meetings with four athletics directors--N.C. State's Willis Casey; UNC Chapel Hill's Bill Cobey; Georgia's Vince Dooley; and Georgia Tech's Homer Rice.

"All four said I...

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