(October 29, 2018) Tom Purvis rolled the dice this summer. He left a Division I women’s basketball broadcasting job to move across country in search of upward mobility. He’s found it as the new voice of Radford University women’s basketball.
“I saw the Radford job on the STAA job leads – it was as simple as that. I applied the day that the lead came through,” says Purvis.
Purvis moved to North Carolina in August after five seasons as the women’s basketball voice at his alma mater, the University of Idaho. He anticipated greater broadcasting opportunities on the East coast.
“I feel so fortunate to already have a new NCAA DI basketball play-by-play job. It was hard leaving my job with Idaho because I had so greatly enjoyed that job and being at that level of competition.”
Purvis has been hosting the Appalachian State University Sports Network for IMG. He’ll leave that roll after football season.
When Purvis saw the Radford opening, he was excited to see how relatively close the Radford, VA campus is to his new home. “I was also excited about the added element of being able to do the ESPN Plus broadcasts. It was a no-brainer to apply and see where it went.”
Deciding to move from Idaho to North Carolina for the Appalachian State host position was not easy for Purvis. “I was leaving play-by-play at the DI level and knew I would greatly miss doing it. I also was concerned about how tough it would be to get back into doing college play-by-play.”
The positives of moving ultimately outweighed the negatives. “North Carolina is an area that both my wife and I were excited to move to. We had researched the area for nearly a year. We thought it would be a great fit for our family and a place we could see ourselves staying for a while. It was something for which we were both all-in.”