(Pictured above, the 1987 Cross Country team with Dana Purser House standing on the far right)
Dana (Purser) House knows how to get things started. A member of South Carolina’s cross country team when the program first started in 1987, she later went on to start the cross country program at Bluffton High School in South Carolina where she won several state championships during her 21-year career.
“I came out of a pretty secluded background in that I was homeschooled until the ninth grade,” said House, who was also part of South Carolina’s track and field team. “I hadn’t done any organized sports to that point. I tried out for soccer, basketball, and volleyball, and I was cut from everything because I didn’t know how to do it. Track season rolled around, and running was something I could do. So, I had to figure out how to make it work to get me into college. When I got into the college setting, it was great!”
House came to South Carolina in the fall of 1987 when the women’s cross country program first came on as a varsity sport and ran for the Gamecocks until graduating in August of 1991 with a degree in journalism. The Gamecocks won back-to-back Metro Conference Championships during her career, and she was named the team’s MVP in two of her four seasons.
“It was pretty cool starting out,” said House, who was a standout runner at Mauldin High School. “My roommate was from Chicago. Almost everybody else on the team was from somewhere in the north. I had originally signed to go to the University of Florida, but they had changed coaches during the summer, and USC had contacted me previously. They had a scholarship available, the next thing I knew, I was a Gamecock!
“We were mostly freshmen that first year of the program, except maybe one walk-on.”
House found it exciting to be a part of a cross country program where everything was a “first.”
“That’s something that of sort of drew me to go there – to be part of something new,” said House. “I think I had three different coaches in my four years there. I learned a lot of resilience and to trust that you could be successful under many different styles. It was a really great experience. We were really tight.
“We did well that first year and after that. We won conference championships while I was there. We all lived at Bates that first year. We were very close. We were tutored together. We ate lunch together. It was great. We only had eight or nine runners for the…