Catching Up with Cross Country Pioneer Dana (Purser) House

(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 girls’ team that first year.”

After graduation, she did some work in photojournalism and later worked as an office manager at an OBGYN office before moving to Bluffton where she volunteered in school settings at a time when Bluffton High School was being created. She was asked about coaching the cross country team at the school, and the rest is history.

“It was a brand-new school and a brand-new program,” House said. “Most of the kids hadn’t ever run before, and I didn’t really know what I was doing at first. The second year, we figured it out, and the boys’ team won the state championship. The year after that, they won it again. In my last year, the boys and girls were state champions. A lot of good things came out of those 21 years of coaching. My last boys team just really loved each other, and they all went to USC Beaufort to run on the cross country team there that had just been started.”

House coached the girls and boys cross country teams at Bluffton High School for 21 years and retired last year after guiding the Bobcats to a combined 15 county championships, 10 region titles, and four state championships.

“What I liked about coaching was being with kids that had never done it,” House said. “I loved seeing the young kids become passionate about it. I was offered some college coaching jobs, but I was never interested in that. I just liked seeing the young ones learn and have a passion for something for life.”

House also started a couple of fundraising road races in the Bluffton area over the years which have helped provide scholarships for deserving students as well as establish a foundation for a student who passed in a car accident.

“I always tried to teach the kids that it was about giving back,” House said. “We enjoyed running, but it’s also a community thing.”
House still works at Bluffton High School as the lead counselor, which she finds similar to coaching. She misses coaching but enjoys having more time with family.

“I’m excited to be joining the Lettermen’s Association this year, and we’re going to three football games this year,” House said. “When I was coaching, I didn’t have time to go, so I’m looking forward to that and really enjoy being an alum.”

She and her husband Randy have two grown children with their son, Landon, and daughter Scottie, who were also runners during their high school years.