The Orlando sports community lost a beloved coach and mentor Monday when 64-year-old Max Purcell died from complications after he suffered a cardiac arrest while attending the Florida Classic on Saturday.
Purcell, who played football at Evans High and then at Florida A&M, before taking up coaching on the Orlando high school scene, was watching the Rattlers take on Bethune-Cookman on Saturday at Camping World Stadium when he began to complain of not feeling well.
Purcell was apparently ill for a few days before the game, according to his niece Natasha Vilme, who said he was trying to self-medicate to get rid of what he thought were cold symptoms.
“So he was sick prior to going to the Classic. And when he got to the Classic, they said he was super lethargic and exhausted, but he still pressed on,” Vilme said. “A couple of coaches had helped him out of the stadium. They carried him outside. They said he was very weak and almost couldn’t walk.
“After a while, he was gasping for air and he couldn’t breathe. They got him out to an RV and they advised him he needed to go to the hospital. They kind of sat him down and by the time they sat him down, I guess he started having seizures.”
An ambulance finally arrived at the scene and took him to Orlando Regional Medical Center. He was not pronounced dead until Monday.
As word spread around the Orlando community, friends and well-wishers started flocking to ORMC to offer support.
“I guess the part that really gave us some peace was the amount of people that showed up at the hospital. There were a number of coaches, including Coach Thompson. He was really kind,” Vilme said of Evans athletic director and former coach Greg Thompson. “I learned a lot about my uncle and their relationship, and that was the same for all of the coaches who showed up.
Former Evans football coach Max Purcell died Monday after complications from a cardiac arrest he suffered on Saturday. He was 64 years old. (Photo courtesy Evans High)
“I’d say there were hundreds of people who showed up just to pay their respects. It was very comforting. I knew my uncle was loved, but I had no idea. I really did not know he had such an impact. Grown men were crying.”
Longtime Orlando football coach Bill Gierke, who was head coach at Dr. Phillips, Evans, Edgewater and Orangewood Christian, was Purcell’s coach at Evans in the late 70s.
“He was the first person I met when I walked through the door at Evans High School,” said Gierke, who was hired in 1978. “I asked him his name and if he played football and he said he did. He was a junior then, in May of ’78. That was the first time I met him and we were friends ever since.”
Gierke said Purcell was the first all-state lineman at Evans.
“Max would give you the shirt off his back. He was a really good football coach, but he’s probably a better person,” Gierke said. “After he graduated from Florida A&M, he came home and I think he was thinking about going into the military, but I convinced him to be a football coach. He did that and he never looked back.
“Super guy, just a super guy.”
Purcell would eventually be hired as head coach at his alma mater in 2003, and did so for three seasons, but mostly he was content with being a football assistant coach. Asked once, in 2012, why he wasn’t pursuing one of the opening head coaching jobs at several Orlando high schools, Purcell replied, “I did that once. It’s not my thing.”
He was still teaching at Wekiva High as a PASS instructor up until he passed. His last football coaching stint was in 2023 at Wekiva under then head coach Jeremiah Rodriguez-Schwartz.
Purcell was also a track coach at Evans High for a number of years. He touched many lives, and not just in sports. He was a mentor to young people and helped anyone who wanted to be helped. He was instrumental in aiding hundreds of young men and women further their education in pursuit of college scholarships.
“He helped so many kids stay on the right path and when things got tough, he helped them through it,” Gierke said. “He never wavered. He helped so many young people over the years, whether they were football players, track athletes, didn’t matter. He will be sorely missed.”
One of those kids was Kenard Lang, who graduated from Evans in 1993 before going on to become an All-America at the University of Miami and then an All-Pro in the NFL for 10 seasons. Lang has been a head coach at Jones, Wekiva, Evans and now at Leesburg.
“Oh shoot, it’s such a sad day,” Lang said Tuesday. “He coached me and then I coached with him and he worked for me. He was more than my coach. He was my friend. Another father figure to look up to, to talk to, to give advice. He was one of the few people who spoke on my behalf when I went into the OCPS Hall of Fame. He’s been in my life my whole life. He was everything to me, like another family member.”
Pine Hills kids often went to and listened to Purcell for advice and Lang was front and center, always looking for wisdom as his former pupil.
“He was like the last of the Mohicans of those kind of coaches, him and Coach [Julius ‘JB’] Gordon. He helped all kinds of kids and saw them through school, like kids from Ivey Lane and Mercy Drive and Carver Shores. All of those kids,” Lang said. “He was one of the middle guys, their mentor, their father figure, their uncle, their grandfather. It was not just the guys on the football team, it was the people in general in the whole school.”
Funeral arrangements have not yet been determined. There will be a gathering Saturday 3-7 p.m., in memory of Coach Purcell at the Warehouse, 310 McGuire Road, in Ocoee.
Chris Hays can be found on X.com @OS_ChrisHays.