University of Maryland, Baltimore County

James Purpura was announced as the seventh head coach of the UMBC men's lacrosse program on July 14, 2026.

Purpura joins Retriever Nation after a one-year stint as the Offensive Coordinator and Recruiting Coordinator at Ohio State University. Prior to joining the Buckeyes, Purpura served as the head coach at Virginia Military Institute. 

This past season, Purpura was a key contributor to Ohio State's Big Ten regular-season championship run, helping the Buckeyes to back-to-back 10-win seasons for the first time since 1966. Ohio State reached as high as sixth in the national rankings this past season and remained in the top-10 for more than 10 weeks. The successful campaign saw five Buckeyes named to the All-Big Ten team, three named USILA All-Americans, one nominated for the Tewaaraton Award, and four players drafted professionally to the PLL and NLL. 

As the leader of the VMI program, Purpura took over a program that had gone winless in the truncated 2020 season and hadn't won more than four games since 2008. He increased the program's win total in each of his five seasons at the helm, finishing with a 10-4 record in 2025, the program's first winning season since 1995. Purpura navigated three different conferences during his run at VMI, competing in the SoCon, the Metro Conference, and the NEC. 

During that stretch, the Keydets were the only team in the nation to improve their win total in each of those five seasons. Purpura's 2025 graduating class amassed 27 wins, the most for a class in the program's Division I history, and most as a class since 1996. 

After serving as the program's offensive coordinator in 2017 and 2018, Purpura took his first head coaching job at Arcadia, coaching the Knights to a record of 14-11 in his two seasons at the Division III level. He was named the Middle Atlantic Conference's Coach of the Year in 2019. Other previous coaching roles include a stint as the Offensive Coordinator and Recruiting Coordinator at Queens University of Charlotte, a stint as a graduate assistant at Frostburg State, and a season as the offensive coordinator at SUNY Brockport. 

Purpura competed collegiately at Mount Saint Mary's and SUNY Geneseo, earning his degree from SUNY Geneseo in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology.