CLEMSON – If you looked into Clemson’s dugout during a game in the last month, you would see head coach Erik Bakich, taking notes and ready to greet returning players. Directly behind him, you could almost always spot Jarren Purify, encouraging his teammates and talking with Clemson’s skipper while recovering from a broken hand.

After starting in over 120 games across four years, the injury Purify suffered on March 31 against Notre Dame kept him sidelined for nearly a month, the longest absent stint of his career, dating back to his time before Clemson.

“It was tough, but you know, I had my teammates,” the second baseman said after Clemson’s 4-3 win over No. 13 Boston College Sunday to win the three-game series. “Still gotta lead even through injury, so that’s what I was doing. Just encouraging them to play their best.”

While Purify was out of the starting lineup, Clemson (28-20, 8-16 ACC) lost five of its six ACC series, falling to an 8-13 overall record in that span.

With his hand wrapped in the dugout, there was no way for Purify to lead his team on the field, or help the Tigers find any momentum, the way he did in the first half of the season as the leadoff man that routinely fired up the crowd. Instead, he had to rely on his words.

“(I led) through words, through motivation, through showing up every day, being encouraging, just positive, positive energy, and just doing it for them,” he said after Clemson got its second conference series win over the Eagles.

Over a month after the injury, Purify got to lead on the field again Sunday, as the junior finished 3-for-4 with a home run and a game-winning RBI single to claim the Tigers’ first home ACC series win this season. 

As he pumped his once-injured fist and rounded the bases, the energy felt more alive in Doug Kingsmore Stadium than it had in multiple months. Clemson’s anchor was back, and the 40-plus win seasons the Tigers boasted in the last three years felt less distant than they had in recent weeks.

“Jarren Purify is different,” Bakich said postgame. “The energy he brings, the intangibles he brings, he lifts everyone, with just his presence out there, the way he talks, the way he moves. So, just all of it. He’s a unique unicorn type player in that regard and he means a lot to our program.”

Long before Purify, “the unicorn,” was leading Clemson to series wins in front of thousands of fans, Bakich and his staff knew the Detroit, Mich., native had a trait that could not quite be quantified. According to the former Michigan head coach who recruited Purify to the Wolverines and later to the Tigers, the second baseman has an ability that goes far beyond baseball.

He is a natural leader.

“So (Purify) was a sophomore at Liggett High School in Detroit, and he was just different,” Bakich said. “(Assistant) Nick Schnabel went to see him. We all spent a lot of time with him in the recruiting process. He was a leader at a young age and he came in and was a leader here at a young age. I mean, he’s just a leader, period.”

Purify, now in his third year at Clemson, has been voted a captain by his teammates twice, and won the team’s Inspiration Award at the conclusion of last season. This year, the upperclassman ranks among the top of Clemson’s hitters in on-base percentage and batting average, both up from last year’s statistics, despite his injury.

Whenever the leader draws a walk, a hit-by-pitch, or records a hit, the Clemson dugout erupts for their leader. Some of their largest cheers of the season may have been Sunday, when Purify willed his team to its second consecutive victory over the Eagles.

Fittingly, when Purify hit his home run Sunday to cut the Eagles’ (35-16, 17-10 ACC) lead to one run, he was not looking at the ball– just at his team.

“I didn’t see it actually,” he said. “I was just going. I was looking more at my team than I was at the ball. I knew it was gone, but I knew how big it was and how impactful it would be for the team and great momentum.”

The long weeks of physical therapy, standing beside his coach, and offering only words, paid off. And as the Gap Band’s “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” echoed throughout the Stadium, Purify’s screaming teammates could be heard drowning out the crowd’s cheers. Thanks to Purify, the Tigers were, at least for a moment, over a hump that seemed insurmountable at times this season.

“He’s just got the it factor,” Bakich said of Purify after his Sunday performance. “Whether he’s

running a company or a major league player, he’s got the it factor. However you want to define it, Jarren Purify has it. Sometimes God hand selects people to lead others and be successful, and he’s one of those people.”

Clemson’s schedule will not get any easier in the coming weeks, as the Tigers will take on No. 9 Coastal Carolina (30-13) at Spring Brooks Stadium in Conway, S.C., Tuesday, and take on No. 14 Florida State (30-14, 12-9 ACC) in a three-game series next weekend.

The Tigers may be out of the projected field of postseason play, but Purify, freshly healed, is not ready to give up.

“We know what we have to do,” he said. “We know we got to keep pushing. We know it’s not going to be easy, but we know we gotta keep doing it.”