His Toughest Critic : Tod Murphy Takes Each Loss Personally but Has Trouble Taking Compliments at All

Tod Murphy’s harshest critic stands 6-feet 9-inches, has piercing, blue eyes, and is generally well respected by most who know him. His name is Tod Murphy.

The man UC Irvine basketball coaches say could serve as the prototype for their program--a guy they consider a good player, good student, hard worker and all-around good human being--says he’s less than satisfied with what he’s accomplished in his collegiate career. The Anteaters have lost nearly as often as they have won in Murphy’s senior season, and Murphy takes each loss personally.

“I’d have a hard time pointing to the things I’m doing well, because I’m so worried about the things I’m not doing well,” Murphy said.

“No, I don’t think this season has lived up to my expectations, and I blame myself for a lot of that. I don’t think I’ve had the kind of season that a lot of people--myself included--expected.”

Wait a minute. Maybe somebody slipped Murphy a counterfeit stat sheet. The one UCI compiles and distributes says he’s averaging 20 points and 7.2 rebounds per game, shooting 55.7% from the field, and has enough minutes of playing time (783) to fill the hours of a day. He has been the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn.’s second-leading scorer most of the season, trailing only Utah State’s Greg Grant. He has started in 80 consecutive games.

And that’s not to mention the Irvine record book, which, in Murphy’s case, bears mentioning. It’s a safe bet that sometime during tonight’s game at New Mexico State, Murphy will get the ball near the basket, work his way through the two and three defenders that he has become accustommed to sharing the lane with, and score the points that will make him the leading scorer in UCI basketball history.

Murphy enters tonight’s game at the Pan American Center needing eight points to pass Dave Baker as the Anteaters’ career scoring leader. The 1,594 points he has scored since coming to UCI are the result of hours of hard labor; of a work ethic Anteaters Coach Bill Mulligan wishes he could find in more players. Mulligan is fond of saying that Murphy hasn’t had a bad practice since coming to Irvine.

“Overall, God what a job he’s done,” Mulligan said, with a twinkle in his eyes. “If everybody had his attitude, we’d be something.”

Murphy was a first-team All-Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. selection last season. He averaged 17 points and 8.9 rebounds per game, and was voted the team’s most valuable player. But the Anteaters finished 13-17, and Murphy was left to hope his senior season would be better.

Before the 1985-86 season began, Murphy surveyed UCI’s roster and said he believed the Anteaters had the talent to contend for the PCAA title. But Irvine hasn’t won more than two consecutive games this season, and Murphy firmly believes that the team’s 12-9 record thus far could be better. And Murphy thinks that the fact that it isn’t is a reflection on him.

Things were so much simpler during Murphy’s sophomore season, when he had teammates such as Ben McDonald, Bob Thornton and George Turner to attract the opponents’ attention. The Anteaters finished 19-10 that season. Mulligan has said that the best team he’s had at Irvine. Murphy’s role has magnified since those players have departed. He’s become the Anteaters’ only pure inside player, and draws a crowd nearly every time he posts up. Murphy might have just as well worn a bull’s-eye on the back of his jersey this season instead of the No. 43. Many of UCI’s opposing coaches have designed game plans that include defending Murphy by joining two or three players to his hip. Siamese zones. Men-to-man defenses.

“I think it’s a compliment to me if coaches find it necessary to use two and three guys to try to stop me from scoring,” Murphy said. “But it’s also disappointing that since I’ve become the quote ‘focal point’ of the team, we haven’t really strung any wins together. That type of thing always concerns me, because I’m wondering if guys like Bob and Ben and George can lead such a strong team, why can’t I? It brings up interesting thoughts in my mind when I go to bed.

“I hate losing. It’s plain and simple. I can’t stand to lose. And, unfortunately, I’ve done way too much of it the past two years.”

And it’s all Tod Murphy’s fault, right? Of course not, but the fact that he seems to believe much of it is says a lot about his approach to things. “I’d give back anything I’ve done this entire season to have a 17-2 year, or a much better year than what we’ve got right now,” he said.

Said UCI assistant coach Mike Bokosky, when told Murphy is somewhat disappointed with himself this season: “He probably sees himself as being up and down, just like you and I see ourselves going up and down more than someone else would. But I can’t see Tod fluctuating much, and I’ve seen him for four years. He’s the most consistent person I’ve ever been around, and I’m not just talking about basketball. That covers everything . . . how he treats people, how he plays, how he is in his total life. He’s just very consistent.”

One of the scrapbook moments of Murphy’s UCI career came in the 1983-84 season, when he scored the winning points in a 77-74 win over Nevada Las Vegas, a team which entered the game ranked seventh in the country. Afterward, he was surrounded by reporters who wanted to know what it was like to be responsible for knocking off a national power.

His response sent pens in motion: “I’ve got a term paper to write tonight, and I’ve got a three-page paper due tomorrow in economics. At 1 o’clock tomorrow, after I get out of class, it’ll probably sink in that we beat the seventh-ranked team.”

There is a touch of irony that the man Murphy is about to pass as UCI’s career scoring leader has returned to Irvine, where he is known as Mayor Dave Baker. Mulligan believes Murphy will be a success “if he never plays basketball again” after leaving UCI. “He worked for for an attorney last summer,” Mulligan said. “He’s not just completely absorbed in basketball. He’s a well-rounded kid.”

Murphy seems to think he could have made his coach happier by spending more of his free time in the gym or weight room, by being more “absorbed” in the game.

“I think I kind of disappointed Mulligan when I took that summer job,” he said. “I think he’d have rather seen me working out eight hours a day. I think he wanted me to come in as the next Kevin Magee or something this year. He wanted me to dominate a game in the way Kevin could.

“One of my biggest fears is leaving school and having people look back and say, ‘Well, Murphy was good but he could have been better if he had done this and this and this.’ Basketball’s really important to me, but I enjoy my freedom and I enjoy the outside things that I do. I don’t think I would have enjoyed basketball . . . as much if I was just involved in nothing but basketball. I think everyone needs some time to do what they need to get done. I think you need that time just to keep your sanity, basically.

“A lot of people can do it, but with my personality, I couldn’t eat, sleep and be Mr. Basketball. It’s nice hearing about someone like Chris Mullin who can, and he’s become really successful. But I don’t think it’s in my personality to be like that.”

Murphy was born on Christmas Eve, 1963. His parents, Tom and Tenna, met each other at a gathering of the Tiptoppers Club, a social organization for tall people. Tom Murphy is 6-5. Tenna (a name she acquired by being the 10th child in her family) is 6-2. Besides providing Murphy with the genes to be a success on the court, the Murphys have been their sons’ constant supporters.

Tim Murphy, Tod’s older brother and a part-time assistant to Mulligan, remembers when he was playing at Long Beach City College and Tod was still at Lakewood High School. “There were a couple of times when we’d have conflicting games,” Tim said. “So, my mom would go to one game and my dad would go to the other. They never missed any of our games when we played locally.”

When Tod was being recruited out of Lakewood after being named the CIF Southern Section 4-A player of the year, Tom, now retired, helped his son cut through the recruiting rhetoric by applying a decision-making process he had encountered as an engineer for Fluor Corp.

“It was a real calculated formula,” Tod said. “We brought in about 12 to 15 different things to look at in each school. I graded each school on a scale of 1 to 10 in each category.”

Murphy gave Irvine the best grades, and chose it over USC, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara and Cal State Long Beach. He liked Mulligan and the fast style of play he stresses. It was close to home. And the academic environment at UCI was to Murphy’s liking.

Murphy expects to graduate this spring with a degree in economics. “Hopefully, I won’t have to use it for a few years,” he said.

It doesn’t take a student of economics to figure out there is money to be made in professional basketball, and Murphy plans on giving that a chance before settling in to a life of 9 to 5. But whether he has what National Basketball Assn. scouts are looking for remains to be seen.

“I think they’re worried about my size and speed,” Murphy said. “I think they’re saying, ‘He’s not big and physical enough to be a power forward.’ And I know they’re saying I’m not fast enough to be a small forward.”

Reluctantly, Mulligan concurs.

“The question with Murph is where do you play him?” he said. “The best athletes in the NBA are small forwards. Then, is he strong enough to play power forward? It’s almost like fitting into a computer (profile) in the NBA.

“But if he gets with the right team, I’ve gotta believe somebody will keep him.”

And if he doesn’t?

“It’s really important to me,” Murphy said. “But I realize that dream doesn’t come true for too many people. I’ve got my education to fall back on.

“(But) I’d like to play professional ball somewhere. If not here, then over in Europe. Not a lot of people can say they’re completely satisfied with what they’re doing. And I’d be very satisfied to play basketball.”

Murphy is still searching for satisfaction this season. But the fear he has that people will look back at his collegiate career and say it wasn’t a success is unjustified.

He need look no further than the UCI record book for proof.

UC Irvine Career Scoring Leaders

Player Years Games Points Dave Baker 1971-75 108 1,601 Tod Murphy 1982-86 108 1,594 Ben McDonald 1980-84 114 1,512 Kevin Magee 1980-82 56 1,475 Jeff Cunningham 1967-70 80 1,244 Mike Heckman 1966-69 79 1,244 Jerry Maras 1972-75 78 1,212 Bill Moore 1969-72 78 1,145 Johnny Rogers 1984-86 50 1,028 Phil Rhyne 1970-72 53 925