Murphy’s Law : Problems Never Go Away for Titan Coach

Cal State Fullerton football Coach Gene Murphy surveyed the scene at practice last week and found himself in a flashback mode.

From his vantage point, he could see the new Titan Sports Complex, which includes a 10,000-seat football stadium that will be the site of its first game Sept 5. He turned the other way and saw three practice fields. Not too far in the distance were dormitories where many of his players live.

“This is something we’ve talked about for so long,” Murphy, 53, said. “I remember (former assistants) Jerry Brown, Roger Thomas, Steve Mariucci and I sitting in the Griswold Hotel in 1980, living together our first year here, and talking about this. I just sat there, and it got me thinking, ‘By God, it’s finally happening.’ Then I got to thinking about what could happen in the future. . . . “

Murphy’s voice trailed off, but you could sense the irony building. Ever since Murphy brought his wise-cracking sense of humor and Titan Family approach to Fullerton in 1980, the lack of a true home stadium and the trimmings that are staples at most schools have been a running theme.

But now that the foundation for a successful program is finally in place--now that the stadium is built after years of delays, false hopes and disappointments--cracks are popping up everywhere, and dark clouds are overhead.

Rumors abound that, after this season, the school will either downgrade football from Division I-A to I-AA or drop the sport.

The $5-million fund-raising campaign, which runs through December, and will benefit the sports complex and the athletic department, is shaping up as a bust--only $1.2 million has been pledged in a year and a half and no major naming-rights donors have stepped forward.

Annual budget cuts have pared a bare-bones football program to the marrow. The number of scholarships the Titans are offering this season would put them under the Division II limit of 40 (Division I-A teams can offer 92).

Heck, Fullerton can’t even keep up with the supposed have-nots in its own weak conference--New Mexico State, which Sports Illustrated features as the nation’s worst I-A team in this week’s issue, will have as many as 75 players on scholarship this year. No surprise, the Aggies have whipped the Titans in each of the last two seasons.

Murphy takes inventory of all the problems, gives you that sly Irish grin and insists that, yes, even after 12 years and several offers to go elsewhere, he is still happy at Fullerton.

“I still like it here,” said Murphy, who has a 57-80-1 career record at the school. “Things have changed, some for the better, some for the worse. It’s not Utopia. You don’t bring a Lynn Eilefson (former athletic director) back, or a Jerry Brown or Steve Mariucci, but you’ve got to be intelligent enough to know that life goes on, and you better have the flexibility to get along with what’s given to you.”

That’s never been a problem for Murphy. He has become the embodiment of a program that has made the most of meager resources--his 1983 team won the conference championship, his 1984 team went 11-1 and appeared in United Press International’s Top 20, and his 1985, ‘87, ’88 and ’89 teams finished second in the conference.

But the lack of resources has caught up to him the past two seasons, which ended with 1-11 and 2-9 records.

After 1989, football took a whopping $330,000 budget cut. Why? Because the Titans didn’t play any big-money guarantee games as they had in previous seasons at Louisiana State and Florida, they generated little revenue in 1989.

After 1990, the school nearly dropped football--the sport was in limbo for nine days before being saved by school President Milton Gordon--and almost an entire recruiting class was lost. Numerous players who had made oral commitments to Fullerton went elsewhere and 16 of 22 players--mostly high school recruits--who spent the 1990 season as redshirts in preparation for 1991 transferred to other schools.

The budget was cut again this year because of state financial problems and the school’s commitment to Title IX, which caused the athletic department to funnel more money to women’s sports. While costs continue to rise, annual Titan football expenditures have remained at about $1.2 million since 1987, meaning Fullerton is getting less and less for its money.

Because of the program’s instability, Murphy has had to recruit community college players almost exclusively--few standout high school players would risk attending Fullerton--and there has been little continuity in personnel.

Only one player on this year’s team, linebacker Mike Gullo, has been in the program for five years, and only two of eight assistants have been with Murphy on a full-time basis for more than three years.

“The thing that happened to Gene Murphy is he lost the ability to get from the administration (the) tools that are necessary to remain competitive in football,” said Eilefson, the Titan athletic director from 1982-85. “There are a lot of average coaches who have fantastic records because they have all the tools to win. Gene has done everything with nothing at all, and that’s gotten him to the point of 2-9 seasons.”

Can the Titans recover and at least return to a level of respectability?

“You can, but it’s not going to happen in one year,” Murphy said.

But will the Titans have the chance to recover? Gordon and Athletic Director Bill Shumard say Fullerton is committed to Division I-A football through 1992, and the situation will be evaluated after the season. Murphy pretty much tows the company line.

“Whether we have the resources to have a Division I football program in 1993 is up in the air,” Murphy said. “You can speculate all you want, but it’s just rumors, and I’d rather stay away from that.”

Murphy, who is entering the final year of a three-year contract, would still be interested in coaching at Fullerton if the Titans drop to I-AA, even though that’s the level he jumped from at North Dakota to take the Fullerton job.

“I’ve invested a lot of myself and my sons (Tim, 26, and Mike, 22) here--they’re still going to school here,” Murphy said. “I have never applied for another job and I’ve never said I’m super unhappy. You have to look at some of the positive things, like the new stadium. Plus, it’s hard for me as a 100% Irishman to look past this year.”

Murphy doesn’t dwell on the past, either. He was a hot commodity after 1984, turning down job offers at Utah and Oregon State so he could pursue the Missouri job. He was a runner-up at Missouri, though, and remained at Fullerton.

Murphy also was a finalist for positions at Washington State, Nevada Las Vegas and Utah State in the late 1980s, but other than San Jose State, which has interviewed Murphy twice since 1990, few schools have called the last two years.

“The thing is, how are you going to sell a guy who’s 2-9 to your boosters and university community,” Murphy said. “That is not done.”

Through the years of frustration and adversity, of which there have been plenty--two Titans were implicated but never charged in connection with the death of a Marine who died after a fight with the players in 1987, and another Titan was shot by an off-duty police officer after a barroom brawl in 1990--there have been many constants in Murphy’s career:

--His quick wit. Murphy has been able to find humor even on the darkest days and can trade one-liners with the best of them.

“If he was an insurance salesman he’d be a millionaire,” said Vince Liddy, a fireman from Grand Forks, N.D., who grew up with Murphy in New Jersey and has remained friends with him. “He has a biting, sharp, Irish sense of humor. I don’t know if you’d call it acerbic, but he’s good. Nobody fools with him.”

--His fierce loyalty to his coaches and players, with whom he’s developed an us-against-the-world mentality.

“The thing that bothers me, if they say Gene Murphy’s a jackass in the paper, that’s fine,” Murphy said. “But I take it personally when they bad-mouth Cal State Fullerton. It’s like having kids. Let me bad-mouth my kids, but don’t you do it because they’re not yours.”

--His reluctance to reveal too much of himself or his feelings.

“He talks evasively, like a bug on water, he sidesteps you,” Liddy said. “He doesn’t come out and say exactly what he wants to do. He’s like that even with his friends. He’ll talk sports, or about players, but he just slides by you on some things. That’s why I say he’d be a hell of a salesperson.”

Murphy tries to sell you on his point that two horrendous seasons and a grim-looking future haven’t changed his outlook, but those who are close to him aren’t buying it. He has become a little less optimistic, a little more callous about certain things.

“Every conversation I’ve had with him about the future of football, he seems resigned to the reduction of the sport or its total disappearance,” Fullerton soccer Coach Al Mistri said. “He’s gotten more and more negative. I get the distinct impression from him that things are changing for the worse. Before, he was perennially optimistic. He’d always give you the can-do attitude. But that’s somewhat gone.”

Added Eilefson: “He’s not the same guy. He has the same enthusiasm for the game, but they’ve chewed on him and beaten him for so long, it’s taken its toll.”

Murphy doesn’t believe he’s changed as a coach, though.

“I’ve heard some of the boosters say I’ve lost my spark and fire, but I haven’t,” Murphy said. “I still go out and have fun, yell a lot, but I don’t yell at Damon Allen or Mark Collins anymore. They say I should recruit those kinds of players, but I tell them it’s tough to recruit those high school kids. . . . “

It was easy to project Murphy as a coach even when he was growing up in New Brunswick, N.J. His father, Francis Bud Murphy, played football and baseball and later coached the two sports on the high school and youth levels in New Jersey. New Brunswick named a city park after him.

Gene was a hard-nosed football and baseball player--the kind of guy who would dive into first base--and played leadership positions, quarterback and second base. He grew up tagging along with his father, whom he described as strict, yet revered.

“He was my idol,” Murphy said.

When Gene Murphy was in high school, his football team (St. Peter’s High) upset rival New Brunswick, and his teammates went out to celebrate.

“His dad took him to a sweet shop and bought him an ice cream,” Liddy said. “But I tell you what, he made up for it after that.”

Murphy went to the University of Minnesota to play football but transferred to North Dakota, where he became an all-conference quarterback. Besides those honors, one of his claims to fame was stealing an elephant from the circus and tying it to a tree in front of the Delta Gamma house.

After graduating in 1962, he spent 15 years at North Dakota as an assistant and two as a head coach before moving to Fullerton.

He has since developed into an institution of sorts at Fullerton, much the way he had at North Dakota. He is well-respected and well-liked by almost all who meet him.

“He’d walk across the North Dakota campus and it didn’t matter whether you were a maintenance guy or the president of the university, he’d talk to you,” Liddy said. “He didn’t look down his nose at anyone.”

His father would have been proud. Francis Murphy died of a heart attack in 1968 at age 56 and never got to see his son as a college head coach.

Murphy’s mother died of a heart attack at age 63, and before Murphy was born, his parents had a son and daughter who both died of heart ailments before their first birthdays.

Murphy has not had any major health problems, though.

“Thank God, I guess my blood pressure and heart have been OK,” Murphy said. “I don’t know how I’ve managed to do that around here.”

Murphy at a Glance

Age: 53

High School: St. Peter’s, New Brunswick, N.J.

College: University of North Dakota, 1962.

Master’s degrees: North Dakota, 1963 and 1977.

Children: Tim (26), Michael (22).

Coaching career:

1963: Graduate assistant at North Dakota.

1964: Football, baseball and swimming coach at North St. Paul (Minn.) High.

1965-77: Assistant at North Dakota.

1967-71: “Guest” coach with the Saskatchewan Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League.

1978-79: Head coach at North Dakota (15-7).

1980-present: Head coach at Cal State Fullerton (57-80-1).

14-year head coaching totals: 72-87-1.