Fullerton Coach Plans to Retire at End of Season : College football: Murphy cites budget cuts and instability of program.

Cal State Fullerton football Coach Gene Murphy, tired of the budget cuts and instability that has plagued his program in recent years, said Thursday night that he will retire at the end of this season, his 13th with the Titans.

The timing of his announcement--the Titans are 1-3 entering Saturday’s homecoming game against Nevada--was predicated on Murphy’s decision to take advantage of incentives offered in the California State University’s early retirement program, which expires Saturday.

Murphy, 53, will continue to run the football program as an employee of the Titan Athletic Foundation until his contract expires Jan. 31. Fullerton Athletic Director Bill Shumard said he would not begin seeking a successor until after the season, when school President Milton A. Gordon determines the direction of the program--whether the Titans will remain in Division I-A, drop to I-AA or drop the sport altogether.

Murphy, who came to Fullerton in 1980 and guided the Titans to a conference championship in 1983 and an 11-1 season in 1984, became the embodiment of a Division I-A program that made the most of meager resources.

But severe budget cuts in the last three years, which left his program with the equivalent of 33 scholarships--seven under the maximum allowed to NCAA Division II schools and less than half of the 92 allowed to Division I-A schools--made it almost impossible to compete in Division I-A.

And the program’s uncertainty--the sport was nearly dropped in the winter of 1991 because of financial problems, and rumors abound that it will be downgraded or dropped after this season--have made it almost impossible to attract quality recruits.

The result: A 1-11 record in 1990, 2-9 in 1991 and a 1-3 start in 1992, which included Saturday’s 29-3 loss to Division II Cal State Sacramento.

And a coach that was so discouraged when he looked into the future that not even the long-awaited, 10,000-seat Titan Sports Complex, which opened on campus this season after a decade of delays and broken promises, could alter his pessimism.

“It gets to the point where it has nothing to do with wins and losses, it has to do with people,” said Murphy, whose Titan record is 58-83-1. “When you have players who don’t eat and you’re committing NCAA violations by feeding players who don’t eat for a week, then it’s time to take a stand and let someone else take the lead.”