He Had Too Much of Too Little

News item: One-time successful Division I-A football team plays host to early-season game against lower level school, suffers embarrassing loss to lower level school.

News item: Within days, coach of one-time successful Division I-A football team announces his resignation.

Was history repeating itself Thursday evening on the first floor of the Fullerton Marriott?

Sorry, but Sacramento State is not The Citadel.

And Cal State Fullerton is not Arkansas, as if Gene Murphy needed any reminding.

Arkansas changed football coaches this year because the alumni pressure was too great.

Murphy wishes he had alumni who cared.

Arkansas changed football coaches because the school has wildly misplaced priorities and believes its football season opener is more important than Christmas, the Fourth of July and Election Tuesday.

Murphy wishes football at his school was enough of a priority to warrant three square meals a day for his players.

Arkansas changed football coaches because Arkansas simply does not lose football games to The Citadel.

Murphy wishes he had the scholarships and the resources of The Citadel when he was assigned by his athletic director to play at Auburn, at Florida, at LSU and at Georgia--games, he says, “we knew we had no chance of winning.”

Those so-called “body-bag games,” the selling-out of home dates for larger gate receipts on the road, the 4-23 record since 1989, the No. 107 national ranking, the yearly budget cuts, the nine days in 1991 when he had no football program, the daily squeezing of the turnip until his hands were bloody--it all added up, brick by brick, until Murphy decided to bring down the wall Thursday.

His decision was made easier by what Murphy called “the golden handshake,” a generous take-it-now-or-never early retirement offer that the California State University system is removing from the table Saturday.

Hmmm. “Golden handshake.”

If it was really golden, Murphy would have melted it down already and used it to recruit some new players. Or feed some old ones.

“It gets to a point where you’re not even dealing with Ws and Ls anymore,” Murphy said. “It gets down to making sure your people can eat . . .

“The budget cuts keep coming down. I want to see my players eating. (Defensive end) Mike Allen has lost 19 pounds since preseason camp. That’s not right.”

Handshake or no, this season, Murphy’s 13th at Fullerton, was going to be his last. If nothing else, that much was in the bank.

“After this season, I was out of here,” Murphy said. “I was down the road.”

So why not announce it then, after the season, instead of on the first day of October?

“Because it is Cal State Fullerton’s M.O.--’If it’s a secret, it can’t be kept,’ ” Murphy said. He did not smile. “I am here now, talking about this, because I didn’t trust people at Fullerton.”

Thirteen years of frustration and exasperation seemed to well up and spill over as Murphy held this round-table session with the media.

How long had he been thinking about this decision?

“Since 1980,” he deadpanned.

“Would you like coffee or something?” Athletic Director Bill Shumard asked.

“No,” Murphy said, staring straight ahead, “I’d like some cornerbacks.”

Without the budget cuts, would Murphy have considered coaching on?

“Yeah, that’s a possibility,” he said. “You have to give a guy the opportunity to be successful. But that’s not been the M.O. here. It’s a matter of philosophy, of commitment . . “We went from a high school-recruiting team, from recruiting kids and keeping them here four, five years, to taking anybody. Right now, we’re taking fat kids out of the library.”

Looking back over the long haul that Murphy is bringing to an end, two crossroads flash to mind.

--1984, when the Titans went 11-1 (12-0 if you count the Nevada-Las Vegas forfeit, which Murphy does) and Murphy subsequently ignored feelers for head-coaching vacancies at Oregon State and Missouri.

--1989, the Titans’ last winning season, the year before the first wave of budget cuts and the body-bag games at Auburn and Mississippi State.

Like Bobby Dye before him, Murphy failed to get out when the getting was good, but he refused to second-guess himself Thursday. “I don’t look back,” he said. “I decided not to go to Missouri or anywhere else. I can live with that. That’s fine.”

But the compromises to economy made after 1984, and accelerated after 1989, stick in Murphy’s craw.

“After ‘84, we started to be used,” Murphy said. “We started to be volunteered for the ‘guarantee’ games. Of course, in ‘89, we played Colorado State and San Diego State, but I was made to feel almost apologetic that we had played no guarantee games . . .

“Maybe if we kept playing schools from the WAC and kept winning, maybe more people would have come and watch us play and make the new stadium successful. But, no, we started playing LSU and Florida to get the gate guarantees and help other programs.”

Until the scores got so one-sided and the Titan roster so depleted that Murphy could no longer help himself.

For 13 years, Gene Murphy was the best thing Fullerton football had going for itself. Think about these minor miracles: A 12-0 football team at Cal State Fullerton. Damon Allen and Mike Pringle at Cal State Fullerton. An on-campus football stadium at Cal State Fullerton. Murphy signed off on all of them.

But for too many years, Murphy was also the only thing. It takes a toll. And you know what they say around Fullerton--Watch out, don’t be too successful. Pretty soon, they’ll start expecting it from you.

Another miracle worker of some note never made it to the promised land. Murphy made it to his. He witnessed the opening of the Titan Sports Complex, the product of 12 years’ trouble and toil. It was an experience, Murphy proudly says, that “they’ll never be able to take away from me.”

Unless that gets cut from the budget, too.