Murphy Era of Harvard Football Turns 20

Harvard football coach Tim Murphy takes a breath. He has the 2013 roster in his lap, but he’s not thinking about that now.

In front of him are a few of his favorite pictures and six Ivy League championship rings. The rest of his office is filled with other awards and mementos accumulated over his 20 years at Harvard. Behind him, on top of his bookshelf stuffed with game notes and playbooks, are a few Coach of the Year Awards and an American Flag presented to him on a USO trip.

But Murphy’s not talking about any of that either. He is trying to think about the hiring process that brought him to Cambridge 20 years ago.

“Oh my god, that seems so long ago,” Murphy said.

After taking a second, Murphy begins reflecting on two decades in an office he’d never thought he’d stay in for this long—the games, seasons, and players that have made it all so memorable.

‘TURNING POINT’

All six of Murphy’s Ivy championship rings sit on a table, neatly spaced, each glimmering in the box they likely came in. But one is special to Murphy—his first.

“I think your first always sticks out,” Murphy said. “That was the turning point of our program.”

In his first three seasons at Harvard, Murphy amassed a 10-20 record. But he could tell he had an improved team in 1997. It was his first Harvard roster composed entirely of players he recruited, and it showed.

The 1997 team took Columbia apart in a 45-7 week one victory. It demolished Holy Cross, 52-14. In conference play, the Crimson beat Cornell for the first time in 11 years. Harvard was still undefeated in Ivy play eight weeks into the season.

But Murphy knew none of that mattered, not if he couldn’t beat Penn. The moment he had set foot on campus years earlier, Murphy had set his sights on the Quakers.

“We knew coming in, when Harvard was way down,” Murphy said, “if we are going to win, we are going to have to go through Philadelphia.”

Murphy was unable to top Penn in his first three seasons. His worst defeat to the Quakers came in a 33-0 trouncing his first year.

The Crimson finally returned the favor in 1997, winning by the same score, 33-0.

“It was as thorough a domination as I’ve been involved in,” said Penn coach Al Bagnoli after the game.

The temperature never escaped the 30’s on that November Saturday, but Murphy probably didn’t mind the icy Gatorade shower he received at the end of the contest as he celebrated his first Ivy title.

“Nothing will ever be this special,” Murphy said that day.

Over 15 years later, a picture of his first recruiting class still sits in his office.

Since 1997, every recruiting class has won an Ivy championship at some point during its four years. Murphy has rebounded from his slow start and is now the winningest coach in Harvard history. But Penn still has his number.

The Quakers are the only Ivy squad that boasts a winning record against Murphy. Bagnoli, who started at Penn two years before Murphy arrived at Harvard, has nine Ivy rings in his office, three more than Murphy. The Crimson has come in second to the Quakers nearly as many times (five) as it’s won an Ivy title (six) under Murphy.

All that said, Murphy insists he wouldn’t trade a single victory over Yale for one against Penn.

UNDEFEATED, AND THEN WHAT?

Among the trophies that fill Murphy’s office is the Division I-AA Coach of the Year award he won in 2004 after leading the Crimson to its best record in over a century.

“To be honest, what I remember is that that was the most dominant team we’ve had,” Murphy said. “2004 was just the perfect storm: number one by far in special teams, offense, and defense. That was a team I thought was as good as anybody in the FCS in the country, and humbly so. That was a great football team.”

That year, Harvard went 10-0 for the first time since 1901, before Harvard Stadium had been built or the forward pass had been introduced. But it wasn’t easy.

The Crimson faced a 21-0 deficit hardly 10 minutes into its game against Brown in the second week of the year. But Ryan Fitzpatrick ’05 led a comeback, and Harvard pulled out a 35-34 victory.

Against Dartmouth, it was the defense that triumphed on the final possession to secure a 13-12 victory.

That team included some of Murphy’s first nationally recruited players. In addition to Fitzpatrick, running back Clifton Dawson ’07 and defensive lineman Desmond Bryant ’09 both had opportunities to go to major BCS programs but opted for the Crimson instead. All three ended up playing in the NFL.

After the 2004 season, Murphy also had an opportunity to move up. Indiana University was looking for a new football coach, and they were interested in the recently named Division 1-AA Coach of the Year.

Murphy considered the offer but ultimately removed himself from the running, just as he had done after being mentioned as a candidate for other jobs.

When Murphy came to Cambridge, his mission was simple.

“My goals here are to help improve the program—to bring it back to a point first of being more competitive in the league, to be a winning program in the league, then ultimately to win the Ivy League championship,” Murphy said in 1993.

By 2004, he had accomplished all of that several times over. But the program had become Murphy’s child, Fitzpatrick said, and he wasn’t done raising it.

“When he came here, he had a vision, and there’s still a lot he wants to get done that he hasn’t done yet,” Fitzpatrick said after the 2004 season.

‘SMELL THE ROSES’

It takes Murphy a second to recognize all of the trophies that sit behind his desk. He doesn’t look back there often and admits he doesn’t think too much about all of his accomplishments.

“Whether we like it or not we all tend to...breeze by the successes and linger on the failures,” Murphy said.

Former Harvard assistant coach Ron Crook remembers how quickly the coaching staff moved past its 2007 Ivy championship.

After Harvard clinched the title against Yale, the coaches celebrated on the sideline. But they didn’t let the players enjoy the moment for too long. Crook and the coaching staff stressed what the team could take away from that year in order to win its next game nine months later.

“I think that’s the biggest thing you spend the time on,” Crook said. “Showing them what it takes to do that again.”

These days, Murphy recognizes the importance of enjoying the moment. But it is still easier said than done for the coach.

“It’s terrible but really good coaches, it takes them too long to realize you’ve got to smell the roses, and I certainly have to remind myself of that,” Murphy said. “It’s something you certainly have to somehow come to grips with, and I’m not quite there yet.”

Talking about the 1997 season, the game Murphy harps on first is the team’s only loss, a 24-20 come-from-behind win by Bucknell.

“What bugs me is...that’s what kept us from being a 10-0 team,” Murphy said.

“Unfortunately, sometimes it’s the failures that are more vivid in your mind,” Murphy said. “Sometimes the lows are lower than the highs are high for a lot of successful people.”

At the same time that Murphy struggles to celebrate each big moment, they become harder to come by.

Winning makes winning more difficult, Murphy says.

“The problem now is that everybody thinks it’s easier now,” Murphy said. “It’s not. It makes it harder every year.”

‘MEANT TO BE’

One of the three pictures that sit behind Murphy’s championship rings is a signed photo of Isaiah Kacyvenski ’00 playing for the Seattle Seahawks.

Kacyvenski played a huge role in earning Murphy his first Ivy championship in 1997 and was the first Harvard player to start every game in his career. He set Crimson single-season and career records for tackles before becoming the highest draft pick in Harvard history in the 2000 NFL draft.

But Kacyvenski almost didn’t come to Harvard.

Murphy didn’t hear about the high school linebacker until late in the recruiting season. It only took a couple seconds of watching Kacyvenski on tape to realize he was worth meeting.

Murphy took a flight to Syracuse, N.Y., and then drove to Kacyvenski’s home. He knocked on the door and waited for several minutes.

No one came. Testing the doorknob, Murphy found it unlocked and stepped inside. It was so cold inside the home on that December day that Murphy could almost see his breath.

Soon, Kacyvenski appeared on the stairwell. The high schooler quickly apologized for not hearing Murphy’s knock and the two went to sit down. Murphy briefly mentioned that he generally talks with each recruit’s parents as well. He didn’t know much about Kacyvenski’s backstory.

“He said ‘Coach, you don’t know?’” Murphy remembered. “‘My mom was killed in a car wreck a couple weeks ago and I haven’t seen my dad in five years.’”

“At that point you stop being a coach and a recruiter and you become a parent,” Murphy said.

The two talked for hours, but Kacyvenski was still hesitant. Murphy remembers telling the recruit, “You are going to Harvard,” but Kacyvenski didn’t think he’d fit in with what he imagined the Harvard football team and student body were like.

He wouldn’t even commit to a tour when Murphy finally left.

The next day, Murphy got a call. Kacyvenski wanted to visit.

Sitting on a couch in Murphy’s office after seeing the campus and meeting the players, Kacyvenski admitted that the people were more “normal” than he expected.

“The rest,” Murphy said, “is history.”

Murphy said he has also enjoyed the people he’s worked with off the field. He has from the very beginning.

Two of the first Harvard people Murphy met were Harry Lewis ’68, who would become Dean of Harvard College, and Lewis’ wife.

The two dropped in on him in Ohio on what Murphy described as a scouting mission.

“They were people who clearly loved Harvard,” Murphy said. “Very principled, impressive people.”

At the time, Murphy’s colleagues at the University of Cincinnati thought he was insane to leave a program on the rise for an Ivy League job, and to take a paycut in the process.

“They thought I was crazy,” Murphy said. “They thought it was the end of my coaching career.”

In a way, it was.

“It was...looking back, a great decision,” Murphy said in 2010. “Somehow, some things are meant to be.”

—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman can be reached at jacob.feldman@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @JacobFeldman4.