When the Going Gets Impossible...

When Harvard cross-country captain John Murphy took his place at the starting line at the Big Three meet in New Jersey last Friday, one of the Yale runners managed to recover from the shock long enough to say, "Welcome back to running, John."

Murphy, supposedly sidelined for the entire season with an acute achilles tendon injury, simply replied, "I never left."

It's extremely difficult to imagine track at Harvard without Murphy running. Over the past three years he has been a major force on the team, collecting a room-full of awards, including last year's individual heptagonal cross-country championship, All-American honors in the two-mile relay in 1979, a Millrose Games record in the same event, and the captainship of all three track seasons this year. His unique bow-legged stride, never-fail kick, and sense of humor have become legend at the ITT.

Despite all his successes, the thought of Murphy running without an injury or illness is almost as incomprehensible as Murphy not running at all.

"Murphy certainly responds to adversity," Crimson track coach Bill McCurdy said. "Almost every time he's ever run, he's been hurt."

This summer, however, it seemed that Murphy would be forced to sit out at least the cross-country season when a June operation on his achilles tendon proved less than satisfactory and the doctors wanted to reoperate this August.

"I decided then that my goals were, first, to run again, and second, to run for Harvard," Murphy said. "Since there was no guarantee that I'd be able to run after the operation and since there also was no evidence that I couldn't run without the operation, I decided not to have it and try to run this season."

Murphy went into the grueling training camp season with the motto, "No pain, no gain"--a motto he says he continues to live by. His running was erratic, but instead of getting discouraged, Murphy kept trying harder.

"Three weeks ago it dawned on me that I might be able to run in a meet--though not necessarily well. I felt responsible to the team as captain and I thought that if I were to run, it would be a springboard for motivation.

"The team is so young and tough, but as of late they had been flat. I saw that something had to be done in the Big Three meet if we were going to have a chance of doing anything," Murphy said.

Actually, the decision to run Friday was made only 15 minutes before he raced when, despite "feeling tired from just warming up," Murphy joined the team in a huddle and told them he had no idea what was going to happen but that he would push himself as hard as he could through the entire race and he hoped they would do the same.

"Murph's move had a very positive effect," McCurdy said. "We went out there to try to win the whole thing--to shoot the whole works. We didn't figure to have a snowball's chance in hell.

"Selfishly, you wanted a good man out there but you were more concerned about whether the risk was too great and he would hurt himself more. But, Murphy wanted to run so much and I didn't think fear should be the deciding factor. Sometimes you have to go for visions and goals."

Or as teammate Paul McNulty said, "There was no way he could do anything but run. All season his injury has been eating him up on the sideline and he knew he could help the team at the Big Three.

In his usual fashion, Murphy took the race out strong and hung with the leaders for the first two miles, but at the three-mile mark, a series of hills pounded Murphy and by the four-mile mark, he was hovering near twelfth place.

"Murphy didn't look bad till the last 1-3/4 mile," McCurdy said. "I've never seen Murph look so tired and pale as he did with half-a-mile to go--and that was when he started to make his move."

Murphy began to peel men off with his kick, gaining four places to finish eighth overall and second among the Crimson in 24:53--a mere second behind the seventh place runner from Yale.

Stinger

"I have a stinger and there was no way with people in front of me that I wouldn't use it," Murphy said. "At that point, it had nothing to do with my tendon."

Despite Murphy's all-out effort, the Crimson fell to Princeton, 19-42, and Yale, 26-29. But Murphy did not consider his try wasted; in fact, he said it taught him a great deal.

"Most of what running means to me is to be part of the team effort in a competitive situation," Murphy said. "I was pleased to find that my motivation for running is I like doing it--I don't have to win."

It's still too early to determine the effect that Friday's race will have on Murphy's ankle, although he said he hoped to run in the NCAA's qualifying meet in three weeks.

In a sport where so much emphasis is put on training to build endurance, Murphy's performance seems all the more remarkable. As the Princeton coach said after the race, "Not bad for a guy who hasn't been running--it's not easy to do something like that by memory."

As Murphy learned Friday, when it comes down to competition, physical strength becomes secondary to mental endurance.

"There was no physical way that I should have been able to run that race," Murphy said. "I guess when you get into a meet, the race doesn't go to the swiftest and strongest but to the guy who wants it most."