Murphy’s Path to London Decades in the Making

While most Americans were sitting on their couches this summer watching the London Olympics, Harvard men’s swimming coach Tim Murphy had a different perspective of the Games as the head coach of the United States open water swimming team.

In his 14 years at the helm of the Crimson, Murphy has a long list of accomplishments. He has led the Crimson to six league championships. He turned Harvard alum Alex Meyer ’10 from a struggling collegiate athlete into an Olympian.

A baseball and football star in high school, a three-time club boxing national champion in college, Murphy ultimately chose to pursue a career as a swimming coach, a decision that would take him from West Chester, Pa., to Harvard and ultimately to London.

A LATE START

Growing up in a household of seven kids in Willingboro, N.J., Murphy always needed an outlet for excess energy.

“I was a pretty hyper kid, so it was probably good for me to be [playing sports],” Murphy says.

Throughout his time at Holy Cross High School, Murphy played baseball and football, forgoing the dry-land sports only in the summer to swim at the neighborhood pool in the inter-park swimming league.

Because Holy Cross lacked a swim team, Murphy focused on his other sports—to this day, he still considers his former football and baseball coach Frank Paris one of his top mentors.

“[Murphy] was of course a well-liked and popular student-athlete…. He was an outstanding athlete in both [football and baseball],” Paris recalls. “I think the things that set him apart from others was that he was very aggressive and tough, physically and mentally, and I think those were the qualities, along with being disciplined, that allowed him to make the most of his abilities.”

Looking back at Murphy’s time at Holy Cross, Paris says that he is not surprised at Murphy’s current achievements.

“Most of what he’s accomplished is the direct result of the way he works and goes after his pursuits,” Paris says. “I saw it at the bat as a young man, so I’m sure that’s why he’s successful. I couldn’t be more proud of him.”

Since he only swam during his summers in high school, Murphy did not even consider going out for the swim team when he first enrolled at what was then West Chester State College.

However, after Murphy got cut from the West Chester baseball team, his summer league coach encouraged him to try out for the swim team. Murphy listened.

“I ended up swimming for all four years [of college], and while I was there, I was a re-introduced to the swimming world,” Murphy says. “There was a local national-caliber club, world-class coach there.”

Murphy dabbled in a medley of sports during college, trying out rugby, lacrosse, and boxing, winning three collegiate national titles at the club level. Thought he was not the fastest swimmer, Murphy stuck with the sport, eventually becoming the captain his senior year.

“I was not one of the top athletes on the team, in part because I didn’t swim year-round when I went to high school,” Murphy says. “But I was very proud that I was the captain my senior year, so… I absolutely had a successful career.”

PATH TO CAMBRIDGE

Coaching was a natural progression for Murphy after he received his degree in 1979 in health and physical education. Though he had played several sports in college, Murphy chose to pursue a career in swimming.

“I loved some of the other sports I had the opportunity to play,” Murphy says. “I think what kept me in the swimming mode was the opportunity to coach on the national and international level.”

After graduation, Murphy coached at Ursinus College before returning to West Chester to work with his former coach. While there, Murphy realized that he would have to alter his path to achieve his ultimate career goals.

“I really sort of made a decision that if I was going to coach swimming, I wanted to do it on a national level, so I sort of felt like I needed to go back and do the club route to get the experience and get the exposure,” Murphy says.

Murphy did just that, heading to the West Chester swimming club, where coach Jack Simon, whom Murphy also cites as a long-time mentor, hired Murphy as an assistant coach next, having known him from his collegiate swimming.

Although Murphy had only coached for a short period of time, it was clear to Simon that the West Chester grad had an unusual knack for coaching.

“[Murphy was] the best assistant coach I have ever had in my 54-year career,” Simon wrote in an email. “[He was] very passionate and very intense, but also knew how to keep things light!”

Murphy tried his hand at being a head coach next, working at the Wilton YMCA in Connecticut for the next 13 years. In that time, Murphy won a number of coaching accolades, including YMCA National Coach of the Year in 1989, and led the Wahoos to seven national championships before receiving the call from Harvard in 1998.

“Like the students that come [to Harvard], you don’t decide; Harvard decides,” Murphy says. “I think I was fortunate. I [took] a little bit of a different route to get to this level but I think the values that I coach with aligned with Harvard’s mission statement in education through athletics.”

The New Jersey native arrived at Harvard in 1998, taking the reins from previous head coach Mike Chassom, who had left to coach at Arizona State University.

Murphy found immediate success at Harvard, leading the Crimson to three EISL titles in his first four years at the school.

In his time at Harvard, Murphy has led Crimson swimming to a 113-11 record and six undefeated seasons. Once a kid that never regarded himself as much of a swimmer, Murphy has now guided athletes to national and international-level competitions.

“He cares about his swimmers both as swimmers and people,” says Owen Wurzbacher, co-captain of the Harvard men’s swimming team. “You can see when he walks onto the deck that he enjoys being there, and it makes it that much better for his athletes, how much he cares about what he does.”

Yet Murphy’s influence doesn’t stop at the deck—his coaching extends far past the boundaries of Blodgett Pool.

“He’s very inspiring and passionate to say the least. You can always tell [that] he puts his entire heart and soul into his coaching,” says Greg Roop, co-captain of the Crimson swim team. “He has taught me more than I’d ever imagine I’d know about swimming, but he’s also taught me a whole lot about life outside of swimming through the lessons he teaches in the pool.”

‘A TREMENDOUS HONOR’

In 1988, 10 years before his move to Harvard, Murphy, then with less international experience, sent an athlete to the Olympics, though he was never on staff at the Games. But when Meyer, who stayed in Boston following his graduation in 2010 to continue training with Murphy, became the first athlete named to the USA Swimming Team for London 2012, the long-time Crimson coach finally got his shot.

“Most of the international team selections are based on having an athlete on the team and then your experience on an international level and your relationship with United States swimming,” Murphy said. “Having the confidence from United States swimming to put me in that position was a tremendous honor.”

Murphy coached Meyer tirelessly for 11 months leading up to the Games, boating alongside Meyer in his neon green kayak on Walden Pond day in and day out to train him for the rigorous 10k race. Although Meyer finished in 10th place at the Olympics, Murphy recognized that his experience was beyond anything a medal could accomplish.

“Anytime that you have ‘U.S.A.’ on your back and you’re representing your country in an international competition is very exciting,” Murphy says. “You have the opportunity to work with the best athletes in the world, the best coaches in the world…under the umbrella of the Olympic Games.”

However, Murphy recalls his fondest memories at the Olympics as being surrounded by Crimson supporters.

“There was just a tremendous Harvard community there—my family, obviously, as well as past swimmers I’d coached, [and] Alex’s friends and family. It just made the whole experience so much more special,” Murphy says.

Current Harvard swimmers firmly supported USA Swimming’s decision to place Murphy on the coaching staff.

“I’ve been fortunate to swim for a lot of great coaches, and he’s definitely been one of the best,” Roop says. “I know that it’s very competitive to make it onto the Olympic coaching staff, so in that sense, it was more gratifying [for Murphy] to get the Olympic position than surprising, because I really knew that he deserved it.”

AFTER LONDON

Due to his recent success, Murphy was named to West Chester University’s Hall of Fame last month as part of the class of 2012, which he described as an emotional night.

“It was a very special evening—as most people, I’m extremely fond of where I went to school, for the most part because of the…lifelong relationships I’ve had with the coaches and teachers I had at West Chester,” says Murphy. “Every time I go on deck, I feel like I need to honor those folks, in whatever capacity, in whatever sport they worked in, because they did some really good things for me.”

Some might think Murphy would tire of Harvard going into his 15th year, but not the man himself, who does not appear to be thinking of leaving the Crimson team anytime soon.

“[Harvard] is a special place,” Murphy says. “The value of the opportunity is something that when these guys embrace the history and traditions of swimming and diving, it’s something they’ll be talking about…50 years from now. I don’t guarantee them much more than if they play the game the right way, they’ll have memories that’ll last them a lifetime.”

And when asked if he’d like to coach the Olympics again, the Harvard coach was quick to respond.

“Absolutely,” Murphy said. “I’d certainly enjoy going back, this time to Rio with ‘U.S.A.’ on my back."