Mike Murphy (Trainer)

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Mike Murphy

Michael Charles "Mike" Murphy (born February 26, 1861 in Westboro , Massachusetts , † June 4, 1913 in Philadelphia ) was an American athletics and football coach . He was hearing impaired from childhood and deaf as an adult , which is why he was nicknamed "Silent Mike".

biography

Mike Murphy was the son of a family of Irish immigrants, a man of "humble birth and poor education." From childhood he was an avid athlete, just like his father had been. In his 20s, he competed nationwide in six-day running competitions, which were very popular at the time, boxed and played in minor leagues . At the age of 24, he trained boxer John L. Sullivan , known as the Strong Boy .

In the mid-1880s, Murphy decided to work as a coach in the future, drawing on his own experience as an athlete. He was so successful straight away that he was hired by Yale University as director of the athletics department in 1887, a year after he had set up his own sports school in Westboro . He worked there until 1896, with a break of three years, during which he was a coach for the Detroit Athletic Club . Due to his poor health, he decided to change jobs because of the harsh Connecticut winters . In 1896 Murphy began his career at the University of Pennsylvania , where he coached the athletes and directed the conditioning training for the football players. The athletes were able to improve their performance significantly under his guidance, but Murphy returned to Yale in 1901, only to come back to Penn for one season in 1906 .

His success as a coach resulted in Murphy being named coach of the U.S. Olympic team in the 1900 , 1908, and 1912 . In Paris in 1900, 13 of his protégés started from the Penn team and won eleven gold, eight silver and four bronze medals. The games in 1904 in St. Louis Murphy was not coach, but its athletes of Penn won two silver and one bronze. In 1908 in London , Penn athletes won two gold, his silver and two bronze medals, and at the 1912 Games in Stockholm , the last in which Murphy was responsible, there were again two gold, one silver and one bronze medal in athletics.

Mike Murphy was extremely popular with the athletes he mentored. Although petite of stature and deaf, he impressed with “charm and a defining personality”. He is considered to be the inventor of the deep start.

In 1911 Mike Murphy fell ill with tuberculosis . In 1913, athletes he supervised visited their bedridden coach to tell him that the Penn team had won the university team championship. He died three days later.

The flags were hoisted at half-mast on the university campus and the funeral was attended by many mourners, including well-known athletes such as Jervis Burdick , Alvin Kraenzlein , Donald Lippincott and Josiah McCracken . In 1941 the university built the Murphy Field House , which was destroyed in a fire in 1968.

In his obituary, fellow coach William F. "Pooch" Donovan said of Murphy:

" The history of college athletic training is linked to the name of Mike Murphy. To leave his name out would be like writing a history of the United States with George Washington left out, or a story of electrical science without mention of Thomas Edison. "

- Peter Radford : athletics-archive.com

Murphy's deafness

Murphy was deaf for most of his life. It is not known since when and why he had this handicap. It is believed that he suffered from otosclerosis , a condition that can be hereditary and worsen over the years to the point of deafness.

Personality and family

Mike Murphy was married and had two sons and one daughter. One of the sons was the actor and future Senator George Murphy .

Publications

  • Athletic training . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1914.
  • College athletes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Robert Traynor: You Can't Lick a Team That Won't Be Licked. In: hearinghealthmatters.org. December 9, 2015, accessed August 17, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Michael C. Murphy (1861-1913), University of Pennsylvania University Archives. In: archives.upenn.edu. November 18, 1911, accessed August 17, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Christoph Drösser: Right ?: Athletics. In: zeit.de . September 8, 2013, accessed August 7, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Murphy, Mike
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Murphy, Michael Charles; Silent Mike
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American athletics and football coach
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Westboro , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH June 4, 1913
Place of death Philadelphia