Two Ivy titles in five years. A top-20 national ranking. This is the kind of success Murphy envisioned when he left a highly successful Division I-A program behind at Cincinnati.

There, Murphy led the Bearcats to their best record in 11 years, as well as the No. 27 ranking in the country. At the time he took over at Cincinnati, Murphy was just 32 years old, making him the youngest coach in Division I-A.

But even then, nothing about Murphy was the least bit amateurish. The same is true today.

“Coach Murphy is the most professional coach I’ve ever played for,” Staph says.

Harvard’s players say they respect the pride that Murphy attaches to the program.

“He’s a great recruiter,” Rose says. “I met him when I visited here and he just seemed like such a strong figurehead type. He seemed very straightforward and very professional. I thought Harvard took football much more seriously than the other schools I had visited.”

Over the years, Murphy’s program has produced a number of NFL-caliber talents. Isaiah Kacyvenski ‘00 with the Seattle Seahawks, Chris Eitzmann ’00 with the New England Patriots and Matt Birk ’98—who signed a seven-year contract extension with the Minnesota Vikings this fall—are just a few.

Happy as he is to see his players succeed on the next level, Murphy doesn’t see his job as grooming pro prospects.

“Players don’t come here to go to the NFL,” Murphy acknowledges. “However, what they discovered is, you can play a high level of football here at the same time that you receive a quality education.”

Staph couldn’t agree more. When he was deciding on a college out of high school, what most impressed him about Harvard was the gains the program was making under Murphy.

“Harvard was the most progressive program of any school I was looking at,” Staph says. “Harvard was building a new weight room in the Murr Center and a new locker room. It was clear that Coach Murphy was definitely looking to the future.”

“Other schools seemed like they were stuck in the same rut of playing football the way they were 25 years ago,” Staph adds. “But Harvard and Penn were the two that were different.”

As Staph notes, the past three years notwithstanding, the commitment to winning has been at Harvard all along. It was just a matter of execution. This season, it finally came.

All in the Family

Rose thinks Murphy looks for a specific breed of player when he is out recruiting.