A few weeks ago, The Back Page sat down with Harvard coach Tim Murphy to talk about his enormous success in his 17 years at the helm of the Crimson football program. Murphy has won five Ivy titles and 111 games with Harvard, and his team just wrapped up its 10th consecutive seven-win season, extending its own Ancient Eight record.
You can read the full feature in our Harvard-Yale supplement, but we couldn’t fit all of Murphy’s wisdom into one story. Here are further excerpts from our interview with the coach:
The Back Page: Harvard had its last losing season in 1998. What goes into sustaining that success?
Murphy: I think constant reeducation and never taking anything for granted. I heard one great investment icon say that we’re only as good as our next year. I wake up every day like there’s a bear in the bushes, ready to take my money, and I think there’s a lot of that. I think the reeducation part is important. We may have had the same basic system at Maine, at Cincinnati, and at Harvard, but we’re constantly tinkering with it to make it better. And I think the last part of it is, even though you may have a system, your personnel does change, so taking advantage of your personnel and tailoring your systems to the personnel you have [is key].
The Back Page: How does the program foster the qualities needed to succeed in pro football?
Murphy: I think part of it is letting kids know right up front that this is a big commitment, that anyone who tells you getting an education at an “elite” school and playing Division I football is easy, they’re not being honest with you. Harvard does a great job of that balance, and that’s why on the one hand they’ve got 41 Division-I varsity sports, on the other hand they still have the highest graduation rate in the country. But letting kids know that this is going to be challenging, and you have to have the right mindset to reach your potential on both sides of the river. And if you don’t have that mindset, then this probably isn’t the place for you. And I think over the long term, developing a culture where kids know that being a great athlete and being a great student are not mutually exclusive things—that that’s what we do at Harvard—and then working real hard at it. Some of the things we do, we do the hard way, because our particular sport is very hard. It’s very hard in terms of, you only have 10 games a year and you’re training 300-plus days a year. It’s very physically challenging, it’s very mentally challenging. So therefore, [you have to] find kids who have that character. And it’s not just being a great kid and a good representative of the school; it’s kids who are mentally and physically tough. You have to find those kids and attract those kids, and if you do that and you work real hard at it, you do a great job in your offseason program, strength and conditioning, and spring football; it’s amazing how much kids can improve. Kids that maybe people didn’t think were major college players are now capable of playing at the very highest level.
The Back Page: What was it like to get the chance to go abroad with the USO Coaches’ Tour this past spring?
Murphy: It was really one of the great experiences of my life. I say that because I’m not well traveled. All I’ve done is work my whole life—in fact my wife and I haven’t even had our honeymoon yet. So to go abroad and see how our Americans in the service work—the very difficult and challenging jobs that they have to do in very difficult environments—really was in some respects life-changing. It made me really appreciate what we have here, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it might not be a bad idea for every kid, when they graduate from high school, to travel or be of some type of service—whether that’s the Peace Corps or TFA or the Marine Corps—I don’t think that really matters. But I know one thing: you’ll come home with a much greater appreciation for what we have here in America, and I think you’ll be much better prepared for the next step in your life. But in summary, just tremendously impressed with the young people in the armed services. And I don’t necessarily mean the kids from Annapolis or West Point or the Air Force Academy. I mean the enlisted people who, like I said, [have] tremendously challenging jobs in very difficult environments and [are] not getting a whole lot of thanks for it. And I was just inspired by their morale; I was inspired by their professionalism. It made me take great pride in our country.
The Back Page: What lessons did you bring back to your team from that trip?
Murphy: The thing I bring back is, and this is something that we reinforce with our team members, and that is, we’re not entitled to anything. And if you think you are, because we do live a charmed life here at Harvard sometimes, but if you think you’re entitled to anything, if you think you’re better than anybody, all you need to do is see young people like this [in the service] or the different opportunities that they have and how fortunate you are. You better appreciate that, and you better have a profound respect for people who don’t have the opportunities you have.
