Murphy’s Wit Never Wilted

The story line has taken Gene Murphy this far, through 13 years of the tragicomedy that is Cal State Fullerton football, and now the final scene calls for muted lighting, somber strings whispering in the background and a bittersweet, ironic fade to black.

On this day, however, Murphy is refusing to play the part as it is written.

Leaning back in his chair inside the Titan Football House, Murphy points to a framed photograph on the wall and spins a yarn. For another anecdote, he reaches into a desk drawer to display a visual aid. He laughs. He winks. And every third minute or so, he glances out the window to check on the three-month-old on-campus football stadium, just to make sure it’s still there.

Bitter? Murphy says he purged that emotion weeks ago, most of it spilling out on the evening of Oct. 1, the night he announced his resignation during a barbed, sarcasm-laced news conference.

“That night was almost like a catharsis for me,” Murphy now says. “You know me. I stay mad for about 10 seconds and then forget about it.”

Somber? Isn’t that a proper mood for a 13-year run that peaked in 1984, hit the wall after 1989 and is 5-28 in the 1990s?

“The ride was worth the fall,” Murphy says. “We had some fun.”

Ironic? How else to describe the Murphy era at Fullerton--12 years of begging, pleading, praying and lighting votive candles for a home stadium to call his own . . . and then playing four games in it before leaving, perhaps taking the entire football program with him?

“I’m not trying to sound prophetic,” Murphy says, “but with all that’s happening in the state school system, I had said that we would in fact play here and then there would be a good possibility of something negative happening as far as the program’s concerned. And, again, it is happening.”

He glances out the window one more time.

“I was just happy we could play a game there.”

Wherever Fullerton football is headed after Saturday’s game at Nevada Las Vegas--Division I-AA or Subtraction Altogether are the leading options at the moment--it will head there without Murphy. Either way, the shock will register mightily on the Richter scale.

Before Murphy, Fullerton football was just a burning ulcer in the pit of Jim Colletto’s stomach. When Colletto handed off to Murphy in January of 1980, “the weight of the world was transferred from his shoulders to mine,” Murphy says, but Murphy carried that weight farther and higher than the laws of physics and shoestrings generally allow.

At a school that had previously finished a Division I season no better than 5-7, Murphy won a conference championship in 1983.

“My favorite team,” he says. “In ‘83, we were picked last. We had a guy like Terry Hubbard, who’s a fireman now, who was the best captain I ever had, one of those typical Titan overachievers--too damn slow, wanted by nobody coming out of high school, but smart and wanting to win so badly.

“Before the season, I went through the litany of, you know, ‘In order for this to work, you have to tell me the truth: How many of your friends think we can win the conference championship? And you can’t lie to me.’ Nobody got up. ‘And what about the moms and dads?’ Nobody got up.

“Then I asked them, ‘How many of you think we can win the championship?’

“And they all stood up.”

A year later, the Titans were still standing, winning 11 of 12 games on the field before a season-ending forfeiture by UNLV appended that record to 12-0. If not Titan Fever, Orange County was stricken with at least a Titan Head Cold--filling Santa Ana Stadium to the brim for the Fresno State game, wondering what next trick 150-pound quarterback Damon Allen had up his oversized sleeve.

“We had ‘em right there ,” Murphy says. “If only the stadium had been ready then. That would have been a lot of fun . . .

“I can remember Damon calling a timeout during that Fresno game and coming over to the sideline. He was laughing his skinny little butt off. ‘They can’t hear me,’ he said to me. ‘When did that ever happen at one of our home games?’ ”

The sensation was fleeting, like trying to grab a handful of sunshine. Murphy had a chance to bottle some--he could have petitioned the NCAA for an extra year’s eligibility for Allen--but Murphy, being Murphy, instead put the lid on his own self-interest.

“Damon played three plays in 1981,” Murphy says. “And he had no statistics. So for all intents and purposes, nobody ever knew he played that year. He could have played in ’85 and it wouldn’t have been illegal.

“But he came off that year in ’84 . . . gawd . . . he was coming off a season when he threw something like 20 touchdown passes, broke an NCAA record. That’s selfish to say to a kid, ‘Stay,’ after a season like that.

“It was his time. ‘Get out of here, go.’ And he’s become a damn folk hero up in Canada. You want to talk about Doug Flutie, you better talk about Damon Allen, too.”

It was Allen’s time--and, in retrospect, it was Murphy’s as well. How does one improve on 12-0?

At Fullerton?

Leave, leave, leave, friends urged Murphy. Utah came calling. Oregon State, too. “I was almost going to say yes to Utah,” Murphy says. “And then Missouri called me while I was in Salt Lake City--’Don’t do anything until we talk to you.’

“So I talked to our coaches and said, ‘Hey, this is the Big Eight. Let’s see what we can try to do.”

Murphy came in second at Missouri. Meanwhile, Utah and Oregon State filled their vacancies.

“Didn’t get the job, and that’s fine,” Murphy insists. “You know, I’ve had 2,000 interviews at San Jose State. Las Vegas, Washington State--you name it, I’ve interviewed there.”

Interviewed, yes. Hired, no. Search committees are impressed more easily by 12-0 seasons than 6-5, 3-9, 6-6, 5-6, 6-4-1, 1-11 and 2-9--Murphy’s subsequent records through 1991.

“I don’t look back,” Murphy says with a shrug. “This place gets in your blood. Hepatitis and all.”

Saturday afternoon in Las Vegas, Murphy donates one last pint and moves on. But to where?

He would like to stay in coaching, and he would like to stay in Fullerton, and, look at this--Fullerton College has an opening.

For more than a decade, Murphy and Hal Sherbeck butted heads in their pursuit of Orange County’s best and brightest, sometimes sustaining major contusions.

Now that Sherbeck has retired, could his cross-town rival and eventual successor be one and the same?

If Fullerton College is asking, Murphy says he’s listening.

“Oh yeah. I swear to God, nobody’s talked to me about anything, but I’ve been here for 13 years and I really like Fullerton. They have a good program and the guy’s a legend there.

“He and I became pretty good friends. We weren’t when we started, though--he’d tell me, ‘What are you doing recruiting high school kids? What about JC kids?’ That was just the way we had to go at that time.”

Murphy goes on to say that Sherbeck is “a great, great coach,” “a real straight shooter,” and “the best coach in Southern California, always has been, as far as I’m concerned.”

So how does that fence look now?

Mended, anyone?

The best thing about coaching the Fullerton Hornets in 1993 is where the Fullerton Hornets will play their home games in 1993.

At the Titan Sports Complex.

Murphy waited 12 years to play four games there. If there is any equity in this world, he will be there to play more.