Mike Murphy (trainer and coach)
| Mike Murphy | |
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Mike Murphy, illustration from 1913 obituary in The Philadelphia Inquirer
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| Born |
Michael Charles Murphy February 26, 1860 Southboro, Massachusetts, or Westboro, Massachusetts |
| Died | June 4, 1913 (aged 53) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Years active | 1886–1913 |
| Known for | Track coach, athletic trainer, football coach |
Michael Charles "Mike" Murphy (February 26, 1860 – June 4, 1913) was an athletic trainer and coach at Yale University (1887–1889, 1892–1896, 1901–1905), Detroit Athletic Club (1889–1892), University of Michigan (1891), Villanova University (1894), University of Pennsylvania (1896–1901, 1905–1913), and the New York Athletic Club (1890–1900). He also coached the American track athletes at the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1908, and 1912. He also spent a year in approximately 1884 as the trainer of heavyweight boxing champion John L. Sullivan.
The Washington Post in 1913 called Murphy "the father of American track athletics." He was considered the premier athletic trainer of his era and was said to have "revolutionized the methods of training athletes and reduced it to a science." He is credited with establishing many innovative techniques for track and field, including the crouching start for sprinters.
Accounts concerning Murphy's youth differ. He was born in February 1860 either in Southboro,Westboro or Natick, Massachusetts. He was the son of Irish immigrants, a man "of humble birth and scant education." Murphy's father had a reputation as an athlete, and Murphy's desire as a youth was to become a great athlete. He has been variously reported to have traveled the country participating in "six-day races" at the age of 20 and to have been a boxer and a minor league baseball player. Some accounts state that he was part of the world's champion Natick Hook and Ladder racing team of the early 1880s with Keene Fitzpatrick, Steve Farrell, Pooch Donovan, Piper Donovan, Johnny Mack and Sid Peet. According to his obituary in The Philadelphia Inquirer, "his ambition was to stand out prominently as a six-day pedestrian and at the age of eighteen he was out in the world trying to win fame and fortune on the tan bark track." Then, "after several years of grueling running indoors without anything but glory, Murphy branched out as a sprinter and baseball player."
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