Late July, 1983.
I was camped out on the bed in my mom and dad’s room, my leg sporting a cast from the foot to the knee and propped up on some pillows, and sweat dripping from every pore in my body in the sweltering heat of the little bedroom, which, thanks to the fact our house didn’t have air conditioning, was like sitting in a blast furnace.
In other words, I was miserable. I was bored, I was roasting and I was in agonizing pain.
How did I get there?
A few days before, it was the second day of conditioning drills for the 1983 Mogadore High School football team. I was entering my sophomore year and had waited for the better part of a decade for this day to come, to wear that uniform and be a part of that tradition that had produced so many great players and so many championships.
Then, barely 24 hours into living my dream, I broke my leg. We were in T-shirts, shorts and cleats, running sprints basically until we dropped, vomited, or both. And I dropped — but not due to exhaustion.
During one set of sprints, the player immediately to my right veered in front of me, forcing me to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision — and I felt my leg snap just above the ankle. The searing pain made my leg feel like it was on fire. I crawled to the finish line, several teammates imploring me to suck it up and get to my feet. I shouted back that I couldn’t, that something was wrong with my leg. I kept crawling until I had crawled off the practice field, where I was immediately met by training staff.
Later that night, X-rays confirmed a broken leg, and on came the cast. The doctor said I would be out of action for six to eight weeks, minimum, which meant I wouldn’t return to practice until the regular season was at least a few weeks old. So much for my sophomore season.
So not only was I hot, bored and in constant pain, I was completely demoralized.
Shortly into this ordeal, Dad entered the bedroom one morning and said, “Are you awake? There’s someone here to see you.”
“Yeah, I’m up,” I answered. “Go ahead and have ’em come in.”
I figured it was one of my friends coming to check on me.
The door opened, and in walked Paul Murphy.
I was stunned. Paul was our offensive and defensive coordinator, high school football’s answer to Woody Hayes in terms of intensity and will to win. He even looked somewhat like Woody with the glasses and ballcap. Paul had a brilliant football mind, a mercurial demeanor in practice and games that belied his ornery sense of humor off the field, a deep love for all things Mogadore. And, up until that morning, I was pretty sure he didn’t know I existed.
And why would he? I was a sophomore nobody who was headed not only for junior varsity duty that season, but backup junior varsity duty.
Yet there he was, standing at the foot of the bed, asking me how I was doing. He visited for a while, trying to cheer me up, and as he prepared to leave, he said: “Hurry up and get that leg better. We need you out there.”
No they didn’t. He was just being nice — but also sending a message: Every player counted at Mogadore, and Paul loved them all. And that included the dejected sophomore with a broken leg laying in bed in front of him that muggy July morning in 1983. I never forgot that, and I never will.
That morning became even more poignant to me when I learned that Paul died Feb. 8 at age 87. A rush of memories has flooded my mind since, memories now four decades old but as fresh as the moment the events occurred. Here are some of them:
When I was on the freshman football team at Mogadore, I was terrified of Paul Murphy. And I technically didn’t even play for him then. We had our own team, and we practiced at the far end of the practice field, away from the high school team. But we could hear Paul “correcting” players every few minutes (or seconds) as we went through our own workouts at the other end of the field. I had played football every year since third grade, and I honestly thought ninth grade would be my last season. Facing Paul’s wrath every day each fall for three years didn’t seem especially appealing. I mean, the phrase “chewing out” didn’t even begin to cover it. Paul meant business — and if you were going to play for him, you’d better mean business, too.
That morning he came to visit me changed my entire outlook. It showed me that beneath that gruff exterior was a man who genuinely cared about people. So regardless of how many times Paul got in my face and lit me up — and thankfully, it wasn’t many — I knew exactly where he was coming from. He wanted to win, and win the right way. I never took it personally. I brushed it off and got back to work. Nobody in my life pushed me as hard as Paul Murphy, and I’m a whole lot better off because of it. He was all about being disciplined and giving your best effort 100% of the time. Do that, and Paul would be off your back. Don’t do that, and your back was going to have company.
When it came to discipline, Paul walked the walk. I found out just how serious he was about discipline on one of my first days back after recovering from my broken leg, which thankfully came much sooner than the doctor had anticipated. I returned in time for the last week of two-a-day practices in late August, and we were doing our calisthenics one morning when suddenly Paul bellowed: “STOP RIGHT NOW!!!” He was standing off to one side of the practice field with other members of the coaching staff, watching the proceedings as we went through our customary pre-practice routine of various stretches, sit-ups, leg-lifts, etc. We were in our team formation, with the four senior captains at the front, facing the rest of the team and directing the workout.
Paul’s booming voice brought everything to a screeching halt. “Hold up!!! Hold up!!!” he shouted as he began making his way toward the senior captains. He walked right up to one of them, pointed at his feet and said, “What are you wearing??”
The player looked down and said, “These are tennis shoes, coach.”
I instantly knew this was going to be bad. From my vantage point at the back of our calisthenics formation, I hadn’t noticed that this player had inexplicably ditched cleats for tennis shoes. But it was worse than that.
Paul yelled: “I know what they are!!! Tennis shoes?? This is football. We wear cleats, not tennis shoes!”
And then: “Where the hell are your shoelaces???”
“It’s more comfortable for my feet without shoelaces, coach.”
Uh-oh. He was wearing tennis shoes – without shoelaces. For a 3½-hour football practice. We braced for impact.
“GET OFF THE FIELD!!! NOW!!!” Paul roared. “GO HOME AND STAY HOME UNTIL YOU DECIDE YOU WANT TO BE A LEADER FOR THIS TEAM!!!”
The player took the walk of shame off the field, disappeared into the fieldhouse, reemerged a few minutes later in the parking lot, got in his car and drove off – I presumed, forever.
But he was back the next day. Wearing cleats.
About a month later, when we had started the season with a 5-0 record, the coaches gathered us before practice one day and said they were going to start easing up a little on sprints and agility drills to save our legs – which came as terrific news for the players. But then this same senior whom Paul had tossed from practice for the tennis shoes immediately spoke up: “That’s not a good idea, coach,” he said. “We need the work. We’ve got to get in better shape.” And, very much to our chagrin, the sprints and agilities were right back on the practice schedule.
That’s what discipline and leadership look like. That’s the effect Paul Murphy had on players.
Paul wasn’t shy about getting his message across during games, either – as I found out during our Homecoming game against Rootstown my senior season in 1985. Aside from being our offensive and defensive coordinator, he also coached certain positions, including defensive tackles and inside linebackers on defense. Since I played defensive tackle on that side of the ball, I had plenty of interaction with Paul – and got more interaction with him than I wanted that October night against the Rovers.
We were on defense and beginning to huddle up when one of our defensive tackles came racing in from the sideline. This wasn’t unusual: I played left defensive tackle, and we had a two-player rotation at right defensive tackle. I figured the incoming player was headed to the right side for that rotation. But when he arrived at the huddle, he looked at me and said, “Hardesty, you’re out. Paul wants to talk to you.”
Paul wanted to talk to me? About what? How things were going? My plans for the weekend? The latest hit song by Night Ranger? I wondered what it could possibly be as I ran toward the sideline.
I didn’t have to wonder for long. As soon as I reached Paul, he was on me like a cobra. You see, in our 4-4 defensive alignment, defensive tackles at Mogadore had essentially one responsibility: shoot the gaps in the offensive line and penetrate to the quarterback’s heels. This would greatly disrupt the action and timing in the opponent’s backfield, which in turn would force double-team blocks against the defensive tackles, which in turn would free up our linebackers to roam the field and dominate the game.
Paul clearly felt that I wasn’t getting that job done.
As soon as I got to the sideline, Paul pounced – and he did not hold back. His face was beet red and about an inch from my facemask the entire time that he dressed me down in front of the whole stadium (think: Earl Weaver and the plate ump), and he was loud enough that I would be willing to bet that people outside the stadium could hear it. It was epic. Considering this was Homecoming, the game that annually drew more fans than any other, and it was Rootstown, a rivalry game, well, my embarrassment level went completely off the gauge. By the time he finished, I wasn’t sure I still had a spot on the team.
But then he said, “Now get back out there and get in the damn backfield!!!”
In that moment, I would have preferred to line up against him — which is exactly how he wanted me to feel. He knew that my anger and frustration with him would be channeled toward the Rootstown center and guard across from me. It’s called motivation, and Paul could have taught a masters-level class on it.
Earlier that 1985 season, Paul shared his feelings with the group about my job performance, only this time I had company — the other defensive tackle.
We were watching films of our third and final scrimmage of the preseason against Lake County Perry at the Rubber Bowl. Now, back in the ’80s, artificial turf wasn’t quite what it is today, and the artificial surface at the Rubber Bowl was essentially a thin green rug on top of concrete. So it was like playing on a parking lot. Not only that, the carpet was worn down to the point that it was slippery. Like a lot of our players that day, I had opted to wear tennis shoes instead of cleats to combat the slick field (it was an actual option, so no Paul tirade was coming), but it didn’t help at all. As a defensive tackle, slipping out of your stance at the snap of the ball is pretty much the worst thing that can happen, and it happened to me the entire scrimmage. I could not get any traction on that rug whatsoever.
I figured this would be taken into consideration when the coaches viewed the game film. It was not.
So as we sat in the high school cafeteria as a team watching the film, I was completely unaware that I was about to be the star of the show. The coaches were engaging in the usual film banter, running plays over and over and over again, pointing things out to players, asking questions, etc., when Paul suddenly said, “Stop the tape for a second, coach.” Then he turned around and eyed the throng of players behind him: “Where’s Hardesty and (I will spare the name of the other defensive tackle)?”
“Right here, coach,” we each said, raising our hands.
“I’m telling you two right now,” he seethed, “I’ve been coaching for a long time, and that’s the worst performance I’ve ever seen from a pair of defensive tackles in my life. I’d better not see it again.”
The worst. Ever. That covered a lot of defensive tackles. I wasn’t sure what to do with that kind of information, other than to cross my fingers that we didn’t play on artificial turf the rest of the season. Which, thankfully, we didn’t.
Moral of the story: You always knew where you stood with Paul. He was a straight shooter. If you were one of those people with thin skin and had your feelings easily hurt, you weren’t going to last five minutes playing for Paul. But the lessons he taught would benefit you the rest of your life.
One final story …
Over time, I became convinced that Paul had friends in high places. Very, very high places.
Case in point: In my junior season of 1984, we got hit hard by injuries as the middle of October rolled around. We were mixing and matching our lineup, and our quarterback had gone out with mononucleosis. We already had one loss and a tie, and these were the days of only two teams per region qualifying for the playoffs. Another loss, and the playoffs were out of the question. And who was our next game? Rootstown, which was having a good season, and the game was at Rootstown. It was the absolute worst time for us to be traveling to face the Rovers.
Without our QB and a few others, our offense predictably struggled. We just couldn’t get anything going, and it would have been tough sledding on a good day because Rootstown’s defense was tough. We were losing 6-0 in the second half, and it seemed like six points was going to be plenty for Rootstown because we couldn’t mount an offensive threat of any kind. We could feel time — and our season — slipping away.
As we lined up to punt from around midfield, timeout was called, and we waited for the trainers to come out with the water. Instead, Paul comes chugging out from the sideline, and he’s got a smile on his face. This was highly unusual. He gets to the huddle, rubs his hands together and says: “OK, listen up. The grass is starting to get a little wet.” Like I said, it was mid-October, and although it wasn’t a rainy night, dew was starting to form on the field at Rootstown as the temperature dropped. “Now, this punt is going to be hard for their return guy to handle because the ball is going to be slippery,” he told us. “So be ready, because he might put the ball on the ground and we need to jump on it when he does.”
Then Paul looked at our punter, who was one of the best in the area: “Kick it nice and high and give these guys a chance to get down there and recover it.”
I thought Paul had lost it. Or had been on the phone with Dick Goddard.
We snapped the ball, I heard the thud of our punter’s foot hitting the ball behind me, and I took off down the field in coverage. I saw Rootstown’s return man standing around the 10-yard line and waited for his fair-catch signal.
To my surprise, it never came. Instead, he drifted back to inside the 5 to catch the ball — and it went through his hands and ricocheted backward into the end zone, where one of our players jumped on it for a touchdown and a 7-6 lead. We won 14-6.
I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been there — and been part of it — myself. Somehow, Paul knew what was about to happen on that punt. Call it instinct, call it decades of playing and coaching experience, call it whatever you like, but Paul was tapped into … something. As I exuberantly ran off the field following the score, I just thought to myself, “The man just knows things. Amazing.”
There are countless other stories. Anyone who played for Paul Murphy in any sport has their own treasure trove of tales to tell. He was funny, always full of quips and one-liners in practice, even teaching his defensive tackles and linebackers how to get credit for tackles they didn’t make by turning and facing the press box after a play so the PA announcer could see their jersey number. “They call out the first number they see,” Paul would say, “so just stand next to the pile and give ’em a good look at your jersey.”
He demanded you do things his way on the field. I saw him send a running back home one day in practice when the player didn’t have his hands in the correct position to catch a flare pass. “You have your hands like that,” Paul shouted, “it’s going to bounce off and go the other way for a touchdown. Plays like that lose championships.” The offense ran the play again, the running back had his hands in the wrong position again, and Paul said, “Just keep running. Come back tomorrow morning.”
The player did. It was all water under the bridge by then.
Because we knew Paul Murphy, as tough as he could be, bled green and white. He demanded our best, and we expected him to demand our best. That commitment to excellence is what we signed up for. He had been a Mogadore kid at one time, a great quarterback who had led the program to its first state championship under legendary coach Ned Novell in 1954, so he was one of us.
I was honored to play for him, and I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything in the world. Paul Murphy forced me to dig deep within myself to find an inner strength and fortitude I never would have discovered otherwise. Paul was tough, intense and demanding, which made us better football players in high school and stronger people in the adult world. Paul gave us the tools necessary to navigate the rigors of life.
I once feared him, but I grew to love him. And we knew he loved us. He’s gone now, but somewhere I know he’s watching over his former players the way he stood at the foot of that bed and watched over that discouraged sophomore with the broken leg way back in 1983.
Thanks, Coach. Rest in peace.
Tom Hardesty is a Portager sports columnist. He was formerly assistant sports editor at the Record-Courier and author of the book Glimpses of Heaven.