Still Going Strong At Safety

Maybe it will strike him after making a sack—one just as dizzying as his hit on Penn’s Gavin Hoffman last year and just as sudden an intrusion as the ailment itself.

Or maybe it will sneak up on him after he makes an interception, coming out of nowhere like the four picks he’s made in his two years prowling the secondary as Harvard’s free safety.

Or maybe it will jump up on him after an acrobatic pass breakup. Or, if it’s a good day, maybe it won’t happen until halftime, when no one will notice.

In any case, the fact remains that at some point in the midst of exerting himself tomorrow in a game that means more to him than most, Harvard senior Niall Murphy’s diabetes will probably act up.

If it does occur in the middle of a defensive series, then Murphy, his vision blurred and his mind wandering, will trudge over to the sidelines and take a glucose pill. No big deal—10 minutes later, he’ll be fine.

“It’s like brushing your teeth,” explains Murphy, who talks about the condition just as nonchalantly as he administers each of the four shots of insulin he requires per day. After those 10 minutes pass, Murphy will run back out onto the field, primed for the next big play.

“He’s never gone for long,” says Kevin Doherty, Harvard’s co-defensive coordinator and defensive backfield coach. “It’s amazing. There’s never a normal day [for him]. My dad has the same thing and it’s just amazing what some people have to go through that everyone else takes for granted.”

Murphy’s body may run low on sugar occasionally, but he’s never short on adrenaline. Once proclaimed “King of the Quarterbacks” by his local newspaper during his high school playing days in Lawrence, Mass., Murphy frequently outperforms those with even the cleanest bills of health. Whatever hardships the diabetic in Murphy has encountered have usually given way to the fearless side of him, the side that literally leaps over obstacles as a hurdler for Harvard’s track teams.

“Sometimes to start the second half, he couldn’t run out with us because of his sugar levels,” remembers Chuck Adamopoulos, Murphy’s head coach at Central Catholic High School, whose wing-T offense constantly featured Murphy on QB roll-outs. “One of his teammates had it, too. Together, the two of them educated the whole team about it. It’s funny because my six-year-old son recently got diagnosed with diabetes. My wife and I didn’t panic because Niall had given me an education.”

Murphy had great teachers of his own. His father, Dennis, is the long-time coach at Greater Lowell Tech’s highly successful program, and Murphy’s grandfather, Ed, coached Dracut High for a New England-record 48 years. Those football bloodlines have served him well, even if he bucked the family tradition when he chose Harvard over Holy Cross (Harvard’s opponent tomorrow) three years ago. Both elder Murphys were stars for the Crusaders—his grandfather as an All-American end, class of 1943, and his father as a wingback, graduating in 1971.

“You could tell he was a coach’s son,” Adamopoulos says. “Mentally, things just came easily to him. He was our punter and I can remember one time, there was a bad snap and he took it 80 yards for a touchdown. He was our extra-point holder, and a kick would get blocked and he’d run it in for the conversion. Stuff like that would just leave you shaking your head.”

Harvard will be relying on those instincts this season, as it seeks to replace seven starters on defense, six of them All-Ivy honorees in 2001. Last spring, the coaching staff mulled moving Murphy to the weak-side linebacker spot, where Eric LaHaie ’02—himself a converted defensive back—roamed last season. But this fall Harvard’s coaching staff decided to move Murphy to the “rover” position, Andy Fried’s ’02 old stomping grounds last season.

The move makes sense—for one thing, the strong safety spot is highly similar to the linebacker position in Harvard’s “Attack Eight” scheme. Plus, Harvard could certainly use his experience in its relatively youthful backfield, which otherwise returns only junior Benny Butler from 2001. Few have as much as Murphy, who has manned the free safety position since his sophomore year.

“I like being close to the ball,” Murphy says. “Things happen quick and you have to react. You can be real aggressive and influence what the offense does.”

Murphy’s flexibility has helped the Harvard coaching staff usher in a new cadre of defensive backs without losing much confidence in its defense. Harvard’s system is not unlike the one used by the New England Patriots, who frequently deploy three safeties in a package head coach Bill Belichick calls the “Big Nickel.” Sophomore Brian Niemczak, a safety in high school, will play the weak-side linebacker slot, while senior Xavier Goss takes over at free safety.

In other words, the Crimson will essentially feature three defensive-back types in its defense, who can backpeddle in man-coverage just as effortlessly as they can pass rush. Of the three, though, none will have more responsibilities than Murphy.

“He’s doing a lot for us, basically playing three positions,” Doherty says. “I wouldn’t put that much on a player that I didn’t think could handle but I know he can. Being a former quarterback and the son of a football coach, he has that extra knowledge and we take advantage of it.”

“It’s made us a faster defense,” he adds.

Murphy’s transition back to the secondary leaves sophomore star Aaron Byrd, the projected starter there last spring when Murphy was moved to linebacker, as the odd man out of the starting mix in the defensive backfield. But Byrd doesn’t question the logic behind Murphy’s switch.

“Coach [Tim Murphy] said, ‘we won a championship with Niall at safety,” Byrd said. “’We’re going to win another one with him there.’”

How’s that for pressure? Then again, for a kid that was tough enough to endure daily needle injunctions starting at age 11, the weight of those expectations shouldn’t faze him. Adamopoulos, who describes Murphy as a “natural leader,” would not expect anything less.

“Sometimes when you have a star athlete, the rest of the kids will be jealous,” he says. “Not with Niall—he was loved by his teammates here. He was just one of those rare kids that you get to coach maybe one or two times in your life.”

--Staff writer Brian E. Fallon can be reached at bfallon@fas.harvard.edu