Peers share memories, many sides of Cal Murphy

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This article was published 19/02/2012 (5216 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Cal Murphy not only understood the ins and outs of the CFL game like no one else, he also knew what it took to win.

That’s what the man who brought Murphy to the Blue Bombers shared with members of the Winnipeg media this afternoon. The legendary head coach and general manager passed away in a Regina hospital the night before. He was 79.

“It’s a particularly sad day for all of us that knew Cal as a football guy and as a friend,” said Paul Robson, the former Bombers GM who hired Murphy away from the Edmonton Eskimos to be the Bombers head coach prior to the ’83 season.

“He was so much a part of this community and really an innovator in the Canadian Football League. Certainly his record as a coach is unparalleled. He was probably the most complete coach that ever coached in the Canadian Football League. He knew offence, defence and special teams. He knew the nuances of the Canadian kicking game. He understood and respected the importance of the Canadian player in the game and then was probably one of the best personnel people that any of us had ever been around.

“The identification of talent that he did for this football club and the talent he brought into this league was outstanding.”

Murphy, who is in both the Bombers hall of fame and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, took over as the head coach in 1983 and his tough, honest style immediately changed the fortunes of a Winnipeg club that couldn’t get over the hump in the early 1980’s. Robson hired the former Edmonton assistant coach on the recommendation of Eskimos head coach Hugh Campbell and following a dinner he had with Murphy.

“It didn’t take me long to know that he was the kind of guy I wanted to hire to run this football club,” Robson said.

Murphy led the Bombers to a 9-7 record his first season, winning the CFL Coach of the Year Award. The Bombers lost in the West Final but broke through under his command in 1984 with the club’s first Grey Cup title in 22 years. He was named coach of the year again that season.

“I really felt that our team was a little soft, and Cal came in and corrected that,” Robson said. “He knew where he was going, he knew where we had to get to go, and he knew the kind of people that he needed to get us there.

“He was a tough coach, but anybody that had the experience of playing with him or working with him always remembered that underneath all that there was always a chuckle somewhere from ‘Kindly Cal.'”

Murphy coached the Bombers from 1983-87, before moving upstairs to take over for Robson and make way for Mike Riley on the sidelines.

Murphy returned to the coaching ranks in 1993 and remained with the Blue and Gold through the 1997 season.

Robson said Murphy’s time with the Bombers stands alone in the Bombers’ 82-year history. He brought the franchise into the modern era, Robson said, calling Murphy “one of the key builders that this club has ever had.”

Murphy was a staunch advocate of the Canadian game. When the topic of U.S expansion came up in the early-1990s, he was one of the few opposed to the move into American markets. Proponents of expansion incorrectly labelled Murphy as a member of the ‘old guard,’ someone who wasn’t considering the bigger finical picture that was possible at the international level.

It turned out Murphy was right, expansion never took root. “He was vilified to some degree at that time, but in the end he was vindicated,” Robson said. “This is a Canadian game for a Canadian audience played predominantly by Canadian kids.”

Current Winnipeg assistant GM Ross Hodgkinson joined the Bombers as an athletic trainer prior to the 1985 season. He shared one lesson he learned with Murphy early on in his time with the Blue and Gold. If someone ever had an issue with something Murphy was doing, he said, it was always best to bring it up with the former coach and GM behind closed doors.

“I remember coming back from a game on a flight from Calgary,” he told reporters Sunday. “I was sitting up by Cal with the coaches and I really thought that we had a tough week of practice, a very physical week of practice, and I thought we had gone into the game a little bit beat up and a little bit tired.

“I recounted that to Cal on the flight back and it was a lesson learned. Cal retorted with, again, a little chuckle, that he thought that Calgary might be hiring a new assistant trainer if I was interested in applying.”

Message received, the assistant GM added.

Hodgkinson offered multiple sides to Murphy; layers that not many knew existed. There was the hard-nosed disciplinarian and there was the guy who loved to laugh and share old war stories. There was the businessman, the guy who helped bring the Bombers brand into significance with an honest product built on community identity.

Most importantly, the players respected him.

“There are certain coaches that the cliché is that (players) will go to the wall for that person. And Cal was certainly one of those coaches,” Hodgkinson said.

Bombers GM Joe Mack, who worked with Murphy during the 1984-87 years, offered these thoughts via team statement:

“Cal was one of the most influential figures in our organization’s history, and that dates back over 80 years. His dedication and desire to win was second to none – he just didn’t accept losing and his passion for this game was simply unmatched. He will be truly missed.”