Cal’s heart keeps him in the game

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This article was published 29/04/2010 (5972 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA — Cal Murphy just keeps on ticking.

The former Saskatchewan Roughriders head coach says he’s feeling fine these days, about 21/2 months after his heart stopped during a medical procedure.

It has been nearly 18 years since Murphy received a new heart in a transplant procedure in London, Ont. — an operation that saved his life.

The 78-year-old ex-Winnipegger admits that when combined with his previous heart problems, his recent health issues did give him pause for thought.

“I guess I’ve thought about it a couple of times, but it has never really given me a scare per se,” says Murphy, who had CFL coaching stints with the B.C. Lions, Edmonton Eskimos, Montreal Alouettes and Winnipeg Blue Bombers before joining the Roughriders’ staff in 1997.

“I look at it that He keeps throwing me back, so maybe He’ll throw me back again.”

After Murphy suffered his first heart attack in 1978, doctors performed quadruple-bypass surgery and cut off a piece of his left ventricle. He had another attack seven years later, but his doctors at the time dismissed the notion of a transplant.

In 1992, however, they decided that he indeed was a candidate for a transplant. The operation was completed on July 15 that year.

His most recent problems started on Valentine’s Day, when he blacked out briefly at home. He went to the hospital next day for an angiogram and, in the procedure’s early stages, his heart stopped.

Murphy isn’t sure how long his heart wasn’t beating — “I was sleeping,” he says with a cackle — but he apparently didn’t suffer any lasting effects. He was in hospital for about a month before his doctors sent him home.

“They said to take it easy for a while,” Murphy recalls, “and said as soon as I was feeling good, to start doing some cardiac recovery and start exercising.”

So that’s what he has been doing.

“I wasn’t ready to run 40 yards (before this incident) and I’m still not ready to run 40 yards,” Murphy chuckles. “I’m going a little bit slower. When you lay on your back for a while, it affects your musculature.”

That takes some time to get over in itself.

“My leg strength is different, too. I always had strong legs, but all of a sudden, they aren’t as strong as they were.”

None of it has slowed him down.

He continued working as a scout for the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts during his stay in the hospital — “They had a DVD machine in there,” he says — and in early April, he travelled to Vancouver to receive the Bob Ackles Orange Helmet award for lifetime achievement from the Lions.

In other words, his life is almost back to normal.

“I’ve still got some scouting to do,” he says. “I don’t know if I’m going to go to the CIS (East West Game) camp next week. Normally I would go, but I’ll still do the work for it… I figure I’ll get stuff off the film. There are some guys I’m looking at still.”

Although he’s doing his job just months after a serious medical event, he’s not dwelling on the recent past.

“It’s just one of those things that happens,” Murphy says. “Yeah, it happened, but I don’t dwell on it and worry about it. You’ve got to get on with your life.”

— Canwest News Service