A JERSEY GUY: Harvard's Murphy Enjoying Life in Slow Lane
Tim Murphy didn't hesitate with the answer when he heard the question.
"This,'' said Murphy, who has been coaching football at Harvard for the past 26 seasons, "would have been my last day off until Thanksgiving. There would have been 12 to 14 hour days. It would have been fun.''
For most of the summer, Murphy's definition of fun has taken more traditional forms.
When the Ivy League shut down fall sports, as it did in March with winter and spring sports,, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it created a domino movement.
The Ivy League’s more recent announcement last month to postpone all fall sports until further notice because of COVID-19 has had a similar impact.
The trickle down affect among FBS and Power 5 conferences began flowing with more force this week.
"It's been different to say the least,'' said Murphy who contends the Ivy League absolutely did the right thing for the right reasons in the spring and did the same thing last month.""I am spending more time with my family. I've had weekends off.”
‘’But I'm ready to go now and we're going to have to make some adjustments. But that's good. I look (at college football) and I see chaos.''
Murphy is trying to stay connected to his players and recruits through zoom and virtual meetings, but it is a new world and the short term future has little forecast of football returning any time soon.
""Spring football right now isn't an option,'' he said, "because the policy at Harvard is no activities unless the students are on campus. Right now that is not the case. It can change, but right now the earliest we can restart (football) will be next summer.''
For a football junkie--at any level--such as Murphy, that is tough to accept. "The last time I went a season without football, '' he said was in 1968 (when he was 12 years old).
Murphy said he was recently on a zoom call with some of his former players and was talking about the time gap in Crimson football.
"It could work out that we will have gone from November of 2019 (before the Yale game) until September of next year between PRACTICES,, '' said Murphy.
Murphy is not complaining, just observing. His life has a calmness to it
He lives in on-campus housing.. ""My commute to work is about a 90 second bike ride to Harvard Stadium'' he said.
He keeps in touch with his players, past, present and future and he waits.
What he doesn't do is worry--at least about football COVID-19 issues.
And that's not bad at all.