Comments (0) Best College Coaching Legend - 2009
Pat Murphy
The following adjectives aptly describe the controversial longtime ASU coach: bullheaded, mercurial, self-absorbed. Also: witty, loyal, sensitive. We like our high-profile coaches complicated, and none is more so than Murphy, who won his 1,000th game during this year's College World Series, where his overachieving Sun Devils finished an impressive third. Murph, as he's known to many, has his fans — and detractors. The latter consider him a brutish sort with a temperament more suited to a mean-spirited corrections officer than to a college baseball coach. We're in the fan category, having watched him coach (and watched him mature) during his 15-plus years at the helm of ASU's storied baseball program. He may not be Mr. Lovable come game time, but his players work their butts off for him and constantly produce — or else.
