We appreciated former Arizona State University baseball coach Pat Murphy before the school controversially dismissed him a few months ago, after the 51-year-old had been chosen as the Pac-10's Coach of the Year for the third straight season.
Murph (the burly fellow in the photo) always was a great interview, was beloved by many of his players (definitely not all of them) over his stellar 15 years with the Sun Devils, and was something of an iconoclast -- a complicated cat with a lot of baggage and a lot on his mind.
The brass at ASU would choose other words to describe him, including "cheater," referring to the still-unresolved list of alleged NCAA violations that surely led to his demise at school.
We see that the San Diego Padres have hired Murph as a "special assistant to baseball operations." We don't know exactly what a "special assistant" does, but let's assume it's a better-paying gig than that of a simple "assistant," but something less than that of an "extra-special assistant."
We're sure that Coach Murphy will be taking his former employer to court at some point over his abrupt departure. That lawsuit may be a doozy.
As for now, here's a link to the profile we did of Murph a few years ago, when things were going well for him and it appeared he'd be at ASU's helm for a long time to come.
