The Buddy System : Hart Coach Murray Wins Friends First, and Baseball Victories Seem to Follow

Bud Murray rubs a weathered hand over his slightly silver crew cut and leans back into a couch.

He pauses, and stares ahead.

Murray has just finished another day of practice with his Hart High baseball team. A team that reached a silver anniversary of sorts Friday with an 8-3 win over Schurr, the Indians’ 25th victory without a loss. A team that Murray, a veteran of 28 years of coaching, calls his best.

But now, Murray is through hitting grounders and is busy fielding questions. The query: Just what does he get out of coaching?

After some silence, Murray answers with one word.

“Camaraderie,” he says.

Murray, 52, a native Nebraskan, speaks with a soft drawl. And almost everything else about him, from his haircut to his leathery countenance and graying mustache, can be associated with the Midwest.

Although he often speaks in a gentle tone, his answer seems even gentler, a response straight from the heart.

“I’ve made a lot of great friends from kids that I coach,” he says. “Friends that are really special to me. I think we have a closeness.”

What else would one expect from a guy named Bud?

The truth of the matter is, Orlin Leroy Murray (who explains the discarding of his given name thusly: “Would you want to be known as Orlin?”) never wanted to be a baseball coach.

He always wanted to be a basketball coach. Basketball was the sport in Murray’s childhood, circa late 1940s early ‘50s, in Scottsbluff, Neb.--a town of about 12,000. And Murray was the starting guard on Scottsbluff High’s 1955 state championship team.

“Scored 33 points in the championship game when we beat Creighton Prep, 65-61,” he proudly remembers.

“I always wanted to be a basketball coach.”

But he wound up as a baseball coach. And 28 years’ worth of youngsters in places ranging from Mitchell, Neb., to Newhall are glad he did. Since migrating to California, Murray has coached at Canyon High (1968-73), where he won two Frontier League championships; Hart (1973-80), where he won four Foothill League titles; Mission College (1981); Pierce College (1982-84), and Glendale High (1984-86) before returning to Hart.

Testimony comes from current and past players alike--Murray is a man who takes the time to be close to his players.

To be sure, Murray lets his players know--vehemently--how to improve as baseball players. That is an inevitable part of coaching.

But just as inevitable are the moments before and after practice when Murray hangs around with his players and tosses jokes and needles as if he was one of the them.

“I feel real close to him,” Hart junior pitcher Jason Edwards says. “He keeps everybody loose. He shares his knowledge. He’s been the big key to our season.”

But Murray’s attachment to his players doesn’t end when the last out of the high school season is recorded.

Take, for example, Ed Knaggs, who played for Murray at Hart in the mid-’70s and now coaches Foothill League rival Burroughs. Knaggs counts Murray among his closest friends.

Murray went to great lengths in helping Knaggs land the Burroughs job. He also provided a shoulder to lean on when Knaggs went through a divorce. Put simply, Murray was able to switch roles from coach to friend.

“He’s a fabulous coach,” Knaggs says. “But as far as a being a friend, he’s even better at that.”

Throughout his career, Murray has developed many close relationships. He often goes fishing with former players, and many of them drop by at Hart games and practices.

“He’s the kind of guy players like keeping in touch with,” Knaggs says. “Bud was born and raised in Nebraska, and he’s still that kind of guy. He makes time for people and family.”

Murray’s childhood reads like an American odyssey--a combination of “The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Natural” and “The Boys of Summer.”

Times were tough in a family of eight children during the late Depression years. The Murrays had to move often--to wherever his father could land a job. While staying mainly in Wyoming and Nebraska, the Murrays--in a move reminiscent of the one made by Steinbeck’s Joad family--packed up a 1936 Ford coupe and trekked to Kingman, Ariz., where Murray’s father helped in the construction of an airport.

“I can remember sitting in the trunk with two of my brothers, propping up the trunk on our heads the whole way,” Murray says, laughing at the memory.

After the family settled in Scottsbluff when Murray was 10, it became apparent that the baby of the family was born with athletic ability: He was a standout in nearly every sport he played.

Murray’s athletic feats read like fellow Midwesterner and fictional wonder boy Roy Hobbs. Not only did Murray play for the 1955 state basketball champions, he was an all-state third baseman and pitcher on the Sheridan (Wyo.) High 1952 state baseball championship team.

Murray was also a track star, qualifying for the Nebraska state meet in the shotput. But one of Murray’s most vivid memories is his state marbles championship at age 11.

“I got a nice big trophy and a jacket,” he said, beaming. “I got to go to Pittsburgh for the national championships. Finished 11th or 12th there. But I got another jacket.”

While at the national marble championships he boarded a trolley to Forbes Field, then home to the Pittsburgh Pirates, and watched the Brooklyn Dodgers play the Pirates. It was his first big league game.

“I remember Jackie Robinson and how he could run,” Murray says. “Boy, did he drive the pitchers crazy.”

Murray also saw Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese and the other legendary “Boys of Summer” chronicled in Roger Kahn’s book.

Eight years later, standing in a Vero Beach, Fla., lobby was a 20-year-old greenhorn named Bud Murray, freshly signed in the Brooklyn Dodger organization, staring in awe at the same players who had introduced him to the world of major league baseball.

Because Scottsbluff High didn’t have a baseball team, Murray played for the town team. The exploits of the 6-foot, 175-pound Murray--which included an 18-strikeout performance in the town playoffs in Dalton, Neb.--drew the attention of the Dodgers.

Murray started his professional career at Shawnee, Okla., a Class-D team. After posting a 5-2 record in 1955, he was promoted to Reno and Class-C ball.

What happened there still makes Murray grimace.

On a cold desert night, with the temperature about 40 degrees, he was pitching in the ninth inning with a 5-2 lead. Then, on one pitch, he severely tore a back muscle.

“No matter what I tried I never was the same after that,” he recalls.

Murray was by then married to his hometown sweetheart, Dori, and he embarked on a career in coaching.

In 1967, the Murrays came to California, where Bud took a job as a physical education teacher and baseball coach at Hart. By then, his dream of becoming a basketball coach had faded.

“I just learned to really love baseball,” he says.

Now, the soft-spoken Midwesterner, the man who can still use words like “ornery” and get away with it, is back where he started. With his best team.

“Newhall is my home,” he says convincingly.

He seems to be entrenched at Hart. It looks as if he and the school are learning the value of one another.

But Murray allows himself memories, like the one about Warren Brown, his high school basketball coach.

“I never realized it, but I’ve been coaching the same way he does,” Murray says. “He was a real quiet fellow who loved to compete and was always figuring out an edge.

“I wrote him a letter a few years back, telling him just, ‘Thanks for everything.’ ”

One can’t help but think that, a few years down the road, an aging Orlin Leroy Murray might receive a few letters like that.