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Haverford School coach prides himself on teaching old-school values

With a program that values courage, respect and honesty, coach Mike Murphy and his team are a far cry from the Sayreville hazing scandal.

Haverford School players have eschewed players' names on their jerseys and instead have used words from the school's honor code.
Haverford School players have eschewed players' names on their jerseys and instead have used words from the school's honor code.Read moreSTEVEN M. FALK / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

MIKE MURPHY is an old-school coach with an old-school crew cut. Murphy coaches football at Haverford School, an old-school old school on a picture postcard campus, banners everywhere proclaiming its mission, "Preparing Boys for Life."

It's college prep. All boys. The kids must wear ties and jackets to class. Every day. They grumble about that.

"We wear black cleats, and they're not happy about that," Murphy confessed. "I'm old-school. I'm a huge Notre Dame fan, and they've gone to those flashy blue-and-gold cleats, and I'm not thrilled about that."

The shoes. It's gotta be the shoes. Nah. Haverford School is 6-1 now, after beating Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, 32-16, on Saturday. I was there, my first high school football game in 55 years.

I was there because I'd seen a photo of a Haverford School game and the players had fascinating words on the backs of their jerseys, above the number. Courage! Respect! Honesty!

There's gotta be a story there, I thought, a relevant story about how tough it is to coach teenagers, a counterpoint to the Sayersville scandal, where hazing turned a dark and hideous corner into physical and sexual abuse of freshmen, where the season was canceled after three games, where bitterness has replaced pride, where the whistle-blowers are fearful.

We talked in Murphy's office on Friday. There was a thick paperback book on a coffee table. "Teens Under the Influence." Murphy sighed and said: "All of us are reading that book. There's a lot of science to it. We can tell the kids, 'This is what happens to your brain on drugs.'

"Parents have been telling the kids, 'Don't do drugs' for 150 years. And how has that worked out?"

Murphy has coached high school football on the Main Line for 20 years, the last 10 at Haverford School. He is old-school, from his crew cut down to his black cleats, but you already know that. He has enough traditions for three schools.

They fire a miniature cannon before home games. That was Murphy's idea, to honor a man named Don Brownwell.

"He taught here for 55 years," Murphy explained. "Passed away while teaching. He taught European history.

"He was a noted World War II expert. He said you can't understand the depth of European and American war history without knowing the smell of gunpowder. He'd start off every school year, firing a 10-gauge shell from that cannon."

Murphy handed me a coin. Man with his arm on a boy's shoulder. The words respect, honesty, courage engraved on the rim. Another tradition, this one started by a headmaster named Joe Cox.

"He was an enlisted officer," Murphy said proudly. "Vietnam, Airborne, Ranger guy. Last stop in his Army career, he taught at West Point. When he came here, he was looking to change the culture.

"What he brought is a system similar to what is in place at West Point. The students have a large role in discipline and the honor code. West Point is built on honor, duty, country.

"When he came here, he settled on the three words to be the basis of the honor code here: respect, honesty, courage. Joe developed that coin; it became a trademark thing. Anytime one of the boys did something honorable, respectful or showed courage, he gave him a coin. I have mine from my first big win here.

"Joe's last year here, I wanted to do something to honor him. I had seen an Army game on television and they had duty, honor, country on their uniforms. I asked an influential alumnus how he felt about us putting our three words on jerseys. He supported it.

"It became a theme for us. We have a walkover; we call it the walk of virtues. On each pillar, we have the many different virtues we'd like the boys to exemplify. And those three words are the keystone of our honor code. If something goes wrong, it goes to the honor council, elected by your peers."

Terrific stuff. But what about today's teenagers, trapped in the maze of their social networks, their hormones raging, their tempers short, their judgment warped? Is the job tougher than 10 years ago?

"The thing that scares us to death as parents and coaches," Murphy answered, "is that mistakes are magnified. I tell our guys all the time . . . you used to have an altercation, you said something stupid and regretted it . . . it went between you and the other kid. If it came to the attention of the coaches, we went into a room and worked it out.

"Nowadays, you send out a tweet about somebody or something, next thing you know, the entire world knows about it and you have a major situation on your hands. We are living in an entirely different world.

"I still contend kids haven't changed that much. Kids, even though they'll fight against it, still look for discipline. They want your opinion, they appreciate honest feedback from someone they know cares about them as a person.

"A boy is at home now, it's 11 o'clock. He makes a decision that's out to the world in 3.3 seconds. Kids have thousands of followers on Twitter. Parents and coaches, they're never resting. College coaches, they may never sleep. You go to sleep, you wake up, it's in the paper before you know it."

The Sayreville scandal sent a shiver through coaches across America.

"As a coach," Murphy said, "you don't know 100 percent what boys are going to do. Teenage boys make dumb decisions. You have to stop and think. Dumb decisions are magnified right now and have higher consequences."

Maybe more supervision, more guidance, more rules? The Sayersville coach spent his time in the coaches' office, not the locker room. Murphy paused before answering.

"We're wrestling with that," he said. "We're trying to develop young men, so how much freedom do you have to give them? We're preparing boys for life. Someone is not going to be watching over them 24/7 later on. They're going to have to make the right decisions."

Shazam, a defining moment. The teenage brain is not fully developed. The brain doesn't really mature until your early 20s. By the time they're adults, they know right from wrong, they understand the consequences of their actions. Until then, they need help, they need supervision, they need guidance, they need role models.

Perhaps a whole different approach to parenting, to coaching, to teaching?

And then the game, with its own defining moment. Haverford played a jittery first half, yet owned a precarious 5-0 lead. SCH Academy took the lead, Haverford fought back. Some remarkable plays on both sides, some incredible kicking by the Fords.

Haverford led by nine with 2:08 left, SCH Academy driving. Another dart from quarterback Paul Dooley takes them to the 15. Tweet! The officials rule a fumble, Haverford ball.

SCH Academycoach Rick Knox storms out to midfield, confronts the officials vehemently. He doesn't like what he hears and gets louder, angrier. One of them throws a flag for a sideline violation. The delay lasts 12 minutes.

Fans on the SCH Academy sideline taunt the officials. "You're a disgrace," one man screams over and over. "Way to end the game," a woman bellows from the bleachers. It is the dry tinder for a conflagration.

The players stand around. You wonder what they're thinking. When play resumes, bam, a Haverford kid named Reginald Harris sprints 85 yards for a touchdown. Maybe those SCH Academy kids were discouraged, disheartened by what they'd seen and heard and lost focus.

Knox says the play started inside and then Harris broke it outside. He thinks his safety was too close to the line of scrimmage, a pure X-and-O reaction. He didn't think the kids were affected by the long delay. Me, I didn't see much serious pursuit.

I leave the game thinking about the SCH Academy assistant coach, older guy, animated. Opening kickoff, he warns the subs to stay behind the thin red line. He spends the game 2 yards inside the sideline, on the field illegally, shouting instructions. Your basic "Do what I say, not what I do" kind of coaching.

I churn through a sleepless Sunday night. I worry about the victims at Sayreville, I think about an honor code, for coaches, for parents, for fans, for adults everywhere.