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Murphy's law is the order that sparks women's lacrosse

By Jason Pallante (COM'02)

When Sue Murphy first arrived at Boston University in July 1995 to head the women's lacrosse club program, she was stunned by the size and layout of the city campus. Her previous stint as field hockey and lacrosse coach was at tiny Oberlin College in Ohio. "I came from the cornfields of Pennsylvania," she says. "So when I first got off the plane and drove through the BU campus, I said to myself, 'Whoa, what's that track doing there in the middle of campus?'"

	Sue Murphy, women's lacrosse head coach. Photo by Luke Hartig (CAS'02)

Murphy was also stunned by the fact that her players had to borrow kilts from the women's field hockey team and wear T-shirts with numbers on them during games.

Today, however, the varsity intercollegiate women's lacrosse team -- just six years ago a club sport --is currently ranked sixth in the nation. The players can choose from four different sets of uniforms. Their sticks are custom-dyed and imprinted with the University's name. And major lacrosse sponsors such as Brine offer to make uniforms for the team.

Murphy, who grew up just outside of Boyertown, Pa., learned the game when she was in seventh grade. She won two state championships with her high school team and continued playing at UMass-Amherst, where she majored in sports management. She competed on the U.S. National Team for two years after graduation in 1990, but eventually exited the lacrosse field for marriage and motherhood.

Murphy had never planned on becoming a coach, but left a career in pharmaceuticals for the playing fields for a couple of reasons. "My mom and dad always told me, 'Make sure you enjoy what you do every day when you jump into that car and go to work,'" she says. "I also realized that panty hose and a skirt every day were not for me."

But the road to building BU's women's lacrosse team has not always been well-paved. In one of Murphy's first games as head coach, the club squad went up against Temple University. The Owls swooped down on the Terriers fast and hard in a humiliating 30-2 romp.

In the hopes of recruiting talent, Murphy started hanging posters around campus, encouraging women to join the team. She joked with her players that her hair was turning gray because of their dismal performance.

But in 1997 the team was promoted to the varsity intercollegiate level, and Murphy's recruiting scheme -- going after players in winning high school programs -- started to pay off. The Terriers met up again that year with the Owls, and this time fur triumphed over feathers.

Murphy takes a hands-on approach to all aspects of coaching. For instance, when she compared the 10-page BU women's lacrosse media guide to the University of North Carolina's 36 pages, she personally sold ads and beefed up the content so the BU guide was comparable to that of other major programs. She has set lofty goals for her players, telling them they would be nationally ranked within four years of her coming to BU; they, and she, have attained that goal in only three. She has succeeded in recruiting players from winning teams, predominantly from her old stomping grounds in Philadelphia and Baltimore.

And Murphy has been both coach and confidante to her players. "She is like a second mother to all of us," says junior midfielder Kristin Abruzzese (SAR'02). "She is always there for us on and off the field and cares for us more than other coaches, which you don't see with a lot of top programs."

Since she's been at BU, Murphy has seen the New England area start to sizzle as a lacrosse hotbed. "When I first recruited, I would never spend time in this state," she says. "Now our clinics have grown so large that we've had to close them. We're getting 150 players and 100 coaches attending our summer clinic, the Bay State Lacrosse Camp." She predicts that the growth in youth lacrosse programs will create an exciting influx of talented players in the years to come.

The Terriers are currently 3-2, with wins against the fourth-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels and the powerhouse Ohio State Buckeyes, despite having no home field or regular practice facility because of renovations at Nickerson Field. (The Terriers have been playing home games at MIT, Boston College, and Harvard.)

Murphy's success at BU has prompted other top universities to make inquiries about her. She has been named the head coach of the U.S. Junior Development Program, the country's premier youth program for lacrosse.

But coaching at BU is Murphy's top priority. "I've built something here that I am very proud of, and I have a great group of young women every year," she says. "There is definitely a true family feeling here that makes me very happy."

30 March 2001
Boston University
Office of University Relations