When Clayton Murphy received a text that a package had been delivered for him last June, the then-University of Akron sophomore might have set a personal record dashing from a meeting to his apartment.
The 458th American to run a sub-four-minute mile last month before he turned 21, Murphy couldn’t wait to rip the box open. He knew it contained his Team USA gear for the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto, where the relative unknown would win gold in the 800 meters.
“I went upstairs, unpacked it and put on the jersey within 30 seconds,” Murphy said. “That feeling is great. I think I have a total of six jerseys from the summer and every one of them is in my closet perfectly hung up. It’s something I’ll never forget.”
After his July victory in Toronto, Murphy won silver in the 800 at the NACAC Championships in San Jose, Costa Rica, then, as the alternate, received a late invitation to the IAAF World Championships in Beijing in August. Murphy reached the semifinals and was the top U.S. finisher.
Now running the 800 in the 2016 Olympics is Rio de Janeiro is not out of the question for Murphy, even though UA coaches believe his best event is the mile.
“He’s always talked about it. We always anticipated it would be the next one,” Murphy’s mother Melinda said of the Olympics.
Those in his hometown of New Paris, a tiny burg in Southwest Ohio six miles from the Indiana border, are not surprised by Murphy’s rapid rise in the past two years. Scott Warren, track and field coach at Tri-Village High School since Murphy’s senior year, said Murphy is known there as “the guy who runs all the time.”
“As great as it is, the Pan Am Games and all, when you talk to people who know him, it’s like, ‘It’s Clayton. We figured he’d do something like that,’ ” Warren said.
Murphy is one of five Zips who will compete Friday and Saturday at the NCAA Indoor championships in Birmingham, Ala. He hopes to improve on his third-place finish in the 800 last year before turning his focus to the outdoor season. He took third in the same NCAA outdoor event in 2015.
Thoughts of Rio — and the U.S. Olympic Trials July 1-10 in Eugene, Ore. — will have to wait for the son of parents who work for farm co-ops. Melinda buys grain, father Mark fertilizer and feed. Murphy’s younger brother Wesley recently gave up baseball because livestock is his calling.
“At some point every track athlete dreams about the Olympics,” Murphy said last week before practice at the Stile Athletics Field House. “Now it’s starting to become a focus.
“But 99 percent of the focus is on running well at the NCAA level. I’m racing some of the best guys in the world. That’s challenging enough.”
UA track and field coach Dennis Mitchell called Murphy’s performance in the Mid-American Conference championship Feb. 26-27 “magical.” Murphy won the mile and the 800 meters (in a MAC-record time of 1:48.65) and anchored the winning 4x400 and distance medley relay teams. After his individual victories he turned around, not to showboat as some might have presumed, but to encourage his teammates as the UA men claimed their third consecutive MAC indoor title.
“To see him do not only three events, but that fourth event when he’s running a 45-second-plus split in the 4x4 ... ” Mitchell said of Murphy, also a member of the Zips’ cross country team. “Distance runners aren’t supposed to run that fast in the 400. And he took on a kid in the anchor who was a junior national team member and it wasn’t even close. It was one of those things where you say, ‘Here’s a legendary performance we’ll be telling our kids about forever.’ ”
Murphy is a middle distance runner with a rare finishing kick. The three-time cross country all-Ohioan showed that in the district track finals his senior year at Tri-Village. He tied for first in the 100 meters, an event he ran on a whim, and lost in a run-off to advance to regionals.
Some of that versatility comes from soccer, which Murphy played from the time he was 3 until his freshman year in high school.
“Our issue when he played soccer was he played offense,” Melinda Murphy said, including her ex-husband. “We’d say, ‘You stay on this half of the field, your defense will get it.’ The next thing you knew he was at the opposing goal defending and coming back with the ball. The whole game he’d go back and forth.”
In junior high, the school district only had cross country for boys and Murphy was soon captivated. He told his mother he was quitting high school soccer because he didn’t want an injury to derail him as a runner. She initially resisted because he’d made a commitment to the team, but the coach agreed.
“He didn’t play soccer again,” Melinda Murphy said. “He never looked back.”
UA men’s distance and cross country coach Lee LaBadie first heard of Murphy when former Zips baseball coach Pat Bangston saw Murphy and passed along the tip to his successor Rick Rembielak. Rembielak told LaBadie, who researched Murphy and went to see him run cross country at the district and state meets.
“I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, I hope noooobody else sees this,’ ” said LaBadie. “There was no question in my mind that this young man would be in the finals at the NCAA level before his college career was over.”
LaBadie said Murphy immediately reminded him of Dave Wottle, the golf-capped Canton native and Bowling Green product who won gold in the 800 meters at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Competing for the University of Illinois, LaBadie ran against Wottle at the NCAA championships and saw some of the same traits in Murphy.
“How he runs, his build, his intense ability for detail, to be able to see detail, then work to perfect the things,” LaBadie said. “Most of the things they do are skills ... the skill’s not going to become a habit unless they continually check what they’re doing while they’re running. Somebody who has an attention to detail can bring a balance to all of the stressors and therefore they’re not stressors any more.”
LaBadie downplayed Murphy’s rise from unknown to star, saying there are similar stories in track and field. But Mitchell acknowledged it.
“It’s quite amazing to go from a guy who hasn’t been to a national championship, couldn’t even make the junior national team, and the following year he’s making the world’s older group team,” Mitchell said. “That’s just unbelievable. He is probably one of the best, if not the best, middle distance runner in the country right now in the NCAA.”
Murphy benefited from publicity over six-time USA outdoor 800 titlist and two-time Olympian Nick Symmonds’ decision to skip the 2015 IAAF World Championships to make a statement over athletes’ benefits. Symmonds, who represents Brooks apparel, also didn’t want to be forced to wear Nike clothing outside of competition.
“I wanted Nick and USATF to work things out,” Murphy said. “He earned his spot by winning USAs and I was fourth. But if things fell into my lap where he wasn’t going to be able to compete, I was going to take advantage of it. It was a great opportunity to compete on the best stage in the world.”
LaBadie said Murphy learned in Beijing he is just as talented as others in the world who consider themselves elite athletes.
“Clayton says, ‘I am as good as these other people,’ so the dedication to execute all the little details — eat right, sleep right, balance his studies, hundreds of these little details — is reinforced because he knows at the end he can be successful,” LaBadie said. “Now instead of dreaming about that, he can actually visualize himself. Now he’s got to work hard and see if he can make it a reality.”
That’s where the jerseys hanging neatly in his closet come in. If his dedication ever wanes, Murphy can look at them and remember his goals.
“He has the U.S. flag they gave him at the Pan Am Games on his wall, he has a few of his awards hanging up to remind him,” Melinda Murphy said. “His senior year he had the closest [medals] to his heart displayed, to know he’s been there or where he’s working to go, maybe he didn’t get the placing he wanted. Those are things that help him mentally along the way.”
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her blog at www.ohio.com/marla. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.