Born February 28, 1861, Worcester County, Mass. Died June 5, 1913.

A three-time Olympic coach, Michael Murphy was one of the world's top track coaches at the turn of the century. His fame first came at Yale University before he moved to the University of Pennsylvania as head coach.

His Yale and Penn teams won 15 IC4A titles and as coach of the New York A.C he produced 10 National AAU team titles. He was unofficial U.S. head coach at the 1900 Olympic Games, also coaching the 1908 and 1912 Olympic teams. While at Yale, he was credit ed with helping develop the crouch start for sprinters amd was0 regarded as one of the foremost coaching innovators of his era. A coach for 26 years until his death, he was the father of George Murphy, who later became a movie actor and U.S. Senator.