Football ‘07 — GSL: Size doesn’t matter

Standing 5-foot-9 and weighing maybe 180 pounds, McKenzie Murphy isn’t particularly big of stature.

But the returning two-way first-team All-Greater Spokane League football player casts a long shadow on a Ferris team manned by high-profile athletes.

Murphy and his talented teammates are the primary reason the Saxons are picked to win the GSL after being chosen eighth in preseason predictions a year ago.

That season, however, they finished second in league and lost by a point in the postseason to complete an 8-2 season. While there is nothing certain in this year’s veteran and overall stronger league, the Ferris seniors are driven to live up to advanced billing.

“Smash-mouth football is what it’s going to come down to,” said Murphy. “We’ve got to come out and play every week, because you can’t overlook anybody.”

Murphy is part of a league-wide senior class that has been on the radar in a variety of sports – whether youth select baseball, AAU basketball, YMCA Grid Kids football, and in several cases all three – since they were young.

As such, coach Jim Sharkey has made his charges aware that wins won’t come easily, pointing out that Ferris trailed at half in two games last year and won four by a touchdown or less.

Sharkey said Murphy switched offensive positions in the Saxons’ spread offense, and helped propel them to their runner-up GSL finish to Gonzaga Prep’s eventual state semifinalist.

“What happened was, we were looking back at the first two games and did not run the ball at all,” said Sharkey. “He moved from slot to fullback against Lewis and Clark and it really turned our season around.”

The Saxons edged the Tigers 17-14 in their third game and Murphy finished the season with 489 yards and eight rushing touchdowns, nearly all in his final six games.

“He has tremendous vision,” said Sharkey. “We’re a base zone running team and it seems that for zone runners, some can and some can’t. He has the patience to be one.”

Prior to his move to fullback, Murphy was known primarily in his role as a two-year starter on defense. He earned second-team All-GSL honors as a sophomore, leaving the ball carrying to his equally undersized but competitive (and All-GSL) senior brother, Ryan.

“We play with heart instead of size,” said Murphy, whose dad, Dan, also was a Saxon on the 1975 City League co-champion and next year in the first season of the Greater Spokane League. He, too, earned league accolades.

McKenzie admits that being named first team All-GSL on both sides of the ball last year came as a surprise. He said he heard it from his girlfriend through G-Prep standout Bryan Karwacki.

“I didn’t see that one coming,” he said. “I was pretty positive on the defensive side, but offense came as a shock. I didn’t expect it because I had missed two games playing running back.”

Both father and son credit McKenzie’s years of youth sports and passion for the game for enabling him to excel. He attended parochial school at All Saints, but long teamed with numerous current Saxons mates to play football for his dad. Dan Murphy said that they lost only one game their final three seasons.

“I was pretty focused on going to Ferris at the time and figured I’d play with people I was going to play with in high school,” said McKenzie. “It was good for our development, getting a passion for it, learning fundamentals, getting a love for the game. That’s what Grid Kids did for us and is a big reason why the GSL has improved.”

Dan Murphy concurs. He said that when he was growing up getting to travel to Spokane’s North Side for a game was a highlight. Now kids travel out of state for competition in a variety of sports.

“Occasionally, you run into a ‘Shaq’ or a ‘Nolan Ryan.’ You can’t compete physically, but find ways fundamentally and mentally to possibly beat them,” he said.

The Saxons won’t surprise this year. They won a passing camp tournament in Canada beating Skyline and Eastlake in their final two games. They put in a grueling off-season of preparation.

McKenzie, for example, worked on speed, switching from baseball to track, and added 10 pounds of muscle to prepare for his senior season. He was timed at less than 4.6 seconds in the 40-meter dash.

“We do have the target on our backs,” McKenzie agreed. “Any team can beat us because they are so strong.”

But he said these players, so used to success, have set their goals high.