During the annual Booneville High School alumni gathering on Saturday, a memorial bench will be placed to recognize the contributions made by to the Booneville Bearcat football program by the late Tom Murphy.
Murphy was first an assistant, and later a head coach of the Bearcats from 1949 through 1955, winning 49 games along with three conference titles over those seven seasons and directing the Bearcats to their most dominant season on record in 1953.
The 1953 Bearcats scored 366 points and allowed just 12 – a 9-6 win over then powerhouse Subiaco, which was the first win over the Trojans, and a 12-6 win over Mansfield – over 11 games.
By finishing 11-0, the 1953 team was the last to complete their schedule unbeaten until 1983. However the 1953 team was not permitted to play past the regular season – the playoffs were discontinued after 1952 and were not resumed until 1968 and 1969.
Consequently, although there were state titles in 1986 and 2000, the 1953 team would be the last to finish with a zero in the loss column until the 2013 Bearcats finished 15-0, as would the 2018 team.
Murphy’s 1952 team reached the semifinals of the playoffs, beating Nashville 25-13 in a neutral site game played in Mena, before a 28-0 loss to Searcy ended the season.
In what would be Murphy’s final season of 1955, the Bearcats were 9-1, losing only to Subiaco, and allowed just 39 points, with the Trojans accounting for the majority of them in a 25-20 final.
That would be last of Murphy’s 25 losses over seven seasons, nine of which had occurred in the first season.
Murphy’s time in Booneville was directly attributable to a tuberculosis diagnosis learned during a physical to join the United States Army in 1941. He fought the disease while coaching and after he hung up the whistle, passing away in 1979.
Prior to the tuberculosis diagnosis that brought Murphy to Booneville, he excelled in athletics in high school at Batesville, Ark., and at the University of Arkansas, as well as in coaching.
Orphaned at age 6 Murphy went to school in Batesville and was three times All State in basketball, including in 1927 when Batesville was the runner up of the national tournament in Chicago with Murphy as the tournament MVP.
He lettered four years in football for the Pioneers and was All State in 1928, and he was also a track captain.
Attending the University of Arkansas on a basketball scholarship Murphy was on a freshman team that was unbeaten then lettered three times in basketball.
He was All Southwest Conference twice in both football and basketball and was on the first Southwest Conference title team in 1933, which was also the first team to beat Texas – the Longhorns had won 14 straight in the series since its inception in 1894.
Murphy was named the MVP of the Southwest Conference following the 1933 season by the Houston Post. He is shown above with that trophy.
The conference title would be stripped of the Razorbacks due to the use of an ineligible player, though there was no stated rule the little used player violated but Arkansas was sent to the Dixie Classic in Dallas, a bowl game prior to the launch of the Cotton Bowl in 1937.
After graduating from Arkansas in 1937 Murphy was drafted by the Chicago Cardinals but suffered a career ending knee injury in his first year.
He tried semi-pro basketball but ultimately found his way into coaching, including leading Catholic High School’s football and basketball programs for four years.
From there Murphy also coached football and basketball at Henderson State Teachers College in 1939 and 1940 before his tuberculosis diagnosis in 1941.
