Long Beach State University Athletics
Murray Does What it Takes
8/21/2008 12:00:00 AM | General
Aug. 21, 2008
LONG BEACH - By way of a torn anterior cruciate ligament a little more than 16 months ago, Iris Murray's senior season was pushed back a year, leaving her with significantly more responsibility for the Long Beach State volleyball program.
Murray appears to be immersed in the "bring it on" mode though, as the 49ers prepare for their Aug.29 season-opening matches against the University of San Francisco and Indiana at the Walter Pyramid.
"My `little girls' need me," the 5-foot-5 defensive specialist said late Tuesday afternoon after a practice in the Gold Mine, smiling and pointing across the floor to a group of players that included eight athletes who have yet to play a match in a 49ers' uniform.
She is the oldest member of Coach Brian Gimmillaro's 16-player squad - she turns 23 on Dec. 15 - and some of her teammates (which include five freshmen, one of which, Alexa Manuel, is 17) have tagged her with a "Scarlet M," of sorts, to go along with that status.
"Some of them have been calling me `mommy' or `team mom,"' said Murray, a 2004 graduate of Gahr High who received a bachelor's degree in Sociology last December and is well on her way to earning a teaching credential in Health Sciences.
She's OK by it, and her coach seems to grasp why.
"Iris has always been the type of athlete who does not shy away from obligations and responsibilities," Gimmillaro said. "She leads by example, on and off the court. Look at her now (glancing at Murray as she tidied the Gold Mine floor after the three-hour session), picking up towels and gathering volleyballs and putting them away. She is always doing what she thinks she needs to do to help the program."
That's why, from Gimmillaro's perspective, Murray's role in indoctrinating the newcomers to the ways of NCAA volleyball, Long Beach State-style, as well as to adapting to life on the LBSU campus once classes get underway on Sept.2 is every bit as significant as will be her performance as the 49ers' libero.
"She is going to be crucial in helping our newcomers," he said.
That's fine by Murray. Her brother, Eddie, played baseball at UCLA and her sister, Grace, was on the softball team there.
"It's a hard transition for all freshmen," she said. "I remember feeling pretty overwhelmed when I was a freshman, even though I had, basically, moved from down the street to come here and I'd been around the program most of my life.
"I'll try to make them as comfortable as possible and not yell at them but just try to take them aside and explain things to them, like not taking it personally when the coaches get on them."
Murray has been involved in coaching (with the California Juniors' age-group program) as long as she has been a 49er.
But, after suffering the torn ACL in her left knee during a team workout in April of last year, and then undergoing surgery a month later to repair it, she was about to get a near year-long different perspective on coaching volleyball.
Murray, who led the team in dig (3.65 per game, the seventh-best single-season mark in the program's history) in 2006, initially had aspirations of rehabbing as quickly as possible after the surgery and wrapping up her LBSU career with fellow seniors-to-be Alexis Crimes, Talaya Whitfield, Cynthia Buggs and Michaela Hasalikova.
"I loved all of my teammates and wanted to play my senior season with them," she said.
"I even debated not having the surgery and just trying to play with the knee taped and with a brace. I figured that, since I've always been able to recover from injuries quickly, I would have the surgery and come back in time to play."
But, a couple of weeks after the surgery, she and her coaches had a heart-to-heart.
"They thought it would be better not to rush through the rehab and be completely healed for this season," she said.
After discussing the issues with her parents "and sleeping on it", Murray woke up the next morning vowing to make the best of her time as a volleyball spectator.
"My mom always tells us `turn a bad thing into a good thing,"' she said. "I knew something good was going to come out of it."
For Murray, that proved to be the opportunity to gain a depth of understanding into her sport that, apparently, can only come from watching instead of doing.
"I learned so much from just listening to the coaches while watching from the sidelines during practices and matches last year," she said.
"The stuff Brian says during practice is amazing. Sometimes I'll go home and try to write everything down and refer to it later."
She smiled.
"Hopefully," she said, "I've stored up all of the stuff and will be able to use it to help me on the court this season."
The first opportunity to do so can't come soon enough: Her last action came in the 49ers' loss to Hawaii at the Pyramid during the second round of the 2006 NCAA Tournament.
"We need to get on the court in some `real' matches," she said.
"Even with as much as Brian teaches us and as hard as we work, there is only so much you can learn without the pressure of playing someone with the pressure on and people in the stands."
That sounds like someone who knows just enough about coaching to realize she'd rather be playing.
