By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer
Pat Murphy, head coach of perennial baseball powerhouse Arizona State, can have the University of Hawai‘i coaching job if he wants it.
"It is his call," said a person familiar with the process.
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| Pat Murphy is 244-125 in seven seasons as head coach at Arizona State |
Mark Brand, Sun Devils sports information director, said ASU "is respecting the wishes of (Hugh) Yoshida and Hawai‘i and won’t comment until there is closure to the situation."
Yoshida, the UH athletic director, has declined comment.
Carl Furutani is serving as interim head coach at UH in place of 30-year veteran Les Murakami, who was to have coached a final season until suffering a stroke in November.
UH’s pursuit of Murphy has caught a lot of people in the college baseball community by surprise given the prestige of the lucrative ASU job. "If Pat leaves, will you tell me so I can be the first one to get my application in at Arizona State?" said a coach who had been a candidate there before and asked not to be named.
Murphy’s position at ASU is believed, according to some members of the coaching fraternity, to be one of the 10 highest paying college baseball jobs in the country. A spokesman for the ASU Legal Office said Murphy has a contract through June of 2003 that pays $130,810 in base and auxiliary salary.
Performance incentives and outside income through shoe, bat contracts and camps put Murphy in the $200,000 range, according to industry insiders.
It is believed UH paid Murakami approximately $90,000 last year. For his replacement, UH has advertised a base salary range of $51,000-$75,000 but, with Board of Regents approval, can significantly extend that. UH more than doubled the advertised salary range for head football coach to $320,000 plus bonuses when it hired June Jones in 1998.
Success is expected at ASU which has won three national championships, been to the NCAA regionals 10 times in the past 14 years and produced 21 first-round Major League draft picks.
Murphy, 42, is 244-125 in seven seasons at ASU, which is the defending Pac-10 champion. The school has produced four Academic All-Americans in the past two seasons.
Murphy took the Sun Devils to the national championship game in 1998, and has won wherever he has been with an overall mark of 618-296-3 for stops at Claremont-Mudd Scripps (Calif.), Maryville (Tenn.), Notre Dame and ASU.
As Notre Dame coach in 1990, Murphy brought the Fighting Irish to Rainbow Stadium, and has told people he fell in love with the state then.
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