Murray sees first season in charge vanish

The latest in an ongoing series about how West Chester University teams are handling the lost fall season of 2020.

You can’t blame Kyle Murray for feeling a little cursed these days.

The head cross country coach and top assistant in track and field at West Chester, Murray’s watched helplessly as the spring and fall seasons for both the men’s and women’s teams were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

And on the day he was discussing all that’s been lost – which is, incidentally, as much as any coach at WCU has experienced -- Murray ended up at urgent care with a deep wound.

“It was a stupid accident,” he reported.

“We got a dog a couple months ago and he does not like to sit still in the car. We’ve tried a bunch of different barriers and he always seems to find a way. So we got a new metal barrier and it had the world’s toughest zip-tie on it. When I finally cut the zip-tie, I managed to puncture my thigh.

“And Neosporin is not going to heal this one,” he laughed.

At age 33, Murray has worked for six years in West Chester’s admissions department. And this fall was supposed to be his first as head coach in cross country after taking over the helm from Jason Kilgore, who is still the head coach in track.

“Halfway through year one I’m starting to think I’m cursed, with no outdoor (track) season and now no cross country,” Murray quipped. “It’s been quite a year, and not in a good way.” It all started last March, when the global pandemic shutdown the indoor track season at a point when things were just about to culminate at the NCAA Division II Championships in Alabama. Kilgore was at the site with the stars of each squad – shot putter Ralph Casper and multi-event standout Caroline Lewis – when told that all college sports would be halted.

“It was the day before the competition when they found out that everything was cancelled,” Murray said.

“I can’t imagine what they went through, but the silver lining is that neither Ralph nor Caroline is out of eligibility. But at the same time you never know what could happen. You never want to miss an opportunity to perform at that level when things are going well.”

A junior from York, Casper had just won the PSAC indoor title in the shot put and was named the conference MVP. And Lewis – a junior from West Chester East – had just led the WCU women to a second place team finish in the PSAC, which is the highest finish for the program since 2002. She won the 60-meter hurdle title, was runner-up in the high jump and also grabbed MVP honors.

“As a coach, this is unprecedented and not something I ever expected, but I do think it’s always far worse for the athletes themselves,” Murray pointed out.

In mid-July with the pandemic on the rise, the PSAC announced that all fall sports – including cross country – would be postponed until 2021. The women’s squad was coming off a fourth place finish in the NCAA Atlantic Regional in 2019 and was returning four of its top five runners.

“We only graduated Tara McLaughlin, but we added in some quality freshmen, so it would have been interesting to see what we could have done,” Murray said. “You never know – and last season is no indication what is going to happen this year – but I couldn’t help but be excited.”

On the men’s side, it looked like a rebuilding season – the first without Honey Brook native Josh Coakley. As a junior in 2018, Coakley captured the conference crown and then placed 53rd at the NCAA Division II Men’s Cross Country Championship as a senior.

“We were going from having a two-time national qualifier leading our team, to having a very young squad,” Murray acknowledged. “The excitement of that is that it’s a chance to build it from the ground up.

“We had a solid group of guys that could be a close pack, but we would be working on getting that pack to move up closer to the front of the race.”

The lost season has provided an opportunity for runners from both WCU programs to improve, but now they have to do it on their own. And they won’t be able to learn from one another along the way.

“One of the hardest parts is trying to manage things in an unknown world, where things are constantly changing,” Murray said. “Everyone is learning and adapting as they go.

“You have to be as creative as possible to get things done virtually. But no classes or any of the mentors I’ve had have experience in this, so we are all just kind of diving in.”

Kyle Murray