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Amherst Central football
The first item of business Murphy introduced was a college style strength and conditioning program. The next item was bring in more athletes, which Murphy was able to easily do from his days as a college recruiter. Every Amherst High male student was asked to join the team, sometimes twice. "I remember it in being the baseball season and coach came to me and said 'well, can you get into the weight room?'" said senior tight end and defensive end D.J. Filer. "And I said 'I got baseball now.' And he always kept asking people and getting them into the weight room and saying 'you got to be at this practice'." "They would say 'coach, you already asked me', 'coach, I couldn't because I had to do this' and I would say 'OK, now I remember'," said Murphy, who said he took a job in the Dean of Students office partly to help build relationships with the students. "I worked the cafeteria (asking kids to come out for the team), after school, and before school in the halls."
assistants to the varsity staff to give him two offensive line coaches (Tony Mariani and Adam Kulczycky), as well as a coach for receivers (Bertram Smith, Sr.), defensive backs (Chris Kensy), and offensive coordinator (Keil Illg). Murphy also coaches the linebackers. Other coaches are Jim Gardon (strong safeties), Ray Ouellette (running backs, JV head coach) and Pete Battaglia (defensive line) from JV and Mike Screen and Justin Celmer from modified. "What that allows us to do is to divide up practice and run it like a college practice," said Murphy. "Every coach has a position. We coach the JV and varsity together then we split up for other drills and it's varsity against varsity and JV against JV." "There's not a lot of standing around," he added. "Everything is on five-minute increments." Hailing from West Munroe, La., Murphy comes to Amherst with 25 years of coaching experience between the high school and college ranks. He was a player then a coach at the University of Louisiana at Munroe and was defensive coordinator on the 1987 team that won an I-AA national championship. He also had high school coaching stints in West Munroe, La. and Beumont, Texas. Compared to Western New York, Texas and Louisiana high school football is according to Murphy "a totally different animal." "The kids are the same as far as working hard but the culture of football is different," said Murphy. "You play in front of 10 to 15,000 people. You could play up to 20 weeks of football plus there's a spring training of 15 days of full-padded practice with a scrimmage against another team." Murphy moved to the area last year when his wife, Traci, took a job as associate athletic director and senior women's administrator at Canisius College. He was defensive coordinator for Len Jankiewicz at Lancaster last year. Murphy takes over a Tigers' program that had a great season (5-3) be cut short by the October snowstorm. Amherst's year ended with a loss to Williamsville East in a Class A Consolation Bowl semifinal. The featured player on offense for the Tigers this season will be junior running back Bertram Smith. "He's got a lot of quickness and speed," said Murphy. "He's a guy that we're going to rely on a lot." Smith is ready for the workload. "I'm excited," said Smith, a returning Class A South defensive first team pick. "My brother (Andre Hakeem) was the guy last year so now it's my turn." Murphy said he has also been impressed with several other running backs, including senior Matt Weber, who didn't play last year, junior Robert Flint, who played JV last year, and seniors Ed Rybat and Deshawn Hough. If Smith is going to be one of the players to look out for on the Tigers' roster, then he will need his lineman to make holes in the defense for him. This year's crew is young, including four juniors - guards Vance Reeds and Corey Damon, center Pete Battaglia, tackle Kyle Hutchinson - and senior tackle Josh Dotzler. Sophomore Dion Merrill will also see time on the line. All are over 6-feet with the tackles weighing in around 230 with the guards between 215 and 220. A young, inexperienced line concerns Murphy. "We talk about having some good running backs but we will have to be able to get them started," said Murphy. "That will be the biggest thing to our offense, how quickly the offensive line can gel. That's the key focus." Other key offensive players are senior tight ends Casey Rich and Mark Tarquini, senior Viron Hale and junior Soloman Campbell at wide receiver and junior Kevin Denny at quarterback. Defensively, Murphy is expecting a lot out of Filer and Blake Napierala at defensive ends. The inside tackle spots will be handled by juniors Danny Dixson, Sabastian Manunta or sophomore Kyle Winfield. Rich and junior Pharoah Gayles will start at linebacker. The secondary could feature Hough, senior Kam Brown, sophomore Justin Jenkins, Hale, Weber, or possibly Smith and sophomore Diangelo Flint. "Defensively, we're going to be more of a blitzing attack," said Murphy. "I run a 4-2-5 which puts five defensive backs on the field and gives us a lot of speed on the field. We're going to have to slant and attack and hopefully make people run sideline to sideline." The new-look Amherst team gets their first test when they host Hamburg at 7 p.m. on Friday. "I'm real excited to be here," said Murphy. "I think we're heading in the right direction." e-mail: pnagy@beenews.com AMHERST FOOTBALL SCHEDULE
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