Harvard Football Team Down to Just Kicker, Waterboy
Normally, it’s pretty easy to find out what the latest Harvard football player did to get suspended or thrown off the team. When head coach Tim Murphy told seniors Danny Lane and James Velissaris in May that they’d be sitting out the season opener, it was because they got in a dust-up with a campus shuttle bus driver. When captain Matt Thomas was canned indefinitely in June, tout Cambridge knew it was over his ugly blowup at his girlfriend. And last week, we hear wide receiver Keegan Toci was dismissed from the team for insulting Coach Murphy at a traditional skit night for the football team. (And obviously, the pileup of discipline cases has the locker room divided — some team members say privately that this time, Murphy went too far.)
At least the facts are in the open on those incidents. In the biggest case of all, no one — not even his teammates — seems to know what prompted Murphy in June to bench starting quarterback Liam O’Hagan for five games. The starting quarterback! Half the season! One coach reportedly told his players O’Hagan was fortunate to only miss that much — leading some to say the QB actually benefited from Thomas’s assault-and-battery antics, because the team could not handle another high-profile embarrassment.
The off-field drama didn’t have much effect on the scoreboard Saturday, with the Crimson thumping Holy Cross 31-14. But the team’s backup quarterback blew out his knee, and reigning Ivy champ Brown is up next week. Murphy may be regretting his call on O’Hagan, or at least feeling some pressure to tell people what in the hell he’s thinking.
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November 6th, 2006 at 11:22 pm
Does anyone know why O’Hagan was benched? If you do, please share.
August 29th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
cause murphy is a nut, I spoke to many of his x-coaches. they cant stand his ass, he’s all about control. he listens to nobody, and he dont know nothing bout football. murphy won’t leave harvard cause nobody would hire him, the words out on this empty-head. he’s a piece of shit. he has success when others are having down years. wonder how many assistants will bail after next season
September 7th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
this post is so good!!
December 5th, 2009 at 12:29 am
Hey what was he looking at, that’s insane