A man who dedicated most of his adult life to helping youngsters in and around Kinston will receive an honor accorded to only five people in the last 100 years.
Robert J. Murphy died April 20 but not before he influenced hundreds - maybe a couple of thousand - young students and athletes in classrooms, and on fields and courts.
Murphy was a towering figure physically and in spirit. His skill with a baseball earned him a college scholarship, interrupted by a stint in the Army. After the army, after college and a couple of coaching jobs elsewhere, Murphy came home to Kinston, and taught math and science at Savannah school for more than 20 years.
He loved the children he taught and coached. He worked nearly 35 with children in the city's recreation department, always with a word of encouragement and always with a firm disciplinary hand. Murphy once said every young man should serve in the military for at least two years. The experience would teach him the discipline so often ignored at home, he said.
"He always worked for the betterment of kids in Lenoir County," Parks and Recreation Department Director Bill Ellis said. "He was an uncle, a brother who always took a big part in training kids. He helped kids get into college and they'll remember him their whole lives."
Murphy was elected to Adkins High School's Hall of Honor, and to several other prestigious groups, but no one would know it to talk with him. He was as modest as he was talented. A visit to his home, and a look at the walls of his family room, could intimidate anyone. The trophies and plaques were too numerous to count.
But as athletically talented and dedicated to children as he was, Robert Murphy's interests were wider than school or sports. He was a gifted singer and his voice soared at church and in the Kinston/Lenoir Community Chorale. He held district, state and national leadership positions in Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. He was married to Gloria Waters for more than 40 years, and had a daughter, Dr. Robyn Murphy. The couple had no genetic sons but Murphy considered NBA basketball player Jerry Stackhouse as one of "his boys."
About three weeks before his death, Murphy talked to me about his life - his parents, his college days, his military career, his classroom days. He never stopped teaching. Even in those last few weeks he tried to show me the intricacies of some mathematical problem. The man was good - I'm mathematically brain dead but I understood what he said.
The city-county recreation committee is expected to honor Murphy at their next meeting. They'll name a basketball court at Holloway Recreation Center for him.
"There's where he worked at off and on for 35 years, part-time," Ellis said.
And if even a small bit of Murphy's presence lingers around the court, children soon will come to recognize that the court, like Murphy, is special, and a blessing to all who visit.
Lee Raynor is managing editor of KinstonPress.com. She can be reached at (252) 361-7530, or at
leeraynor@kinstonpress.com
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