Rob Murphy sits in his Manley Field House office watching DePaul-West Virginia game tape on a large flat-panel television. He’s so immersed that it takes him a minute to notice anyone has entered. That’s OK, because Murphy’s office walls tell his story.

The framed photos of Syracuse greats Lawrence Moten and Sherman Douglas bookend a celebration shot of an ecstatic Murphy surrounded by the guys following last season’s Big East Championship game.

Behind him, a poster of Mike Jones is tacked to a bulletin board. To the left hangs a clipped magazine photo of Maurice Ager. Above that are four bold, capitalized letters that spell out ‘W-O-R-K.’

Murphy believes in making a strong first impression. It’s what got him to Syracuse as a 30-year-old assistant in 2004. And when the energetic young coach doesn’t get up right away along with that strong handshake, the walls can do all the talking.

The 33-year-old Detroit native, now in his third season as assistant coach, normally handles most of the communication. Murphy, the talent evaluator and recruiter, has used his outgoing personality to form relationships that have crafted pro talent and built high school champions. Murphy, the sociable and energetic young coach, has used these relationships to become a rising star in the college coaching ranks.

Building good relationships, Murphy says, is the reason he is successful.

It’s why an unknown JV bench player named Maurice Ager took a chance on Murphy and his previously winless Detroit high school startup team.

It’s why Murphy worked his summers at the Nike and ABCD camps – just to meet as many people in the business as he could.

It’s why departing Syracuse assistant coach Troy Weaver called Murphy, whom he barely knew, on a Sunday afternoon and asked him if he’d be interested in a position at SU. By the next Friday, Murphy was packing his bags, headed for the recruiting trail donning orange.

‘Meeting (Weaver) and building the small relationship I did with him at that time just shows me,’ Murphy said. ‘If I don’t even know him, I’m not at Syracuse. It’s not about me winning state championships. It’s not about me. It’s about getting to know people, giving a good strong first impression and being honest upfront. That’s 75 percent of it.’

Since his arrival at Syracuse in 2004, Murphy has recruited Eric Devendorf, Arinze Onuaku, Mike Jones and incoming star freshman Donte Greene.

‘He’s seen what we’ve seen,’ Onuaku said. ‘He’s not too far from us. We can relate to him more than we can relate to an older coach. In the same way, he knows the game a lot more than we know the game.’

Jones was the one that got away – the first one – but that remained an experience for Murphy, too. He stays in contact with Jones and talks to him once or twice a week.

To this day, former Michigan State star Ager remains Murphy’s greatest recruit. Murphy took the reins of a winless Detroit program at Crockett Technical High School. He met Ager’s cousin, who said Maurice was looking to transfer from Detroit powerhouse Southfield because he was stuck on the JV team. Murphy was introduced to Ager and seven years later, the two sat next to one another at the NBA Draft.

‘I came once and watched him play,’ Murphy said of Ager before he transferred to Crockett. ‘Well, I really didn’t watch him play. I saw him and he was alone. He looked like a player. He actually had a cast on his hand and they told me he was looking to transfer. I never saw him play but I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll take the kid.’ I’m never going to turn down a player. You guys are telling me he can play when he actually got his cast off. I saw him play. I couldn’t believe how well he could shoot the ball.’

Before he could convince Ager to come, he had to sell Crockett’s basketball program – not exactly the easiest task. In Murphy’s first season at Crockett, the team went 5-13 – five more wins than the previous two years. Murphy said school administrators congratulated him even after losses of 20 and 25 points because the school was used to 50- and 60-point shellackings.

To take the Crockett job was the toughest decision Murphy ever made, but it resulted in the best career move he could ever imagine.

‘A million people told me not to take the job,’ Murphy said. ‘Wait on one of the other high schools to open, they said. I kept contemplating, but I kept saying if I go over here, I know I can get some players and I know I can coach – I bring a lot of energy, I teach, I get a lot of guys to play hard – I thought I could be successful.’

The first player he got was Ager. He told the budding star he knew what it took to reach the next level. By working at All-American summer camps, Murphy developed contacts in the business and the eye for what made a fine college prospect. Through the camps, he developed strong AAU ties in the Michigan area and could pitch a Crockett-AAU package to Ager. He accepted.

Two years later, Crockett won the Class B Michigan state championship in 2001 and Murphy was a 26-year-old state champion. Ager was on his way to Michigan State, the NBA Draft and currently the Dallas Mavericks.

‘I’m just happy right now to this day that he believed in me and it all worked out,’ Murphy said. ‘Just like I helped his career and helped him get to where he wanted to be, he also helped me.’

The whirlwind of success brought Murphy to Kent State. He assisted on Jim Christian’s staff for two seasons before he received that fateful call from Weaver.

Murphy asked Weaver why Weaver chose him. They hardly knew each other. He barely met him a few times on the road; only at All-American camps.

Syracuse assistant coach Mike Hopkins knows exactly why Weaver remembered Murphy.

‘When you talk to him, you feel like you’ve known him for a long time even if it’s the first time you’ve met him,’ Hopkins said. ‘I think he’s got a good relationship with the players because he’s real. He cares.’

Weaver, now the head scout for the NBA’s Utah Jazz, agreed, saying Murphy is ‘real’ with the players. Because he was young and energetic, he was ‘the perfect fit’ for Jim Boeheim and Syracuse.

‘Coach (Boeheim) asked me for a couple of names (to succeed me),’ Weaver said. ‘Rob kind of fit because he was so young.’

Murphy says he hangs out with ‘the guys.’ They play PlayStation together, go out to the movies or just talk basketball off the court. He thinks his players need to believe in him on and off the court, something that happens by Murphy just being himself.

‘Those are the same things I did in high school, because I played video games in high school and that’s what we were doing in college,’ Murphy said. ‘This generation is still doing the exact same thing so I was able to relate to them at a young age.’

Murphy has received calls about head coaching vacancies in the Mid-American Conference – Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Ball State – but he’s respectfully declined overtures.

Murphy grew up watching Syracuse and fellow Detroiter Derrick Coleman, so the mere idea of an opportunity to coach the Orange was a dream come true. For now, he’s content with just that – fulfilling a dream.

‘When I came into coaching, I never said what I wanted,’ Murphy said. ‘I just wanted to work hard and see where basketball took me. I never put a goal on it. Would I like to become a head coach? That would be nice. Would I like to get into the NBA in some aspect? That would be nice too.

‘Really, I don’t have a particular goal. I’m just enjoying my time here. I’ve learned that if you work hard doing one job and have success, you’ll continue to move on and have higher success wherever that may be.’

Published on February 12, 2007 at 12:00 pm