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With a fresh ACL tear and no college basketball offers before her senior year of high school in 2016, Najé Murray said she was in a “scary place.” At 17, she still wanted to stay involved with the sport and her younger brother needed a coach for his Catholic Youth Organization basketball team.

With a brace on her right knee, Murray yelled instructions from the sidelines as The Presentation (Calif.) School’s middle-school team finished fourth in their league. She drove a few of the players to and from practice, took them for food after games and worked with them before practices to help them develop a steady jumpshot.

“I just became everyone’s big sister,” Murray said. “It made me fall in love with basketball in a new way. Coaching allowed me to really just enjoy the sport with no pressure.”

Murray returned to court in February 2017, going back to her role as St. Mary’s High School’s (Calif.) “coach on the court,” former St. Mary’s head coach Tom Gonsalves said. As the daughter of a football coach, Murray’s sports-related intellect has helped her go from a mid-major Division I school as a freshman to Syracuse in her final collegiate season. Acting head coach Vonn Read said Murray will become a college coach someday, and coaches who recruited Murray have told her to give them a call about coaching once her playing career is over.

“That seems to be where my heart is at,” Murray said about the possibility of coaching. “I’ve had so many good coaches who have navigated my career, if I can be that for one person, if that’s my purpose, I’m willing.”

Murray’s younger brother, Nick, was her first student. Murray taught Nick the basic basketball fundamentals — dribbling, shooting and defense — without a basketball hoop to work with. The pair dribbled in their driveway, attempting to throw the ball at a “little diamond about 10 feet high in (their) garage,” Nick said.

The siblings only played with each other in football, and Murray eventually started playing with all-girls teams. In eighth grade, she became a quarterback, and her mom, Natalia Kiley, bought her a wristband that she used to direct her teammates during games.

Murray said football taught her the responsibility of calling plays for an offense, helping her transition smoothly into St. Mary’s basketball program a year later.

Murray’s understanding of football, along with deeper, universal strategies across all sports, was influenced by her father, “Coach” Doug. Doug coached football at the college and arena football level, with Murray on the sidelines during most practices and games.

She drew up football plays on her own too, surprising St. Mary’s head coach with one she drew before a game when she was in middle school. “(Coaching) exists in her DNA,” Kiley said.

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As a coach’s kid, Murray said she saw the “mental side” of football through Doug’s conversations with other coaches. Murray didn’t realize the vast intricacies of football, but she was able to “absorb (the information) and outthink people in other ways,” specifically realizing the importance of scouting.

“She was smart enough to be able to use the (scouting) and synthesize it to have an advantage,” Doug said. “She was always thinking one step ahead.”

Murray started preparing for her own youth basketball games like a coach, too, getting in trouble for staying out too late during recess while scouting opponents on the blacktop, Kiley said. While the rest of her team left the court during Amateur Athletic Union tournaments in middle school, Murray stayed on the sidelines, studying the team she was facing the next day.

Because of the superior “cerebral” aspect Murray had with sports, Gonsalves said the transition for Murray into high school basketball was seamless. She had watched the St. Mary’s players throughout middle school, so when she was on the court with them, they started asking her for advice about what to do on certain plays.

By the end of her high school career, St. Mary’s won over 100 games. She ended up at San Diego State, but she wasn’t a starter and became less of a facilitator and more of a spot-up shooter. Murray broke the school’s all-time single-season record with 81 3-pointers as a sophomore before transferring to Texas Tech, and eventually, SU.

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Murray has had an up-and-down season with Syracuse, especially from 3-point range. But Read said she’s always maintained her on-court presence — directing players into position, scrunching up their hair if needed and calming them down in tense situations — which was something Read noticed while watching film of her at Texas Tech.

“You could just see her all over the court leading her team,” Read said. “She has no agenda. The players follow her because they know that she’s about the team.”

With the Orange, Murray said she’s learned how her teammates operate, figuring out which players she needs to “grab onto” compared to others. She reminds them that they can make certain shots, giving them the ball when she’s struggling or sees something they don’t.

But even in youth basketball, Murray distributed the ball if she was scoring a lot. Kiley said she had a “sensitive spirit,” passing the ball to teammates until they hit a shot. Doug said this habit transcended basketball, instead being about “caring for the people around you and knowing who was vulnerable for that need.”

“People never forget how you make them feel,” Murray said. “I didn’t want the little girl to go home and cry, and at this age I don’t want my teammates to think they’re not as good as they are.”

Published on February 23, 2022 at 12:04 am

Contact Anish: asvasude@syr.edu | @anish_vasu