Archbishop Murphy coach: I have no good message for players

The Archbishop Murphy football team went from a doormat to a powerhouse, but after winning three games by a combined score of 170-0, they can’t find another team to even knock on the door. The team’s head coach, Jerry Jensen, told Brock Huard and Gee Scott on Thursday that it’s been a trying time for his athletes and their parents.

“They’re frustrated,” Jensen said of his players. “They want to play football and there’s not much that I can tell them other than the fact they just have to be patient and they’ll get their time but there’s some frustration, disappointment for sure.”

Huard: If you want to forfeit, don’t play football

Cedarcrest High School was the fifth straight team to drop out of a game against Archbishop Murphy, issuing a statement Wednesday that cited a “competitive imbalance between their student-athletes and ours” as the reason for forfeiting the Oct. 28 matchup. That announcement came one day after Cedar Park Christian cited player safety as its rationale for forfeiting the scheduled Oct. 14 meeting that would have been Archbishop Murphy’s homecoming game.

Archbishop Murphy shifted to 2A in 2004 after winning back-to-back 1A state titles. Despite some initial struggles, including a three-win team in 2009, the school has gone on to produce a 19-9 state tournament record with three second-place finishes, according to KIRO 7. The Wildcats’ current roster features three players who weigh more than 300 pounds and 13 who are more than 6 feet tall.

Jensen, a former UW teammate of Huard, said his team has worked hard to reach this point and said he was most worried about the seniors who likely won’t be playing after high school.

“Some of the kids will get the opportunity to go and strap it up again but those kids that don’t, they’re losing their experience (of) their senior year, they’re losing homecoming, they’re losing Friday night lights, they’re losing all the buzz around the school about the games and getting out there and able to compete,” he said. “So there’s not really a good message I have for them.”

Here are other highlights from the interview with Jensen:

What does he want people to know from his perspective?

“From my perspective, all of our programs at this school are exceptional, regardless of performing arts, academics, club stuff, sports, and that’s what we strive to do in a faith-based environment. So, the persona that we’re out there trying to recruit and get the best kids in here, we attract a certain type of kid because they want to be the best and that’s what we build from, and we’re gonna continue to do that and just try to be the best human beings that we can be.”

How does this become a winning situation and how does he find answers?

“I think it starts with finding what the true root of the problem is and that needs to be open and honest conversation between the conference and at the state level and bringing in other conferences and figuring out what everybody thinks and coming up with a solution. You can’t do it just in little pods around the state. It’s got to be statewide and the WIAA has let me know that they’re gonna get involved in the offseason. Change takes time. I’m hopeful … t is a difficult situation and there’s not an easy answer so it’s gonna take a lot of work in trying to figure out what’s best for the kids because that’s ultimately what we’re here for.”

Did he see this coming?

“I didn’t see any of it coming. Early on in, I guess, early August there were conversations between myself and (the South Whidbey coach) and he obviously knew his numbers coming in and that they were gonna be thin so we had conversations of that game, possible forfeit, but there was no other talk of any other schools until the third week of the season.”

What is taken away from this experience?

“You take away some life lessons in the terms of you can’t worry about what others do and you’ve got to control your own environment, and even when you do that, there’s gonna be outside influences that do things that are going to impact you but you can’t respond in a negative way. You’ve just got to really stay focused. As far as administration goes, we’ve done some things that have tried to get us in a more competitive environment and been shot down a couple times so I think we’re still learning what can we do to better our situation from a competitive standpoint and work with the WIAA and maybe some other conferences and try to change some of the persona that the Catholic schools have in the area and truly what our mission is and what we do.”

Surprised that this story has gone so national?

“Crazy to me. Absolutely nuts.”

What’s next?

“What we do know is we have a game on the 21^st against Olympic High School and then we’ll have another week off and then we’ll enter the state playoffs at the district level and we’ll start competing against teams that are state caliber teams and, for us, that’s where we strive to be – we strive to be able to compete at the state level and that’s really where our focus has to be because our kids have been so unfocused for the last six weeks that it’s time to strap it on and get better and face some really good football.”

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