9/10/11 - Baseball's Steve Murray Inducted

Steve Murray was officially inducted into the IUP Athletic Hall of Fame today.  He played baseball at IUP from 1995-1998.

A four-year letter winner, Murray had a career batting average of .401 and was named first team All-PSAC West in 1996, 1997, 1998.  He was also honored at PSAC West Player of the Year in 1998.

Murray coached high school baseball for six seasons at Governor Mifflin High School, 2006-2011, and also served as head coach of the Shillington American Legion baseball team from 2000-2005.  He was hired as assistant principal at Mifflin this past summer.

Steve and his wife Kate are parents of Carla and Joe.

Below are the remarks submitted by Murray for the Hall of Fame luncheon program:

I am honored to be inducted into the IUP Athletic Hall of Fame and proud to accept this prestigious award.  After an interview with Bob Fulton my senior year, he said, "see you in ten years".  At the time, I did not consider myself a candidate for the Hall of Fame and did not give it much thought.  I am proud of this achievement because of the past ten years I have been teaching and coaching high school student athletes the same traits that I learned and modeled during my time at IUP.  I learned that achievement and success will result from discipline, perseverance, dignity, and hard work.

I know this honor would not be possible without the hard work of those who paved the way and assisted me on my collegiate athletic journey.  I would like to thank my parents and my sister for their guidance, advice, and for driving four hours on the turnpike to watch my double-headers.  I want to thank my high school coach Ed Williamson for preparing me to compete at the collegiate level.  To all of my teammates throughout my career; I appreciate the effort, hard work, friendship, and bonds created and none of this would be possible without your support.  I would like to thank my coaches beginning with my first head coach Kevin McMullan.  I thank you for the discipline, motivation, conditioning, and leadership you provided me during my first two years of school.  My skills elevated to another level with his instruction and he still offers me advice today when I call him with coaching questions.  I want to thank coach Tom Kennedy who steered our team in the right direction and guided us to the first playoff appearance since the early 1990's.  I would like to thank coach Bruce Yard for preparing me to compete at a high level by fine tuning my defensive and offensive skills.  Your attention to detail helped me experience success and gave me an advantage against our opponents.

I will never forget the cold temperatures for the majority of our games, my first trip to Florida, Coach Mac backing the van into a telephone pole, batting practice in Zink Hall with all of the walls painted white, tarp duty at 7:00 AM, and the new turf football field we were allowed to practice on.  The most memorable experience during my career was the locker room celebration after we found out we clinched a playoff birth upon the conclusion of my senior season.  We received the call after we arrived back in Indiana following a split at Slippery Rock.  After three years of rebuilding and struggling to reach a winning record, we were one of the only two teams from the West to enter the post season.  The individual awards I earned were very gratifying; however, the most memorable achievement of my career at IUP was celebrating years of hard work, perseverance, and dedication with my teammates as we entered the post season.