2018 Distinguished Service Award

2018 Distinguished Service Award
Citation for Dennis Murphy

Thanks for being here today, Murph — we realize you don’t like being the center of attention and would rather be on the sidelines, preferably rooting for the Continentals, but we’re determined to recognize what you’ve meant to Hamilton athletes across generations.

For four decades, you’ve quietly built relationships that influence students on campus and after they move on. The proof can be found on the equipment room wall that you’ve covered with photos and notes they’ve sent you over the years. When alumni athletes return to visit campus, you are often the first person they want to see.

Your day-to-day interactions inspire connections even as you handle a job with countless moving parts. As equipment manager, even a partial tally of your responsibilities is daunting — maintaining, distributing, and tracking equipment from helmets to cleats for varsity and club sports; monitoring shipments; helping coaches order new uniforms and keeping them clean and ready to go when the teams need them. It’s a job you’ve got to love to do well, and you’ve mastered it. As one of your many alumni fans put it, you are “the bedrock of Hamilton athletics.”

You know just about every student-athlete’s name, team, and schedule. Quick to offer encouragement or to compliment success, you also expect students to be responsible. In turn, students recognize your respect for them as athletes. They see you at their games, and, on occasion, they’ve been guests at your house during breaks when they couldn’t get home to their families. A Class of 1982 alumnus will never forget your support when he was far from home and his mother was ill with cancer. Your encouragement helped him stick it out at Hamilton; he says that without you, he wouldn’t be the business leader he is today. Students who worked with you in the equipment room grew through your mentorship.

Through winless seasons and national championships, you’ve been a steady, positive presence, and an essential part of our enterprise. To recognize all you’ve done for Hamilton, we present you today with the Distinguished Service Award.

Citation presented by
Gordon Kaye ’74, P’05
President, Alumni Association
June 8, 2018

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