Archbishop Murphy tells its story after 3rd forfeit - MyNorthwest.com

Archbishop Murphy tells its story after 3rd forfeit - MyNorthwest.com

Anfernee Gurley says he attends Archbishop Murphy because of its academic offerings, not for its sports team. (Chris Sullivan, KIRO Radio)

After a third high school football team forfeited their game against Everett’s Archbishop Murphy, the players are speaking out and telling their story.

“It’s a story of resilience in the face of adversity,” Coach Jerry Jensen said. “This story started three years ago when these kids were freshmen.”

Former Archbishop Murphy football coach discusses the forfeited games

The big question amid that story was whether or not the private school would remain in the Cascade Conference, with six other teams, when half of those teams refuse to play them.

“Based on what’s happened, probably not very likely,” Jensen said, noting they will ask the WIAA for help on that issue.

Archbishop Murphy’s story

What happened started three years ago, according to Jensen, when freshmen on the football team wanted to improve after a crushing season full of losses.

“They decided they wanted to change their narrative,” Jensen said. “On the offseason they went to work as a group, committed toward improving. The next season, that freshmen group, now sophomores, went through the season losing close games … still short of their ultimate goal. But they continued the hard work.”

The team was still short of heading to state the next year, losing a final game. And they went back to work in the offseason, Jensen said.

“We fast-forward to this year with 16 seniors, 13 of those seniors have been here since their freshman season,” he said. “Their goal is the same — to bring the first AA football state championship to the Archbishop community. That goal will not change. They will stay focused. They will persevere whether it be on the football field or in life.”

The team has improved. So much that so far this season, South Whidbey and Sultan forfeited their games in advance of playing Archbishop Murphy. Granite Falls became the third team to bow out this week — three days in advance of the game. Jensen said he was not expecting the third forfeit, especially so late. He said there was a meeting with other coaches three weeks ago and he specifically asked if there would be other forfeits. He was told there would be none.

The teams cited concerns over the safety of their students; that Archbishop Murphy’s players are too big. Some argue that since the school is private, it gets players from a larger pool of candidates, drawing in bigger players.

“Our kids have lost three games now — for their senior season for some of them,” the coach said.

“We took the first cancellation as a time to concentrate on our studies,” he said. “We hit the field during the second week to prepare to play this game. This week we practiced both days up until today.”

At the team’s Wednesday press conference, players said they don’t attend the private school for sporting purposes, rather, they attend for academic reasons. Some are using football as a means to obtain scholarships for college.

Coach Jensen said that he wants new rules written prohibiting teams from forfeiting three days in advance of a game — which is what happened this week. He also said “it makes a lot of sense” to him to form a new conference with other Northwest AA teams in their athletic district.

Archbishop Murphy has two more conference games, and one more non-conference game this season. “We’ll see,” Jensen said on the team’s odds of going to state.