DETROIT (9/11/2020) -- Who would have known that in 1924, a young man coming to the University of Detroit to study engineering would have started a family connection that has seen six other family members study at the school, but that is exactly what happened when James V. Murray '29 decided to go to U-D.

Murray is the grandfather of the current Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Guy Murray '89, who is entering his 28th year as a head coach with the Titans, but more than that, his 35th since he came to campus as a freshman distance runner in 1985.  

"My grandfather came here and was part of the first four-year class that was at this campus," said Murray. "He studied civil engineering and later got a job with the Michigan Highway Department in Lansing. My dad used to tell us the story that when the U-D baseball team came to Michigan State, my grandfather would go to see his good friend that he went to school with, Lloyd Brazil."

Brazil was an All-American athlete on the football field for the Titans. In 1928, he established an NCAA single-season record with 997 passing yards, helping the program go 9-0 and earn a share of the national title. He would go on serve as the school's head coach for basketball and baseball as well as athletic director. 

While his grandfather going to the University started the tradition, Murray's mom and dad continued it even though they didn't attend. His dad coached football, basketball and track at St. Charles High School, which would go on to become East Catholic, and even sent a basketball player to U-D in the late 1960s. Murray's mom also went to St. Charles and when they came back to the area from their home in Niles, Michigan, they happened to go to a couple of Titan basketball games with him.

"We would come back to Detroit to visit and two games I remember is one with Rhode Island in the Motor City Tournament in 1978 with the late Smokey Gaines as coach," said Murray. "It was a wild scene in Calihan Hall. We sat in the lower bowl, they played rock music and shut the lights for the intros. Growing up in Niles, we went to Notre Dame games a lot and I remember thinking wow, this is crazy, Notre Dame doesn't do this. So I saw that game and I saw the women's tournament when Old Dominion was here with players like Nancy Lieberman and Anne Donovan."

The Murray family extends from grandpa Murray to uncle Donald to Guy and his brother James, both track and field and cross country runners and now to Guy's daughter Kaitlin Murray, a sophomore on the cross country and track and field team. Along the way came a couple of others by way of marriage as Guy's wife, Pat '97, was a graduate assistant at the University, while his brother James would meet his wife Brigitte Dery '94, who also ran cross country and track and field.

"My uncle was here for one year and it was the last year of football and he liked to brag about the riots that broke out when they canceled football. My brother and I were on the team together for one year, but then I become a coach with the program after I graduated so I was really here with him the whole time," said Murray.

The familiarity with the University was definitely a factor when picking a school for Guy and James, but the education and the chance to run at the Division I level sealed the deal.

"The school was an option and one of the plans was to live with my grandmother, who was in Detroit and commute to the school," said Guy. "It was a good school and had the engineering and computer programs that I was interested in and the chance to run DI. The scholarship opportunities made it very affordable and just the education that it came with was great."

"They wanted me to run and the architecture program," said James Murray '93 on why he decided to attend the University. "At that time, researching schools in Michigan, it was one of the few to offer a bachelor program, a professional degree to get your license. Everyone else at the time was making you get your Master's and they would eventually change that too, but the education and the chance to run on a scholarship."

Guy and James were both four-year letter winners on the Titan cross country and track teams. Guy earned the Dominick Taddonio Cross Country MVP award in 1988 as well as the President's Award, the athletic department's highest honor, for the top senior student-athlete in 1989. He was named to the All-Midwestern Collegiate Conference (MCC) Cross Country Team in 1986 and the All-MCC Track and Field Team in 1989. 

James and Guy did team up for one MCC title as they were on the winning the two-mile relay quartet at the indoor championships in 1989.

"He was always ahead of me so it was always him being way better than me and me just trying to tag along," said James. "I was probably the annoying younger brother my freshman year and hanging out with the seniors, which a lot of the freshmen didn't do. The biggest moment was being on the winning relay team together and that was special."

Guy Murray has seen quite a few changes in his time on campus and has also led some of the most successful programs in school history. As coach, he has helped the men's and women's track and field and cross country programs to 11 conference championships with four in women's indoor track, two each in men's indoor track, women's outdoor track and men's cross country and one in men's outdoor track. 

In 2019, Kaitlin became the latest in the Murray tradition, running on the cross country and track and field teams. In her collegiate debut, she led the Titans taking 16th at the Running Fit-Detroit Mercy Titan Invitational with a time of 20:07 in the 5K. 

"It was a pretty easy decision to come here because I grew up here and I already knew I liked the school," said Kaitlin. "I always heard all the stories from my family about the school. It's pretty cool to keep the tradition and I like being coached by my dad."

"It has been fun and last year was a fun year," Guy Murray said. "She made up her mind pretty early in the process about coming here because the academics fit what her long term goals are with the physical therapy program. She wasn't really healthy last year, but she did a good job of working through it because our team was small and she needed to get through the year and she got through it. Her last race, she ran her PR."

There are a lot of family connections at Detroit Mercy over the years, but few come close to the near-century tradition set forth by the Murray family, when they first stepped on campus long ago.