HISTORY

from Brookhaven Magazine May-June 2020

by The Daily Leader

BOOK REVIEW

Unwinding the intertwining tales of Ed Murphy and M.K. Turk Different paths led future OM, USM coaches to play at Co-Lin

Story By Cliff Furr

What are the odds?

That was my thought when I was reading through the eulogies written about former Ole Miss head basketball coach Ed Murphy after he passed away on February 16.

Murphy played basketball at Copiah-Lincoln Community College (then Co-Lin Junior College) and his roommate was M.K. Turk, the future Southern Miss head basketball coach.

What are the odds I thought that the future coaches of Ole Miss and USM would be roommates —not to mention that Murphy was from Syracuse, New Yok and Turk hailed from Kentucky.

I knew a little about the backstory of Turk coming to Co-Lin and I’ll relay that later, but I was most curious about Murphy and how he ended up in Wesson.

Luckily, I can call the man who recruited them both.

That’s what I did as former CoLin coach Alton Ricks is as fit, sharp and active as any 93-year-old on planet earth and still lives in Wesson.

Gangly Murphy grows into a man in Wesson

Ricks thought he had a big man recruited from Louisiana in 1959 when he got a letter that threw a wrench into those plans.

“I had a center from Louisiana lined up and he wrote me a letter saying he’d gotten married and would need an apartment for him

Previous pages, Co-Lin yearbooks show photos of Ed Murphy and M. K. Turk as Wolves. At left, Murphy during his coaching years at Ole Miss. Above, Turk during his tenure at Southern Miss.

and his wife,” said Ricks. “I didn’t even write him back because we didn’t have anything like that at Co-Lin.”

Ricks called Beryl Shipley — head coach at what was then known as Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now UL-Lafayette) and asked him if he knew about any tall recruits.

Shipley said his brother in Syracuse, New York knew about a young player that was thinking about going to a prep school to get a little more experienced. He was tall, but raw and needed some more work before he was ready to be a college player.

Shipley gave the contact info to Ricks who soon got in touch with the tall, skinny Ed Murphy in Syracuse, New York.

“It cost me seven cents to airmail a letter to Ed and it told him what flight to get on and when I’d be there to pick him up from the airport after he decided to come play for us,” said Ricks. “I wasn’t sure if he’d show and I’m probably he wasn’t sure about me either, but when the plane started unloading I saw this tall, skinny kid getting off and I told him, ‘come on, Ed, let’s load up.’”

Murphy needed to gain weight, but he also needed to finish high school. So, he enrolled at Co-Lin High School and joined the Wolves basketball team.

At that time a player could play three years of junior college athletics. If they needed to finish up high school, they could attend classes at Co-Lin High School on the campus of the college while suiting up for the college athletic teams.

That’s what Murphy did in 1960 when he joined a Co-Lin team that featured future West Lincoln head coach Jack Case.

“He played three years with the college team and that’s something that you could do back then,” said Case. “He was really skinny when he got here.”

Ricks said it wasn’t often that a player put in three years for the Wolves, but it did happen from time to time.

“We had a few players that were with us for three years, but I don’t remember any of them turning out better than Ed,” said Ricks. “When he got here he was over 6-foot-7 and weighted only 165 pounds.”

Wesson native Bobby Britt was a junior at Co-Lin High School when Murphy arrived. He’d go on to play with both Murphy and Turk on the college team.

Britt said Murphy bulked up during his time in Wesson and began to fill out.

“You could push him all over the court when he first got here,” said Britt. “He worked very hard though and became a better player and when we were teammates he had become a much better big man.

Ricks says one of the reasons that Murphy gained weight was a love of southern cooking.

“He’d never had black eyed peas or mashed potatoes before he came to school,” said Ricks. “One of the first times he ate in the cafeteria he came out and had seven small pieces of cornbread stacked up in his hands. He didn’t know what cornbread was, he thought it was cake, but he knew he liked it.”

Ricks finds out about Turk through chance encounter

Ricks is filled with stories from his time teaching and coaching — a literal treasure trove of tales from times gone by. His story about getting Turk to Wesson is even better than how he pulled Murphy in from Syracuse.

“At that time, we could three players from out of state on our roster,” said Ricks. “One night we were playing

Northeast Mississippi Community College and their manager came and sat next to me. He said that he was from Kentucky and Northeast had brought in more out of state players than they needed. They made him a manager and he didn’t like the way they had treated him. He told me that he had a friend back home in Kentucky who was a very good player and he didn’t want him to end up at Northeast.”

Ricks wrote a letter to that player and that’s how M.K. Turk ended up visiting Co-Lin in Wesson after playing high school basketball at Carlisle County High School in Bardwell, Kentucky.

Turk was impressed with what Co-Lin offered and signed to play with the Wolves.

Visits back home were much easier for him than Murphy. Turk was just over 400 miles from home — compared to Murphy who was 1,3000 miles from his family.

Turk also had the luxury of having a car — a yellow Mercury as Ricks remembers now all these years later.

“Oh yea,” says Britt with a chuckle when asked about the car. “M.K. babied that thing. He would crank it and sit there and wait for the oil level to rise before he ever put it in drive. He wasn’t going anywhere unit the motor heated up.”

Turk and Murphy would eventually end up rooming together and Ricks said they were an odd couple when it came to hygiene and personal presentation as college students.

“I’m not going to say Ed was a slob, but he was kind of a slouchy at that time,” said Ricks. “He didn’t care much to clean up after himself or how his clothes fit him. M.K. was the complete opposite. He was a neat freak, and everything had to be just right for him.”

Both Murphy and Turk signed to continue their careers after Co-Lin.

Murphy ended up at HardinSimmons University in Abilene, Texas while Turk went to the University of West Alabama — then known as Livingston University.

“M.K. could really shoot the ball from outside,” said Ricks. “If there would have been a 3-point line back then he’d have averaged even more points than he did.”

Wesson long been hotbed of future coaches

In Abilene Murphy would play for Lou Henson, his future boss as the pair worked together at New Mexico State. Henson later went on to win over 400 games as the head coach at the University of Illinois.

Ricks didn’t know that Murphy would go on to be a coach when he was on his team at Co-Lin, but he felt confident in Murphy’s ability to talk his way into success no matter what he did.

“Ed was a great communicator,” said Ricks. “He would talk to anybody about anything and people liked that about him.”

Turk on the other hand knew fairly early on that college would be his ticket out of the family business.

“M.K. told me he was going into education and coaching and that he had no plans of

Former Co-Lin basketball coach Alton RIcks is 93 and still lives in Wesson with his wife, Jean.

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going back home and working on his family’s tobacco farm,” said Ricks. “He said his days of looking for worms on the back of tobacco leaves was over.”

Turk would be hired as head coach at Co-Lin in 1968 after previously working as first a high school coach and then an assistant at Livingston University.

In 1974 Turk led Co-Lin to a second straight state title and the Wolves finished 27-4 and 11th in the national tournament played in Hutchinson, Kansas.

Co-Lin has been a cradle of coaches in its long history.

Current Mississippi College head coach and athletic director Mike Jones played for Turk at Co-Lin and then later had a very successful stint coaching the Wolves while also assisting Turk during his career.

Jones replaced Richard Williams who left Co-Lin to become an assistant coach at Mississippi State. Williams would later take MSU to the Final Four.

Longtime Co-Lin women’s head coach Gwyn Young himself suited up for the Wolves as a student-athlete for Turk.

Turk always kept a close connection with his alma mater, even after leaving in 1974 to become an assistant coach at Memphis.

Hired by Southern Miss in 1976, Turk would lead the Golden Eagles for 20 years and produce a period of basketball success that’s never been matched there.

USM won the 1987 NIT Championship and went to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments from 1990-1991.

Reed Green Coliseum was packed as Turk and the Eagles played fast and above the rim.

“I’d drive over to Hattiesburg and watch them play when they were really good during that time,” said Ricks. “I’d go to M.K.’s house and ride to the game with his wife Katrina because you couldn’t get a ticket. They would pack it out.”

While M.K. was building something special in Hattiesburg Murphy had come back south after starting his coaching career at New Mexico State.

Murphy was head coach and athletic director at the University of West Alabama before coming back to Mississippi.

He was the head coach at Delta State from 1983-1986 where he beat Mississippi State while leading the Statesmen. Ole Miss hired him away and from 1986-1992 Murphy was the head man in Oxford.

His later career saw Murphy have great success at the University of West Georgia. He coached the Wolves for 14 years, took them to the Division II Elite Eight and then served another 15 years as athletic director at the school.

Turk and Murphy stayed close throughout their careers. Turk passed away December 6, 2013 in Hattiesburg.

What are the odds that on the way to winning the 1987 NIT Championship Turk’s team would match up in the first round against an Ole Miss team coached by Murphy?

The Eagles won the game 93-75 as USM began their run to Madison Square Garden with a big win in Hattiesburg.

“A few years ago, we were working on a reunion of those of us that played for Coach Ricks,” said Britt. “Katrina Turk was a big part of organizing that and she and I started talking about M.K. and Ed playing each other in 87. She said after the game they went out together and had dinner.”

Murphy was known as an interviewer dream for his quick quips and selfdeprecating humor. Despite losing to his old buddy that night, the chances are pretty high Murphy looked at his former roommate Turk and thought — what are the odds?