John A. "Babe" Murphy was born in St. Louis and attended St. James the Greater Catholic School. At CBC he won 9 varsity letters in track, football, baseball, basketball and soccer. He was voted a high school All-American in 1941, the year he graduated from CBC.
He went on to Notre Dame where he played freshman football and ran track. His best 100 yard dash in college was 9.6 seconds, or 0.2 seconds off the world record held then by Jesse Owens and three others.
After joining the army in 1943 where he played baseball on an Army team in the South Pacific, he returned to Notre Dame and graduated in 1948.
Mr. Murphy married Kay McVey, his high school sweetheart in 1946. He was football coach at the old St. Peters High School in Jefferson City until 1952 when he became head coach at CBC.
Mr. Murphy also coached baseball at CBC until he left in 1957 to become St. Louis district manager of the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Corp. He retired from GM in 1987 and worked part time until recently at Nevada Bob's Discount Golf in west St. Louis County.
The above comments were written by Sally Ryan Sharamitaro with information provided by a relative of Babe Murphy and by Babe Murphy's obituary which appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on September 22, 1994.
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