Dragon kite in Malibu Creek State Park, July 24, 2013.

Dennis Murphy, The Most Important Man in Sports that You Don't Know

 

DENNIS ARTHUR MURPHY

Dennis Arthur Murphy is a sports entrepreneur who helped co-found the American Basketball Association (1967-1976), the World Hockey Association (1972-1979), the original World Team Tennis (1973-1978), the International Basketball Association (1998), Roller Hockey International (1992-1999), and several other professional sports leagues. Though Murphy co-founded all of these leagues, he is not as well-known as such sports figures as the National Football League’s Dan Reeves, the American Football League’s Al Davis, the National Hockey League’s Clarence Campbell or Major League Baseball’s Bowie Kuhn.

The WHA and the ABA competed directly with the entrenched National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association, respectively. Murphy and company enticed Bobby Hull to flee the NHL to the WHA with an unprecedented $1 million contract, and “Mr. Hockey,” Gordie Howe, was soon to follow. Murphy was the commissioner of the WHA for three years, and the Dennis A. Murphy Trophy was presented annually to the WHA’s best defenseman. Both the WHA and ABA eventually merged teams into the more-entrenched leagues. [1]

“Dennis Arthur Murphy was a second baseman on the varsity team at University High School in West Los Angeles – notable alumni include Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and Nancy and Frank Sinatra Jr., – but his love for sports and building new leagues greatly surpassed his own playing skills.” [2]

According to his 2013 autobiography, “Murph: The Sports Entrepreneur Man,” Murphy was born in Shanghai, China, on 4 September 1926, to a father who worked for Standard Oil and a housewife mother, Murphy and his family moved back to the United States a year before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. A staff sergeant in WWII, Murphy joined the reserves after the war and came out of the Korean War as a captain. Murphy attended the University of Southern California on the GI Bill majoring in economics. He was a one-term mayor of Buena Park in Orange County, California, before becoming a marketing executive for one of California’s biggest civil engineering firms, Voorheis, Trindle, and Nelson.

In 1958, Murphy was elected to a one-term mayor of Buena Park, California, but his career path changed when he met Jim Hardy, a close friend of future Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis. Hardy had also attended the University of Southern California with Murphy, and he asked for his fellow alum’s help in pursuing a team for Anaheim’s new stadium (set to house Gene Autry’s California Angels of Major League Baseball) for the new American Football League. Anaheim’s proposed team was quashed in 1960 when Al Davis, as one of the conditions of accepting a merger between the National Football League and the AFL, agreed that no additional team would be permitted in the Los Angeles market alongside the L.A. Rams. [3]

Stung by this defeat, Murphy set his sights on pro basketball. In the 1960s, the National Basketball Association consisted of 12 teams, and had successfully fought off a challenge by Abe (Harlem Globetrotters) Saperstein’s America Basketball League. Teaming up with attorney Gary Davidson, Murphy worked on creating the league that eventually merged several teams into the NBA, the American Basketball Association. The ABA became famous for its three-point shot, slam dunk and red, white and blue basketball… not to mention players like Julius Erving, Rick Barry, George Gervin, Connie Hawkins and many others. In 1967, ABA Commissioner George Mikan presided over the league’s 11 teams in the inaugural season: the Pittsburgh Pipers, Minnesota Muskies, Indiana Pacers, Kentucky Colonels, New Jersey Americans, New Orleans Buccaneers, Dallas Chaparrals, Denver Rockets, Houston Mavericks, Anaheim Amigos and Oakland Oaks. [4]

“Ultimately, four ABA teams were absorbed into the older league: the New York Nets, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs. Two other clubs, the Kentucky Colonels and the Spirits of St. Louis were disbanded upon the merger. A third, the Virginia Squires, had folded less than a month earlier, missing out on the opportunities that a merger might have provided.” [5]

The ABA folded after its 1976 season, but Murphy had been working on two other professional sports leagues, the World Hockey Association and World Team Tennis. The WHA debuted in 1972 [6] and ran through 1979 and was the National Hockey League’s first major competitor since the Western Hockey League in 1926. The WHA gave the more established league fits by cannibalizing NHL rosters, by placing teams in major cities that didn’t host NHL teams, and by successfully challenging the reserve clause that bound players to their teams. This victory gave NHL players the opportunity to split to the upstart league, and Bobby Hull took full advantage. Hull signed a record 10-year, $2.75 million contract, and 66 NHL players followed Hull’s lead in the NHL’s first year.

As in most of Murphy’s leagues, franchises appeared and disappeared like figures in Whack-a-Mole. The league finally disappeared in 1979, but not before four teams joined the NHL – the Edmonton Oilers, New England Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets. On May 20, 1979, the Jets won their third AVCO World Trophy by defeating the Oilers in the final WHA game. [7]

Murphy co-founded World Team Tennis in 1973 with Larry King, Fred Barman and Jordan Kaiser, and league play began in 1974 with 16 teams, a four-color tennis court, and teams made up of two men and two women. This made WTT the first professional sports league to give equal weight to each man and woman competing for their teams. Elton John wrote the theme song Philadelphia Freedom for his favorite team. The first league ended play in 1978.

In 1988, Murphy moved on to try to create the International Basketball Association. As in all of his leagues, there were tweaks made to the traditional game. The IBA, which began with 12 teams in May, 1988, was limited to players 6′4″ and under.

Roller Hockey International (1992-1999) was Murphy’s most recent professional sports league. In his autobiography, “MURPH, The Sports Entrepreneur Man and His Leagues: ABA, WHA, WTT, RHI, IFL, GHA, and Bobby Sox Softball,” self-published in 2002, Murphy wrote that one day in 1991, he saw some kids playing roller hockey, and he told his brother John what he had seen:

“He informed me that inline skating was a hot ticket and people everywhere of all ages and sizes were playing roller hockey in parks and playgrounds. This immediately appealed to me. Imagine hockey being played on concrete rather than ice. Imagine being able to play hockey anywhere in the world, rather than being limited to ice arenas. Wow! What a way to finish up my career.” [8]

Murphy, then 66 years old, was inspired to begin working to develop a new sport. He invited entrepreneur Alex Bellehumeur and Larry King to join him in developing roller hockey at a professional level. King, born in Ohio and raised in California, was an attorney by trade as well as a sports entrepreneur. In addition to helping create World Team Tennis and womenSports, which eventually became Women’s Sports Magazine, King helped develop the Women’s Sports Foundation and the Kauai-Loves-You Triathlon in Hawaii. King was once married to tennis star Billie Jean King. Bellehumeur had his hand in many inventions and was on the board of directors for the Port of Long Beach, California.

Murphy was named RHI’s president, Bellehumeur was the chairman of the board, and King became the league’s general counsel. Murphy, Bellehumeur and King converted Bellehumeur and Murphy’s preexisting corporation, World Sports Management, Inc., into RHI, Inc., and the two men retained controlling interest in the new entity, with King as co-founder and part owner. “We were missing one thing – a high-profile hockey man,” Murphy wrote. [9]

Ralph Backstrom, who had won six Stanley Cup Championships with the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens, was hired as the new league’s commissioner. Murphy had known Backstrom from his days as a player in the WHA following his NHL career. Then living in Denver, Colorado, Backstrom was the National Hockey League’s Rookie of the Year for the Canadiens in 1959. Backstrom oversaw the league’s rules and style of play.

Murphy, now 86, is currently involved in trying to create both a new 6′4″-and-under pro basketball league, a Women’s Sports Walk of Fame at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, and a new pro roller hockey league.

General References

• Graham, Richard Neil (2011). Wheelers, Dealers, Pucks & Bucks: A Rocking History of Roller Hockey International. Inline Hockey Central.

 
• Willes, Ed (2004). The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association. McClelland & Stewart.
 
• Murphy, Dennis (2013). MURPH, The Sports EntrepreneurMan and His Leagues: ABA, WHA, WTT, RHI, IFL, GHA, and Bobby Sox Softball. Inline Hockey Central.
 
• Pluto, Terry (1007). Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association.

External Links
 
WHA Hall of Fame

Internet Hockey Database - standings and statistics
 
Dennis Murphy Sports

(This article has been declined by Wikipedia for several months now, and I got tired of waiting. I think it’s damn good, myself.)

 

Sharp-Shinned Hawk

An adolescent Sharp-shinned Hawk, the smallest hawk in North America, photographed in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada. Known as a daring and acrobatic flier, this one took temporary refuge on the front wall of a home near the St. Andrews waterfront. Ignoring passersby on the nearby sidewalk, the hawk later flew off unharmed.

Wheelers, Dealers, Pucks & Bucks Video Book Trailer

This is a video I've created to promote the launch of the ebook version of my book, "Wheelers, Dealers, Pucks & Bucks: A Rocking History of Roller Hockey International." Check it out! :)

Church with leaning tower and cross. Amboy, California.

Amboy, California.

 

Photo copyright Richard Neil Graham

Sun setting over rock formation in Monument Valley.

Modern-Day Huck Finn

This shot of my friend and 2010 backpacking companion Bill Wechter, a photographer for the North County Times in San Diego, reminds of Huckleberry Finn. I took it the afternoon before or after (I can't recall) we hiked up and over Bishop Pass, 11,972 feet above sea level and probably the highest elevation I've ever climbed, since I hadn't backpacked since probably junior high school or high school.

Oregon Beach Self Portrait

Set up my tripod and the self-timer to get this shot. Brings back some great memories about traveling on the open road with no particular place to go.

A Bear Inside a Tree

I took this shot in the Lower Dusy Basin in Kings Canyon National Park during a backpacking trip from July 28 to August 4, 2010. To me it looks like a bear emerging fully formed (although with an adult head and a cub's legs) from a tree.

I took a shot of another tree in Colorado a couple of years ago that resembled an old man's face, so I keep an eye out for these kinds of photos now.

Goalie Surrounded by Alien Spaceships

Isaac C. -- a good goalie, fun dude and great man -- playing at Panorama City's Valley Ice Center Ice Skating Rink... and apparently surrounded by small alien space ships.

Kayaker on Twin Lakes, Mammoth, California

Shot on August 30, 2009. Sometimes, all you need is to get away from the city. Or get away from other people. Or get away from yourself. The most difficult of all three.

A Hawk and a Post and California's Fault

This red-tailed hawk rests on a metal post in a vineyard near the Carrizo Plain National Monument, 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Todd McCormick, a high school friend of mine, introduced me to a wide variety of predatory birds and a few pronghorn antelope in California's largest remaining single native grassland. The San Andreas Fault cuts through it -- on one one side of the road is something that looks like a miniature Grand Canyon -- and on the other side of the road, there's no evidence of it at all. That's because all of the land west of the fault on the Pacific Plate moved to the northwest as all the land east of the fault moved southwest, and the miniature Grand Canyon was cut off from its across-the-road twin. Bizarre, yet VERY cool. This is all explained by plate tectonics, something I casually studied in one of my favorite college classes -- the fascinating science of geology.

San Diego, Framed

I shot this portion of the San Diego skyline through an art exhibit near the Embarcadero. One of these days, I hope to return to live in the San Diego area. First, however, I need to get out of Los Angeles. I never wanted to live and die in L.A., and right now, that looks like the way things are going. Let's get past this *#!+#@ recession, America!

Not Pretty, But Real

This is one of those photographs that you only get when you are at the right place at the right time, have your camera equipment at hand, and are aware of your surroundings. I saw this hawk helicopter down with its talons extended to the concrete bed of the Los Angeles River (some river), but before I could take a shot, he was out of my line of site. I waited a while, and then I saw him fly to a nearby fence and sit for a moment. As he flew off, I took a series of photographs and caught this image.

Lake Hollywood

Who knew? Certainly not me. I live within a reasonable bike ride of this reservoir in the Hollywood Hills, but I'd never been there until I read an article in the Los Angeles Times that mentioned that the half of the perimiter road around the lake would soon be opened to pedestrians and cyclists. When I finally visited the reservoir, I was astounded by its beauty, as well as the wildlife in its vicinity. In two trips to the lake, I saw a four-point buck, a great-horned owl, and several turtles basking on tree stumps at the edge of the water.

Mouse. It's what's for dinner.

I shot this photograph in October 2009 when I was house-sitting for a friend. I kept my camera handy and attracted Piccolo, my friend's cat, to my computer's mouse by moving the mouse by its tail (cord) with my left hand and holding my camera in my right. I might have to send this shot to icanhascheezburger.com.

Mineral Deposits, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone

Morgan Potter, a long-time friend, liked this shot of mine. I took it at Yellowstone's Mammoth Hot Springs in the summer of 1994.

Travertine is sedimentary rock formed by precipitation of carbonate minerals from geothermally heated hot springs.

Yes, I had to look that up.

Toluca Lake Sunset

I shot this from the roof of my apartment building. There's no photo manipulation going on here, and I took it before the recent Station Fire that made for some fiery sunsets. Nothing spectacular here. I just like the colors.

Mammoth Bluesapalooza, August 2009

I took this photo of Kenny Wayne Shepherd and his bass player Devin Michael at Bluesapalooza in Mammoth, California, this past Saturday night. It was hard work trying to shoot above the heads of the audience and avoiding the minefield of stepping on blankets, tripping over lawn chairs or standing in front of anyone. Still, all my dancing around seemed to pay off with this shot.

Tahoe Gazebo and Dock

I had to double check this slide to make sure it wasn't shot in Japan. It's a boat dock and gazebo-like structure in Lake Tahoe, California.