RinkWise podcast: Digit Murphy on her legendary career

Digit Murphy has been a trailblazer in women's hockey for decades. (Getty Images)

What hasn’t Digit Murphy done in the hockey world?

From 1979-83, the Cranston, R.I., native was a forward for Cornell and in 1994, was inducted into the Cornell Athletic Hall of Fame.

She began her collegiate coaching career in 1987 at Brown and after two seasons as an assistant, embarked on a 22-year career (yes, twenty two years) as the boss at Brown. In 2006-07, she became the winningest coach in Division 1 women’s hockey history when she notched her 300th win. When she retired from her post in 2011, she amassed 318 wins, which currently ranks 21st.

On the national level, she has helped the United States as a head coach at the Lake Placid Olympic Festival in 2004, as a member of the Olympic Selection Committee in 1998 and as an assistant coach of the 1992 national team that won a silver medal in Finland.

Along with all of that, she’s been an outspoken force for the growth of women’s hockey.

So, RinkWise host and Merrimack women’s assistant coach Stephanie Wood had Murphy on for the latest RinkWise podcast.

Starting her coaching career

Murphy: “It’s really important for women coaches and any woman in professions that are predominantly male, right? Because what happens is you feel isolated, you feel alone and for me, I was one of the first. It was 1987 if you can believe that when I started at Brown. Women’s hockey coaches, women being in those kinds of positions was unheard of and the story is I quit my job after I was in corporate America in 1986-87, I graduated from Cornell in 1983. I went to work for Data General and it was fun, I was making a lot of money but I didn’t like it. So I ended up quitting my job to go back to school to be a physical education teacher and then I somehow got the Brown job and the rest is history. I started at $2,500 as an assistant coach in 1987, which is ridiculous. To bring it around to gender equality, the men’s assistant coaches were making $25,000. Granted, we only had 10 teams, but there was no talk of gender equality back when I started.”

Why she’s always been so driven to fight for equality

Murphy: “It is a mission-driven sense of purpose I’ve always had my whole life. I’m writing my book, it’s always taken a million years to write my book. …I just really remember back when I was 9, 10 years old and I was a baseball player initially. It was my first sport. I loved the Red Sox. I had a Wiffle ball. First thing they put in my hand, I wasn’t in Canada so baseball was my sport. I could hit the ball out of the field and I was a phenom. When I went to go sign up for Little League, they’re like ‘Oh yeah, no, sorry. You’re a girl. You’ve got to play softball and you’ve got to wait until you’re 12 years old.’ I thought I got shot in the face. I just could not believe they wouldn’t want me in the game because I made the game better. I think that sense of inequity has really driven me to where I am today and to just keep moving and keep shaking and keep creating opportunities. I look at myself as a gardener — if I keep planting the seeds, if I plant the seeds in advocating for more teams in college, which I did in college. Advocating for more opportunities at USA Hockey, coaching with the Olympic team back when they weren’t really an Olympic team. They were just a national team and coaching with Russ McCurdy (Pawtucket, R.I.). Really pushing that see-it, be-it mindset in those early years I think did plant the seeds for the Wisconsins and the Minnesotas have had equality in their rinks. And I wasn’t alone.”

The RinkWise podcast can be streamed here and on major platforms, such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify.