Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 1/29/15
From Press Release
Justin Murphy, Princeton’s face-off specialist, will not play during the 2015 season and will instead be an undergraduate assistant coach for the Tigers.
Murphy is unable to continue his playing career due to the concussions that he has suffered in the past.
“He’s a wonderful young man who has brought great value to a program and is a great leader,” said Princeton head coach Chris Bates. “We don’t expect any of that to change just because he’s not playing. He’ll help out our face-off guys. He has a lot of respect on the team. He had to make the right decision for himself and his future.”
Murphy won 55% of his face-offs a year ago (106×192), but he also missed four games in midseason due to a concussion he suffered late in the win over Villanova. For his career, Murphy was 224 for 440 on face-offs (53%), with two career goals, both last year, against Johns Hopkins and Dartmouth.
A Landon School grad, Murphy is a pre-med student at Princeton.
“While I certainly hope to attend medical school, my future plans did not dictate my decision,” Murphy said. “I would have made the same decision regardless of what profession I wanted to pursue. Based on the length of time my symptoms persisted in the fall and my prior history of five concussions not including the onset of the more recent symptoms, I wanted to consider my immediate health first and foremost in addition to my academic performance. I am very grateful that Coach Bates is allowing me to have a role on the team as a student assistant, and everyone affiliated with the program has been nothing but supportive towards me. I’m excited to see what our team will accomplish this year.”
Princeton begins practice Feb. 1 and opens its season at home against Manhattan on Feb. 14.
In other Princeton men’s lacrosse news, its game at Lehigh, originally scheduled for April 8, has been moved to April 7.
