NBA legend Murphy reflects on relationship with Robinson

With MLB’s annual Jackie Robinson Day well underway on Monday, the stars were out to support the baseball icon -- even the stars who hail from other sports.

As the Astros hosted the Braves in a 2021 World Series rematch, a Houston legend from a different arena stopped by to pay respect to Robinson. Calvin Murphy, a 13-year member of the NBA franchise now known as the Houston Rockets (though he was drafted back when the team played in San Diego), stopped by the broadcast booth at Minute Maid Park to talk shop about Robinson’s legacy and the connection between the two athletes.

Murphy wasn’t even born until 1948, one year after Robinson broke MLB’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. But this difference in age evidently didn’t prevent the two from building a special bond, largely because Murphy, a Connecticut native, grew up knowing Robinson’s children (in fact, Murphy was the best man at the wedding of Jackie’s daughter, Sharon). Murphy spoke in detail about Robinson’s mentorship role to him as a child.

“I was very, very fortunate to grow up under Jackie Robinson, and to sit down in his living room and in his game room and listen to him speak. It took me years before I was not in awe of who I was sitting with,” Murphy said. “[Robinson’s] advice was that if you have the chance to be successful in athletics, these are some of the things that are expected of you, both as a Black man and as a citizen of this wonderful country. … He looked at me not only as an up-and-coming athlete, but also as one of his kids he wanted to see succeed, and I really took that to heart.”

When Murphy ended up staying in the New York tri-state area to attend Niagara University, he was a two-time AP First Team All-American on the basketball court. That would understandably give Murphy some “big man on campus” status … or so he thought, until Robinson came along for a visit.

“We had a Black Arts festival, and the school found out that I knew Jackie, so they asked me to get in touch with him and see if he would be a keynote speaker, and he was more than gracious enough to head up to campus and spend a few days up there,” Murphy reflected. “I thought I was a star on campus before Jackie came, but then when I pulled up on campus with Jackie Robinson in that limo van … after Jackie left, it was all like, ‘Don’t be calling me after that.’”

In the bottom half of the inning, Murphy also discussed Jackie’s wife, Rachel, expressing extreme reverence for her role as a wife and mother.

“I don’t think people understand the importance she had to him. On top of being a beautiful person, she was just a loving individual, that you’d want to marry a person of her substance,” he said. “The fact that she was able to keep the family together after what she had already gone through with Jackie [during his playing career] just showed the type of person she was.”

Murphy finished his career with averages of 17.9 points per game, 4.4 assists per game and an impressive 89.2% free throw rate in his 13 seasons. According to Basketball Reference, he had the third-most Win Shares in the 1970 NBA Draft class, a talented group that included the likes of Bob Lanier, Dave Cowens, Tiny Archibald and Pete Maravich. He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993, and he now works as a TV analyst for the Rockets.