Robert Martin "Mother" Murphy was an administrator at Washington & Jefferson College; his efforts to improve the Washington & Jefferson Presidents football team directly led to its development as a national powerhouse during the early 20th century.

[3] In that position, he personally recruited many of the players that eventually comprised the most successful teams in the College's history.

Twenty men traveled on the cross-country trip and Murphy had to mortgage his home to pay his family’s way.

One paragraph reads, "As Graduate Manager, Murphy scheduled games with the best teams in the country-- Pitt, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Notre Dame, Army, Navy, Penn, Penn State, Syracuse...  To do battle, he somehow encouraged super players and coaches to come to little Washington, Pa.-- his coaches read like a Who's Who from the Hall of Fame -- Earl "Greasy" Neal, John W. Heisman, Andy Kerr, Sol Metzger, Dave Morrow, and perhaps the greatest of all, Bob Folwell.

[9] The Rule, Hughes, and Murphy Prize, named for Murphy and two other alumni (James Rule (1898), Howard Hughes ’11) honors sophomore students who display high levels of "academic achievement, academic promise, and leadership potential.