Missouri S&T alumnus Patrick Murphy began duties as the Miners' Assistant Sports Information Director on September 1, 2021. He currently serves as the primary contact for women's soccer, women's basketball, men's and women's volleyball, golf and baseball and as the secondary contact for the rest of the Miners' varsity teams. He also serves as the primary creative content and social media manager for the department while coordinating broadcasts on the GLVCSN.
During his first year in Rolla, S&T athletics social media accounts experienced growth across the board, including a more than 10% increase in followers on the department's main Twitter account. Across all accounts on Twitter, by the end of the year, Missouri S&T athletics had generated in excess of 6.75 million total impressions, including more than 4.5 million in the first six months of the athletic year, an increase of 63% from that same period during the 2020-21 year. Missouri S&T athletics also saw growth on Instagram as well, reaching more then 108,000 accounts department wide during the 21-22 athletic year. All told, 11 total accounts experienced a growth of more than 20%. At year's end, Miner Athletics ranked third in the GLVC in total followers on Twitter among institutions remaining in the league for the 2022-23 season.
Murphy is also responsible for creating, hosting and producing the Inside The Mine podcast, which takes a comprehensive look at all things Missouri S&T Athletics and features conversations with current and former student-athletes, coaches and administrators. In the show's first season, it generated more than 1,500 total plays across all media platforms and featured 24 episodes available on several platforms, including YouTube and Spotify.
Prior to his return to Rolla, Murphy spent the 2020-21 season as an Athletics Communications Assistant at Division I Jacksonville University, where he served as the primary contact for softball, women's basketball, volleyball, beach volleyball and the Dolphins' nationally-ranked women's lacrosse team. In addition, Murphy served as the interim contact for the men's and women's soccer teams and men's and women's rowing teams. With the Dolphins, Murphy assisted with the reconstruction and updating of record books for several sports and was responsible for helping maintain Jacksonville's athletics website. His game day duties included statistical entry and social media management along with other duties as assigned. During his time with the Dolphins, he helped increase the social media followings of the volleyball and women's lacrosse programs on Instagram by more than 40% over the course of the year. He also hosted the #RELENTLESS Podcast, an in-season weekly program featuring head women's basketball coach Darnell Haney. Murphy helped cover Jacksonville women's lacrosse's first-ever win over a top-five ranked opponent, defeating #4/5 Florida 12-11 in the 2021 home opener at Rock Stadium, which was also the program's first-ever win over the Gators in 12 previous matchups. Murphy also helped chronicle the JU softball team's run that culminated in an ASUN Tournament appearance and saw Alyssa Bilodeau become the program's all-time strikeout leader, surpassing the 600 mark on the final day of the regular season. While at JU, the Dolphins hosted the ASUN Men's Soccer Championship as well as the opening rounds of the ASUN Men's Basketball Championship, during which Murphy spent time in the role of official scorer for both events.
During the 2019-20 academic year, Murphy worked as a Sports Information Assistant at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida and was the primary contact for the Eagles' men's soccer, men's golf and softball teams. He worked in tandem with the athletics marketing team to promote theme nights at home events and created digital and print content for game days and promotional giveaways. His schedule poster for men's lacrosse was recognized in the CoSIDA Publications and Design Contest as the runner-up in the Fall/Winter/Spring At-Large Schedule Poster category in the College division. His duties at ERAU included website maintenance and record keeping along with in-game statistical inputting, social media management and streaming events to the SSC Digital Network.
Murphy got his start in collegiate athletics during his time as a student at Missouri S&T. He was with the baseball team as manager and director of operations from August 2013 to May of 2019 and was a part of five teams that made postseason appearances, including the Miners' 2016 squad that claimed a GLVC West Division title and advanced to the Championship Game of the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional and recorded a program-best 39-19 record. Murphy also worked with the S&T Sports Information Office starting the fall of 2014 until the spring of 2019. In his role as a student assistant, Murphy was the public address voice for Miner basketball during the 2018-19 season and also performed a variety of other roles on game days, including producing live streams of events to the GLVCSN, statistical entry, clock and scoreboard operation and other duties as assigned. In addition, Murphy also served as Missouri S&T's GLVCSN Extra Credit Ambassador, a role designed to promote student involvement in collegiate athletics and helping produce events to stream on the GLVCSN along with creating social media content for that account.
Murphy also spent two seasons in the Northwoods League with the Wausau Woodchucks, where he served as a ballpark operations assistant and clubhouse manager, working with several players who have gone on to play professional baseball in recent seasons including Bryan Lavastida, who made the Cleveland Guardians Opening Day roster in 2022.
A two-time alumni of Missouri S&T, Murphy earned a Bachelor of Science in Business & Management Systems in May of 2018 before completing a Master's Degree in Information Science & Technology with an emphasis in Project Management in December of 2019. He is currently a member of CoSIDA and has resides in Rolla.
