Patrick Murphy is a Day Athletic Custodian working in the Office of Physical Plant (OPP) who has worked at Andover since 2012. Murphy worked initially as a campus safety employee, but now primarily works in the Falls Music Center. Murphy is a racing fan of Nascar, F1, and Indy, owning several race cars that his brother and son race during the summer at local tracks in New Hampshire.
How did you begin your work with the OPP, and what does your role look like today?
I worked overnights doing campus safety since 2012. Around 2023, I left campus safety. It wasn’t bad at all at first, [but] it started to eat away at me. So, I was going to a day shift… I worked at the hockey rink for about a year. Then, [Falls Music Center] came about. That’s where I am now. This was going to help me go for a promotion as a senior custodian, which is like a co-lead. It’s hard to come into a department and not be there as long as the [others] have, trying to lead. I have to ask them questions like, hey, how do I do this? What do I do here? But I’ve embraced it and I’ve proven myself. I’ve got a lot of respect from these guys. At any given time, there’s work orders that come in. It could be, they need trash bags or kids are even sick. You constantly run around campus, that’s what’s led me to here right now today.
What has been your most meaningful experience on the job?
When I started here, there were still chat rooms. There was a student struggling. I got a phone call at dispatch [about] someone struggling. I didn’t give up on it. All I had was an IP address, but the person I was talking to started giving me information about the student not saying names, but I was able to pass that information on to [Dean of Students Susan Tsao Esty]. She took care of it after that, but because I didn’t give up on it, the kid ended up all right. In my mind, [it] was very satisfying to know I could have helped a kid that could have potentially gone down a different path, and it’s good to know that I could help. It’s important that we support each other. I think that’s very impactful. Anyone making a little decision pursuing that further could have definitely made a huge impact.
How would people who know you well describe you?
Very personable. I can lead a group. I’m compassionate. Sometimes I wear my emotions on my sleeve and I can come at a fault, but at the end of the day, as long as I can look myself in the eye and say, I did a good job, I’m good with that. I take pride in anything I do. I’m approachable, sociable and I like people. I like engaging.
When did you first get into the world of motorsport?
I grew up and watched my father build race cars my whole life. So when I was eight years old, he got my brother and me into go-karts. My brother was six at the time, and it just took off from there. The go-karts started off, and then it just morphed into other things. Since I was about eight years old, I’d been racing and involved.
How did racing become something you share as a family, and what has that experience meant to you personally?
We used to go to church on Sundays. Being kids, my father wasn’t a very big fan of going to church on Sundays. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong. My father happened to go out and get into the go-kart scene because he happened to know that the races for the go-karts and the kids were happening on Sunday. I got to spend a lot more time with my dad. My brother did too, going to the races on Sundays, and then that slowly brought family in to come. But it’s always been a part of the family, and it’s all I’ve ever known, really. It’s all I’ve ever been a part of.
What are you doing to bring awareness to the sports car racing industry, especially within the Andover community?
I have an open trailer. It’s very rare that you see someone with an open trailer, and that’s because I want you to see the sponsors on the car. I don’t want to hide it. Everyone will go to the track, and then they hide in their trailers. No one wants to see that. They want to see people engage in being around the car and stuff, and not hiding in their trailer. So I bought an open trailer for [those] two reasons. I want people to see that I care, and I want people to see the car when it’s going to and from the racetrack. Maybe they might follow me to the racetrack.
What has been one of the struggles in building race cars?
Building them within the rules. This is a saying in racing: if you’re not cheating, you’re only cheating yourself. That’s like looking at the gray area, the rule book, and being able to build something around it. So when you do that, if I cheat the right front up, I’m going to have to follow that all the way back to the right area. So if something happens and they catch on to the right front and it’s something illegal, it’s gonna affect everything from behind the guy. So a struggle would be keeping the car within the rule book, but keeping it also right on the edge of the rule book, whether it’s the width of the tie or whether it’s the length [or] the weight. You go right to the edge. So if they say the cocktail would be three inches, will you make that two inches, and eight sixteenths? Can you describe your favorite memory of watching motorsport and your favorite memory of racing?
My brother [and I] were racing in the novice division in GoKart. My brother was able to move up to the rookies, and he was racing against guys who were older than him, and I felt like, as a big brother, I wanted to protect him. We had a feature, and he started first, and we all did it by lineup. So I was behind my brother, and there was someone out here. That whole feature, I never came off my brother’s rear bumper. I just stayed glued to him, and he won, and there’s a picture of us both going over the finish line and my dad’s in the background. It was just such a cool picture because we weren’t going that fast, but you could see my dad [cheering]. My brother and I had [our fists in the air]. I remember every little part of it.
Do you have a favorite memory watching motorsport, whether it be your family or an actual NASCAR Indy race?
I’d say Dale Earnhardt went in the 1998 Daytona 500. That’s one thing you’ll find with a lot of people that are old school NASCAR fans like myself, that Dale Earnhardt character, he was big. He was bigger than life, and there were people from F1 that even, like Louis Hamilton, [who] loved him. When that man died in 2001, then NASCAR went after that because he kept that sport together. He was such a powerful influence and that was the one race he never won. So up until he raced in the 60s, 70s, he never won that one race in Dayton 255ers. So when he won that one race in 1998, I felt like, oh, man, this is great. Watching him was probably the biggest memory from growing up.
What would you tell someone who’s never experienced or seen F1 or race car driving?
It’s not as easy as it looks, but it looks easy. It really isn’t, especially F1, because you’re going left and right. But I mean, the G force is a concentration, the constant on the edge of out of control. You’re constantly on the edge. Whether you just turn left or you’re going left and right, it’s not as easy as it looks, but TV makes it look very easy, and it’s just the complete opposite. Granted, mentally, you’re drained after a race. You’re completely drained. You’re exhausted, and it takes its toll. It’s not as easy as it looks.
