Photo Cred: Green Bay Packers/Evan Siegle
By Mark Eckel, Player Engagement Insider
Don’t worry Packers’ fans, Kyle Murphy isn’t looking to become “The Wolf of Lombardi Ave.’’
Not yet anyway.
Murphy, the Green Bay second-year offensive tackle, is focused on his football career. And just in his second year, and getting his first sample of real playing time, the Stanford grad will put his business acumen on the back burner.
“I want to do this football thing as long as I can right now,’’ Murphy said. “Right now, I’m a full-time football player.’’
And Murphy and the Packers hope that stays that way into the foreseeable future. The 6-foot-6, 305-pound tackle from Mission Viejo is ready, however, whenever those football days are over.
While at Stanford, Murphy served two internships, the first with the San Jose Earthquake of the MSL, where he worked in the marketing department and learned to appreciate the game of the soccer.
The second internship, just before his senior year at Stanford, came at Merrill Lynch, where he worked on the mergers and acquisitions side and learned about the business world. A world he figures to be a part of when the football days are finished.
“You always have to prepared,’’ Murphy said. “You can’t put every egg in one basket, you can load it up, but you have to have something to fall back. I mean you can be done tomorrow, or in 15 years, you have to be ready for a lot of things to happen.’’
Murphy already knows what can happen on the field. Early this season when the Packers’ starting right tackle Bryan Bulaga injured his ankle in preseason, Murphy started the opener in his place against the Seattle Seahawks. When Pro Bowl left tackle David Bakhtiari suffered a hamstring injury, Murphy started for him week two against the Atlanta Falcons.
So, he’s well aware how things can change in a hurry in football and in business.
“The financial world is awesome,’’ Murphy said. “The media portrays it as very lucrative. And if you do well, whether it’s in investing, real estate, or stocks, or whatever, you can always do well, (but) you can always do bad.
“Growing up I was always good in math, so it kind of appealed to me in that light. Maybe I could pick it up easily. Being at Merrill Lynch I worked with a lot of cool people, and they worked hard. They put in a lot of long days, a lot of hours.’’
Murphy’s title during his internship was summer analyst. He searched for companies that could be transitioned or bought by other companies and reported his findings to the people at the top.
“Their big thing was finding small tech companies or venture capital firms, and putting their money where it will grow,’’ he said. “Tech side, newer companies, things that might develop down the road. And then mergers and acquisitions, which is where I was, trying to compare numbers with other companies that you might want to buy a certain amount of equity in, or just take over the whole company.
“You do a lot of gritty work, working 11, 12 hour-days, punching the numbers and running through the analytics of past buyouts there’s so many moving parts in that field. So, me and another student, and teammate, were on the side of double-checking things and then reporting to the higher ups for potential buyouts. It was a good learning experience. I like to ask a lot of questions and of course the people there wanted to ask a lot of football questions, so it worked out pretty well.
“It was an eye-opening, enlightening experience.’’
Again, Murphy’s focus now is on football and helping the Packers get to the playoffs for the ninth straight season and advancing once they do get there.
The future? Who knows?
“Regardless of how old you are, or how much money you’ve made, just talking to people who have done it, the reoccurring thing is that you need something to get out of bed to in the morning,’’ Murphy said of post-football days. “Structure is good for everybody.
“And the NFL does a great job of continuing education programs, shadowing programs, intern programs. I’m definitely going to seek that out after this season.’’