Bridgeport’s Mike Coss Is Rooting For Brewers And His Former Notre Dame Baseball Coach

BRIDGEPORT - At least one Ohio Valley individual will be rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers to win the World Series, and for a very good reason.

After graduating from Linsly, Bridgeport native Mike Coss wanted to play baseball at Notre Dame University so badly that his family "self-recruited" him. However, upon entering the Irish baseball office, the Linsly graduate quickly learned how things can change for the better.

"We sent them videos and they made me an offer. The head coach was Larry Gallo," Coss recalled. "My brother drove me to South Bend and I walked into the coach's office and asked for Coach Gallo so I could sign my paperwork. Lo and behold, a young man turned around and a 28-year-old guy named Pat Murphy said, 'I've been waiting on you Mike. I'm the new head coach at Notre Dame.' That was my first experience with Pat Murphy."

It was far from his last with the current manager of the Brewers who played Tampa Bay Friday night in Game 1 of the best-of-7 World Series.

"I asked him where the paperwork was to sign, and he told me 'That's why I've been waiting on you. I don't have any (scholarship) money to offer you, but we are going to start practice tomorrow and you can earn your money back.'"

That initial engagement between Coss and Murphy started off shaky, but blossomed into a long-standing friendship as the Ohio Valley native was a four-year starter and letterman under Murphy's guidance from 1988-1991. At the time, Coss played in more games than any Notre Dame baseball player in program history.

"Coach Murphy, as you're seeing right now in the postseason, is a strong-willed individual," Coss noted. "If he has something in mind, he goes for it."

'He was the best mentor I could have had. He was the best coach I could have had," Coss raved. "He was stubborn. He was mean at times and held everyone accountable. He will tell you to this day that he wasn't a very good coach in the four years I was at Notre Dame, but from my experience, what he is doing now with the Brewers is the same thing he did at Notre Dame.

"When he tells you something, you believe it. He really did shape my life," Coss continued. "He was an extension of the Ohio Valley ... blue-collar, hard-working. If you worked hard for him and gave it everything you had, he was going to help you. Some people will say other things about Coach Murphy. He's arrogant but he deserves it. His baseball mind, in my opinion, is second to none. He gets the most out of his players, just like he is doing right now with Milwaukee and, most importantly, everywhere he goes he wins."

Coss said he hasn't been in contact with Murphy for several months.

"We text back and forth some. I think the last time I texted him was in May," Coss remembered. "It was a sad situation about a former player of his at Notre Dame having a death in his family."

Murphy was once quoted about Coss prior to his senior year.

"Mike's done everything we've asked of him. He's one tough son-of-a-gun. If I was going to war tomorrow, I'd want to take him with me. At the same time, if I was going out to have a good time, I'd want to take him with me."

Coss and Murphy did cross paths a few years ago in Pittsburgh when Murphy was still an assistant with the Brewers under then-manager Craig Counsell, who was a year behind Coss at Notre Dame and shared the left side of the infield for a season.

"I texted him and told him my son, Colton, and I were coming up to a ballgame. We don't need tickets because I've already bought them. My son has never met you. Do you mind if we come down and lean over (the railing) and say hello. The next thing I know, I get a text message back telling me to go to the will-call (ticket window) and we'll meet up. We enter the stadium, walk down the tunnel at PNC Park and come out on the field where Murphy and Counsell are waiting for us. We spent about an hour with them. It was really neat"

Coss recalled that Counsell actually started in left field as a freshman. When Coss moved from third base to shortstop, Counsell came into third. When Coss was asked to catch, Counsell moved to shortstop before going on to an illustrious 16-year playing career, followed by a 11-year managerial career where he currently is with the Chicago Cubs.

Joe Binkiewicz, who played at Wintersville, was a junior first baseman for the Irish during Murphy's first season in South Bend.

Murphy coached at Notre Dame for seven seasons, compiling a 318-116-1 record. The Irish won 178 games during the Coss-Murphy tenure. Murphy then went on to coach at Arizona State (629-284-1) for 15 seasons before entering the major leagues where he served as the San Diego Padres interim manager in 2015 after Bud Black was fired midseason. He started as an assistant in 2016.