EMILY HSUEH
SHAWVILLE
March 17, 2021
From high school basketball in Shawville to the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, Teena Murray has gone a long way in her sporting career. Now, she’s being recognized by her alma mater as one of the first 13 inductees of the Pontiac High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
The hall of fame was created by two PHS phys. ed. teachers, Darcy Findlay and Chad Davis, to honour alumni for their accomplishments in athletics. She was inducted under two categories . . .
coach and builder, for her work coaching others and building up the local sporting scene.
“Certainly honoured, certainly humbled a little bit especially after seeing some of the other people who have been inducted in the same class,” Murray said of being inducted. “But it’s certainly nice to be recognized back home, I’ve been gone for a long time.”
Born and raised in Shawville, Murray graduated from PHS in 1988. While in the Pontiac, she played on nearly all of the school’s sports teams, including volleyball, soccer, track and field and even a badminton team. She founded Future Stars in 1994, a strength and conditioning camp for hockey players at the Shawville Arena. But her main focus and passion was basketball.
Not only did she play for the basketball team at Pontiac Protestant High School — as PHS was known at the time — she went on to play in college as well. She coached and directed college basketball at the likes of Cornell University, University of Connecticut and the University of Louisville. Now, she serves as the Vice President of health and performance for the Sacramento Kings.
“When I graduated, I went on and studied, for a number of years, in the kinesthesiology and health and human performance space, so it’s always been a passion of mine to work in athletics and in sports,” she said. “I coached for about 25 years. Just recently, about three years ago, I had the opportunity to move into an executive position here in the NBA with the Sacramento Kings.”
Murray’s resume is a tough one to match. Her work in athletics has taken her around the world on all different levels of play. She has also put out 11 peer-reviewed publications and two book chapters, and was awarded the Guiding Woman in Sport award from the National Association of Girls and Women in Sport.
“I’ve had the chance to be a part of Final 4s and National Championships in college athletics, had a chance to travel internationally for world championships and to work with like the Turkish basketball federation, I’ve worked internationally with them. So I’ve been really fortunate, I’ve had the chance to do a lot of really cool things. I suppose if I had to choose one, it would be the 2010 Winter Olympics, the gold medal game.”
In her professional journey she has accomplished much, and thanked two of her role models for their influence. Terry Murray and Bryan Murray, her uncles, were involved with the NHL heavily. They were also inducted in the PHS Hall of Fame.
“When you’re a kid, everybody needs a role model, right? Especially when you grow up in a small town with not a lot of opportunities, it’s really important to have role models and mentors and people that go on and do big things so you have the understanding that it’s possible. As I was going through high school, they were both in the NHL … so the whole time I was in high school and college they were both in pro hockey and doing pretty amazing things.”
Now, Murray is filling the role of mentor and wants to let those who dream of working sports to know that it’s possible for anyone, even from a rural setting, to achieve their goals.
“Anything is possible. If you have a dream, don’t let anything stand in your way. Nowadays, the world is a very small place and with easy access to people, anything is possible.”
