"I can't really remember if it was premeditated or not, but I gave it to him. He saw some guys on the BYU team that he played with at Ricks and so it started that feeling," Dale said."I didn't want to push, but I wanted to encourage him that he was a good football player and a good athlete and it would be a good experience for him."

It proved to be exactly what Shawn needed.

"I got home from my mission, going to school and working and maybe I didn't think I could do it," Shawn said. "I was watching that (game) thinking it would be awesome to do this, so I decided to give it another shot."

Shawn called then Dixie State coach Greg Croshaw and he played there last season. The Rebels didn't have any returning offensive linemen and asked him to switch from defense to offense. It was a change he made out of need, but didn't necessarily welcome it.

"I was kind of bummed out to tell you the truth. People tend to think of the offensive line as the boring position and think of it as something the non-athletic people do, but after playing it for a week it was fun," he said.

Shawn started every game for the Rebels, who finished 9-3, and capped their final year as a junior college with a 35-31 victory over Garden City in the Dixie Rotary Bowl.

His dad was at every game, home and away.

This year, Shawn, 6-foot-4, 307 pounds, has started all four games for the Aggies (0-4), who have yet to score an offensive touchdown.

Yet again, he relies on the advice of his dad, who experienced his share of tough times during his lengthy career.

"We talked about it at lunch on Monday," Shawn said. "His advice was to keep going and that letting up and giving up won't solve anything. ... It's pretty frustrating right now, but I think he's right."

Even to this day, his father still tries to keep his professional life separate from his personal life, but seldom does a day go by that he isn't reminded by someone else of what his dad meant to baseball, and he never tires being known as the son of Dale and Nancy Murphy.

"If you walked around our whole house you probably wouldn't be able to know a baseball player lived there. He's shy about it," Shawn said, adding that his dad's two NL MVP awards are in a box in the storage room.

"He was so good at what he did and such a great role model and example that it does make me proud. He's a great person to be associated with," Shawn said.

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E-mail: jhinton@desnews.com