Sports
What About Luke?
An assistant coach for Towson University’s basketball team (alas, 0-17 at press time) also happens to be Bill Murray’s son
Q: When did you first get into basketball?
I’ve been playing since I was 3 years old. But, the first time I coached was for AAU as a senior in high school. They were 16 or 17 years old, so there wasn’t much of an age gap. And I coached all the way through college.
Q: This is your first year here. Did you know what a challenge it would be?
I knew they were struggling. And we’ve had some bad luck: Our leading scorer Isaiah Philmore transferred to Xavier, and Braxton Dupree left the program. We only have one player who played last season, Erique Gumbs. So inexperience is obviously a challenge.
Q: What are the solutions?
We’ve signed a great group of high-school seniors. A couple of kids who transferred have been sitting out this year, but they’ve been dynamite in practice. We want to focus on being a good defensive team next season.
Q: Are the kids on your team old enough to remember your dad’s movies?
That’s funny, they really don’t remember. I know that a lot of them saw Space Jam because of the basketball aspect. But the second Ghostbusters movie didn’t come out until 1989, and these kids weren’t even born yet. But it’s good, because I try to avoid that as much as I can and concentrate on the sport.
Q: What was it like growing up with Bill Murray as your dad?
People assume that it was easy and a lot of fun. For the most part, it wasn’t. Obviously, there were great benefits, but my brother and I wanted to remove ourselves as much as possible. We grew up with our mom, and we had a pretty normal existence. I would get a lot of questions about him in school, but I used sports as an outlet to distance myself.
Q: What was it like to have the Obamas see your game in November?
That was a lot of fun, except we lost by 20 points. But the President is obviously somebody I really respect. My dad met him before the game, and they spoke about Chicago and some teams in the city.
Q: What do you think of Baltimore so far?
I live in an apartment in Towson and I’m looking forward to the off-season when I can explore. Coach [Pat] Skerry and I went on a boat and got crabs. I went to an Orioles game, and I really want to see the Ravens play.