With Hockey In Her Blood, Teena Murray is Thrilled for New Role with Pens
Over the years, during the NHL season, they would root on Bill's brothers Bryan and Terry for whatever organizations they were part of at that particular time. Bryan, who most recently served as GM of the Ottawa Senators and passed away from colon cancer in 2017, had a remarkable 35-year career in coaching and management. Terry played for Philadelphia, Washington and Detroit before moving behind the bench for the Capitals, Flyers, Panthers and Kings.
Then whenever Teena's uncles would return home during the offseasons, the business became a gathering spot of sorts for the family.
"I was supposed to be working, but we'd stand around all summer and just talk hockey," Teena said with a laugh. "The lessons I learned there and just the relational side of this business… knowing how to talk to people and knowing just how to really understand the culture of team sport and what it takes… I learned all of that back then from them."
With the sport in her blood, Murray always had a lot of interest in eventually getting back to hockey during her career on the performance side of sports that's spanned over 20 of them - and an incredible opportunity to do just that has come with the Penguins.
Murray was recently named the team's Senior Vice President of Integrated Performance, where she will oversee the hockey operations' strength and conditioning staff, rehabilitation, sports science and medical staff and report directly to general manager Ron Hextall.
"This opportunity to lead the growth and development of more of an integrated performance team at this time was one that I just felt I couldn't pass up, with the championship culture that's already in place," said Murray, who has spent the past four seasons as vice president of health and performance for the NBA's Sacramento Kings.
"I have known Ron for quite some time, I've known of (president of hockey operations Brian Burke) for a long time, and I'm excited about their vision and what they're doing there. I just feel like the time was right."
Murray got started on her particular path in sports somewhat organically. As an athlete herself, she had always enjoying being in the weight room while playing college basketball and studying kinesiology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada.
When Murray arrived at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to pursue her master's degree in exercise physiology and sports nutrition, she got an assistantship with the softball team - where she was able to take advantage of the knowledge she had built up through her own experiences.
"They had this great weight room, but they had no strength coach," Murray said. "So I just started taking our team in there as part of their training, and I started writing the program."
That started a ripple effect, which led to the basketball and volleyball coaches asking if she could put together programs for their teams as well. Murray loved that type of work so much that she got her strength and conditioning certification, and as she was finishing her degree, realized she wanted to continue working with different sports and athletes on the performance side.
"I was really into my own training and nutrition and all of these things, and I just kind of took my passion, my hobby, and made it a career," she said.
Murray now has over 25 years of experience working with professional and collegiate teams. Prior to her time in Sacramento, Murray spent 14 years at the University of Louisville as the director of sports performance, where she built an NCAA-leading high-performance sport program that served 21 Division I Top-25 sports.
She has also worked as either a strength and conditioning coach or consultant for various teams/organizations throughout her professional career. On the hockey side, that includes the Anaheim Ducks, Hartford Wolfpack and the Panthers. Murray also won two World Championship gold medals, as well as a silver medal at the 2010 Olympic Games, with Team USA - where she served as the first-ever Director of Performance for the U.S. Women's National and Olympic hockey teams from 2006-10.
"A lot of the players had been trying to find their own strength coaches wherever they were going to school or wherever they were working, and so it was the first time that USA Hockey brought someone on board as the director of performance to manage all aspects of training and development," Murray said. "I had a chance to spend four years building this program."
That was a transformative experience for Murray, as not only did she have the opportunity to work closely with elite athletes - but also with talented people who specialized in areas like biomechanics, physiology and other related spaces at the Olympic Training Centers in Lake Placid and Colorado Springs. After returning to Louisville following the Vancouver Games, Murray was inspired to start implementing that high-performance approach with the athletes there.
"Over time, we were able to add nutrition and psychology and begin adding analytics," Murray said. "We built a really impressive performance analytics department at Louisville, and started integrating data across all teams. So that's I guess kind of where these philosophies, if you will, were birthed."
Murray has become known for pioneering that type of high-performance approach in elite sport. Instead of the traditional setup where all of the different silos, like medical and strength and conditioning, can get isolated from each other, Murray champions an interdisciplinary approach where everyone is fully integrated and interconnected, with systems that drive such collaboration.
"We work very collaboratively to individualize everything that we do for each player," Murray said. "There's no doubt it's difficult to do that in a team sport, but it's very possible. And we certainly want to use data to inform some of the decision-making to better manage the care and performance of every player."
Throughout Murray's entire life, she's grown used to being the only female, whether it was playing boys' hockey as a kid or as she progressed throughout her career. When she first arrived in Sacramento, it was just her and one administrative assistant upstairs, and that was it. But they've since diversified, as Murray was able to hire two women onto her staff, and she's proud to play a part in continuing the growing visibility of women in sports.
"There's no doubt I believe in lifting as you rise, and so every time I've had a chance to move into more of a management role, a leadership role, I make it a high priority to try to create opportunities for other females," Murray said.
And now, she can't wait to get started in the one she has in front of her.
"I'm thrilled," Murray said. "I couldn't be more excited about the opportunity. Really, really excited to be joining Burkie and Hexy, and can't wait to get started."
