Life of 'Tough Tony' Murdock ends tragically at 22

As good as he was on the basketball court, you feared it would end badly for Tony Murdock someday.

Six-feet-6. A competitor's scowl. Skilled. Athletically built. Fluid in his stride.

A slam-dunker who was a slam-dunk college player.

A man among boys.

Man, he was fun to watch.

"His senior year, he was probably the best player in Lake County," Leroy Nordlund said. "He could run, jump, shoot. He was tough on the court."

Unfortunately, Murdock played half of one game his senior year for Round Lake. His promising season ended almost before it started. At halftime of a Thanksgiving tournament game at Mundelein in 2003, Nordlund, then the Panthers' head coach, kicked the troubled player off the team. Murdock had started on varsity since his sophomore year, averaging double-digit points and flashing the talent and athleticism that suggested he could play at a four-year college.

"He could do it all," former teammate Jimbo Nicoline said. "He just needed more (direction regarding) school and basketball, instead of (influences) in the outside world."

The outside world is full of tough crowds, and Tony Murdock hung with them. But no longer.

His life ended last week. He was shot dead in the 7000 block of South Perry Street on Chicago's South Side. An autopsy revealed he took a bullet in the back. He was just 22.

"He was down to earth and pretty quiet on the court and when you'd talk to him in school," said Nicoline, who graduated 2003 and played two seasons with the younger Murdock. "He was a good guy. He just went through some hard times, for sure."

There were always stories about Murdock's tough upbringing, about how his father wasn't around, about how Tough Tony hung with wrong crowds.

I interviewed him once or twice after games. As physically intimidating as he was, I remember him being polite, soft-spoken, and yet well-spoken.

I always hoped basketball would put him on a path to a better life, that the right people would grab a hold of this man-child and convince him that he had so much good to offer. Certainly, with that body, that sweet jumper, that leaping ability and athleticism, his potential for a bright future was there. Someone, surely, would give him scholarship money to go to college.

He wound up attending the College of Lake County for a semester and flashing some of his great basketball talent for the Lancers. In 2006, Murdock played for the first-year Lake County Lakers semipro team. His sister Labrenthia has been a basketball star for Round Lake the last couple of years.

"I wish he would have had a good mentor," said Nicoline, now 24, recently married to Sara and living in McHenry.

Nordlund, who still teaches at Magee Middle School in Round Lake and coaches eighth-grade basketball, says he saw Murdock last summer.

The two men talked about old times and had a pleasant conversation.

"He said he regretted some of the things that happened, and I said I regretted some of the things that happened," Nordlund said. "We had a good talk, though."

Tony Murdock needed more good talks in his life.

jaguilar@dailyherald.com