2021 COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 18, 2021

Austin Murr

NC State Wolfpack

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by NC State's Austin Murr.

We'll take questions.

Q. Austin, talk a little bit about what it means to you to be here in Omaha with us.

AUSTIN MURR: First off, thanks for having me, guys. It's been a pretty remarkable week so far, getting here the other day. It's been pretty surreal after last weekend in Arkansas, coming back up here. I'm a Midwest guy, so coming back to the Midwest is certainly pretty fun. I have a lot of friends and family here.

Q. You could kind of tell yesterday in the video that Jeff put together that you were sort of juggling the having fun out there in Omaha with the "everyday is game day" type mentality. How do you balance everything with that, taking it in? This is Omaha, a special place, a special time in a college baseball player's life, knowing there's a job to be done.

AUSTIN MURR: It's a little bit of a juggle. Every day you play the game, fortunate enough to keep playing this game. You're supposed to have fun every day. I'm not having fun, why am I playing -- if I'm not having fun, why am I playing? That's our mindset as a team, every day we have a job, and our job is to get 1% better every day, but also have some fun, keep playing the game we love, so...

Q. You mentioned Arkansas last weekend. How helpful is that experience and that kind of a crowd for this weekend, acclimating to another big stage and another big crowd?

AUSTIN MURR: Yeah, I think certainly it will be a little different this week with last weekend just being 11, 12,000 people all rooting against you. I think it might be a little bit different here.

Still it's another big stage, another opportunity for us to play. We're certainly looking forward to it.

Q. Can you talk about one of your favorite moments from this season, whether it was on the field or off the field with your teammates.

AUSTIN MURR: Yeah, probably certainly last weekend was a blast, just losing that first game by a lot, by 19, that was rough. But being able to bounce back the last two days and win those games to get here was certainly incredible and amazing.

It's kind of a show to kind of how our season's gone so far. We started off 1-8 in the league, 4-9 overall. The first third of the season wasn't great, there were a lot of downs. Not pointing fingers, but it was a lot of frustration and stuff.

We just kind of kept getting to work and knew that wasn't us. We had bigger goals, just to keep working hard because we knew how good we are, how talented we were.

The second and thirds of the season, were certainly a lot better. I think it was a pretty good showing, just like last weekend.

Q. A lot of teams have maybe a ritual, whether it's a belt or something. Do you have a thing or things you do to stay relaxed, especially when you get on a big stage like this?

AUSTIN MURR: We do smelling salts before the games (laughter). I think that's pretty fun.

But nothing really. We just try and stay loose, as loose as possible, whether we're up or down, never get too high, never get too low throughout the game.

Q. You talk about the slow start to the season, losing big in that first game against Arkansas. So many teams would probably fold under those kind of situations. To what do you attribute the ability to come back? Is it the senior leadership, the coaches, a philosophy? How have you been able to bounce back so spectacularly time and again?

AUSTIN MURR: A little bit of everything, I'd say. We certainly have unbelievable coaches. They believed in us throughout the year. Also we got a pretty experienced team, pretty old team. So I think a lot of guys, not me personally, but a few guys have been in this program three, four, five years. This is only my second year in the program. But they've been through ups and downs. Just keep your head down and keep working hard.

Q. How excited are you for Coach Avent, to be able to bring him back to the College World Series?

AUSTIN MURR: That's awesome. That was our goal at the beginning of the season. We were hoping for an ACC championship for him, get his first one. We were unable to do that.

But we had bigger goals in mind after we lost that ACC championship game. Certainly this was goal number two on our list. Number one is to come and win it. Goal number two was to get to here, we did it, and we got a shot now.

Q. Again going back to the pageantry making a trip to Omaha. Is there any part of your experience here so far that has lived up to the hype or just kind of dropped your jaw? Is it seeing TD Ameritrade Park? I know Elliott likes to make it an experience. Any portion of this trip so far that has just floored you?

AUSTIN MURR: Yeah, I would say it's probably surreal, for sure. It almost hadn't really set in until we just went out and practiced right here. I think every day, whoever I talk to on the team is like, I can't believe we're here right now (smiling).

It was kind of pinch yourself. Once we went out and practiced here, hit some BP, took some groundballs and stuff, we were able to like, Hey, we're really here. We saw our logo out in the bullpen out in left field.

Really everything in the last few days has really been outstanding, whether it's the escorts to the hotel -- yeah, just everything. We had dinner the last few nights. It's a pretty nice spot, so...

Q. You guys used the term 'family' in the past. Coach lost his dad at the beginning of this season. It really hit him hard. He was so close to his dad. What does that mean to you and how close are you to your dad?

AUSTIN MURR: Yeah, it was certainly right before the season started, it was a tough, tough few weeks for all of us, just seeing what he was going through, just trying to be there for him as much as possible. We know how much we mean to him, and baseball means to him, his dad means to him.

Certainly it was rough. It was really rough. We just tried to be there for him as much as possible. Just everything that he does for us, how much time and how much effort, how much he cares and loves about us, it was hard to see him struggling like that right before the season.

Back to my dad, I mean, he's the same way for me. He's been there, been with me through everything growing up, playing baseball, hockey, football, being there, supporting me for whatever I was doing. He works nights in the summer when I was growing up. He wasn't able to see many of my baseball games. He was there for two, three, four innings, had to leave and go to work every single night. He was working at a drive-in movie theater. After the game, I'd grab a hot dog and talk to him. We'd catch up on the first few innings, then I'd fill him in on the rest of the game.

On the weekends and stuff, we'd play at 8 a.m. He'd turn around at 5 a.m., come sleep in the parking lot, and come watch me play at 8 a.m., be out there and trying to stay awake for those hours before he could go back to bed in the car for a few hours before my game at noon, then before my game at 4, until he had to go work again that night.

Everything he's done for me, it's been incredible. I certainly would not be here without him.

Q. The resilience of this team, whether it's coming back, turning around the regular season, getting blasted in game one, upsetting the number one team in the country. Talk about this team's resiliency.

AUSTIN MURR: Yeah, I talked about that. I think I got interviewed after the third game of the year when we lost. We're a resilient and confident group. I think we've been that all year through our ups and downs. We had a rough stretch in the beginning of the year, got swept two-out-of-three series and lost the other series.

It's something that we feel like we're battle-tested now, we can get through everything, we're never, ever out of it. So we always feel like we have a chance. We're going to fight as hard as we can till that last out.

THE MODERATOR: That will do it for questions. Thanks for joining us, Austin. We really appreciate your time today.