A look in the record books will show Al Murdoch’s 925 wins as the most ever by a coach at any level of collegiate hockey, but he would be the last person to take credit for it.

Murdoch, who is now in his fortieth year of coaching Cyclone Hockey, broke legendary Division I coach Ron Mason’s career wins record, who is best known for coaching Michigan State, on Saturday, as the team finished off a sweep of Arizona State over the weekend. He, instead, credits the record to Cyclone Hockey.

“I prefer to call it a Cyclone Hockey record; I just happened to be the coach of the program when it happened,” Murdoch said. “The players, over the 40 years, were the ones on the ice, physically doing it. I couldn’t have had that record without some amazing student-athletes over the years, and some of them only played one game; a large percentage of them played for me for all four years, and they called it the hardest four years of their life.”

Murdoch has developed a reputation as a coach who is very disciplined and carries that style over to the ice with his players. Nobody on the team knows this better than senior forwards Bill Adolph and Mike Murtaugh. They both said Murdoch has had a big effect on them in the way they conduct themselves on and off the ice.

“The first thing I learned from Murdoch is that you have to have thick skin,” Adolph said. “There will be times where it will be complimentary, but there will be times where you screw up and he’ll rip you a new one.”

Murtaugh echoed Murdoch’s never-say-never attitude.

“He always talked about his teachers and getting his Ph.D. and how teachers in high school were saying that he wouldn’t go anywhere or do anything. Don’t listen to them,” Murtaugh said.

Murdoch has helped develop these seniors’ skills on the ice as well. Adolph said he feels that although he played pretty competitively in junior hockey leagues, once he got to Iowa State the speed and intensity picked up. He said Murdoch helped him adjust to the speed and competitiveness of the game. Murtaugh has developed his go-to move, “the left-handed liftie,” under Murdoch and has also learned to become a lot more physical.

Some of the seniors’ favorite moments with Murdoch have come on the road and getting to see things that transcend the game of hockey. Some of their trips have included Chicago, the Oklahoma City bombing site, the St. Louis Arch, and a WWII fighter plane museum in North Dakota. The team will head to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., for the first time this season over Thanksgiving.

“You obviously never plan to go see these things, it’s just something you happen to see while you’re there,” Adolph said. “Just being with Murdoch and going through hockey, I got to see all these cool places that I never would have seen. It’s just little things like that that make your four year experience playing for Murdoch that much better.”

From the little things to the big things, Murtaugh has enjoyed his experience under Murdoch.

“It’s cool that we’re a part of history,” Murtaugh said.

“Anytime anyone looks at hockey and the most wins, we’ll be part of his name at the top, and that is going to be a cool experience. He talks about the record being a Cyclone Hockey record, so that means that he’s obviously passionate about the hockey and not so much caring if he’s going to be the star or not.”

A lot of Murdoch’s coaching philosophy and attitudes come from the way he was raised by his father, who was a world class sprinter in Scotland in the 1920s. Murdoch tells a story of one of his father’s races, in which he was in third place and needed to place in the top two to qualify for the Olympics.

He ran hard and caught the other two runners, but used up so much energy that they ended up passing him again before he crossed the finished line. Murdoch questioned his father’s strategy, but he was told that it is important to always “run to win.”

“I use things I learned from my father all the time,” Murdoch said. “I use it when I coach and I use it when I played sports in high school, in college. I always left it all out on the playing field or the ice. I always ran to win.”

Associate head coach Brian Wierson played for Murdoch for four years and has been coaching with him for another four. Wierson was effected greatly by Murdoch as a player and mirrors his discipline as a coach.

“As a player, you might not always agree with what a coach does, but once you get out of the program, you realize that everything he does builds people, builds leaders and builds people for the future,” Wierson said. “He stresses discipline a lot and stresses composure. No matter what happens it’s always good and it’s always to your advantage.”

With plenty of season left to go and the national tournament well within the Cyclones’ grasp, Murdoch and the team set their sights on Kent State, which beat the Cyclones three times last season.