Melanie Fitch and her Irrelevant Week team do not get to select who is going to be Mr. Irrelevant – AKA the last football player picked in each year’s NFL Draft.
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If it was up to Fitch and company who would be this year’s Mr. Irrelevant, they just might have picked Red Murdock.
The Denver Broncos took Murdock with the 257th and final pick in this year’s NFL Draft. Being No. 257 made Murdock Mr. Irrelevant LI.
For 51 years Irrelevant Week’s theme has been “Celebrating the Underdog.” Murdock fits the theme. His life has been one of high achievements in challenging circumstances.
Murdock is one of six children born to a single-mother. While attending Hopewell High in Virginia he also earned his associate’s degree from nearby Brightpoint Community College via a dual enrollment program.
He did not get college football recruiting interest while playing at Hopewell, so he spent a year at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia. One college recruited him from there, the University of Buffalo where he became a second-team All-American linebacker who finished second in the nation in tackles with 142. Murdock also was named to the Mid-American Conference’s All-Academics team.
Murdock earned a Master’s Degree in psychology.
Irrelevant Week began Wednesday with The Lowsman Banquet at The Cannery in Newport Beach. Murdock was handed his Lowsman Trophy – it looks very much like the Heisman Trophy except instead of the trophy displaying a player carrying a football, the Lowsman Trophy displays a player dropping a football – and was alternately praised and teased by Fitch and this year’s master of ceremonies Paul McDonald, Newport Beach resident and former USC and NFL quarterback.
Murdock, wearing an orange Broncos jersey with the number “257” on the front and back, arrived at The Cannery standing on the bow of a yacht that was accompanied by an Orange County Sheriff watercraft.
The week’s activities include a surf lesson, a visit with Newport Beach Junior Lifeguards, a beach BBQ, the Beer Can Regatta sail followed by a BBQ at the Balboa Yacht Club – all of that on Thursday – and a Disneyland visit and Angels game on Friday. Irrelevant Week is capped by a tour of Newport Beach peninsula establishments on Saturday.
Irrelevant Week was started in the 1970s by the late Paul Salata. Salata was a Newport Beach businessman, USC and San Francisco 49ers receiver who had a few bit parts in movies like Stalag 17 and The Ten Commandments. Salata loses in a fight with Charlton Heston as Moses in the latter film (“I’m so old, I got beaten up by Moses,” Salata would joke).
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Salata’s daughter Melanie Fitch helped her father run Irrelevant Week and took charge of it years ago. Salata’s credo was “Doing something nice for someone for no reason,” so the event has raised more than $1 million for local needs. This year’s Irrelevant Week is benefitting student scholarships.
Irrelevant Week is supported by the NFL. Tim Tubito, NFL senior director of global entertainment, represented the league at Wednesday’s banquet.
Among Wednesday’s other banquet attendees wer sports agent Leigh Steinberg, former USC basketball coach Stan Morrison, former NFL player and now actor Matt Willig and ex-football official Laird Hayes who was on the officiating crew for three Super Bowls.
Fitch got to announce the 257th pick at the draft, which she has done for years and which her father did for decades.
Immediately after the draft the Irrelevant Week team begins working with the team of Mr. Irrelevant to figure out his availability and to make the week’s events align with that availability. In some years that is more difficult than it is in other years (this year was a hectic one).
Murdock (6-1, 240) arrived Tuesday, and immediately made a great impression on the Irrelevant Week team including Melanie Fitch’s husband Ed Fitch.
“He’s an incredible young man,” Ed Fitch said. “Very polite. Everything is ‘yes sir, no sir, yes ma’m, no ma’am.’”
This week is Murdock’s first visit to California.
“A lot of friendly people,” said Murdock, who at times appeared stunned by all of the goings on Wednesday.
Several Mr. Irrelevants got a roster spot from the team that selected them. Most notable is Brock Purdy, 49ers quarterback who was Mr. Irrelevant 2022. Taking a look at what he has has made of his life, Murdock just might the next Mr. Irrelevant to have a fine career in pro football.
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