Murphy needs transplant to live

NEWPORT — Kentucky's first-ever Miss Basketball is fighting for her life in an intensive care unit, hoping for a liver transplant.

Donna Murphy, a pioneer of girls' basketball in Kentucky and a former girls' basketball coach at Lexington Christian, was hospitalized in Cincinnati this weekend.

After collapsing this weekend while visiting family, Murphy was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis, a rare form of hepatitis that attacks liver cells, the Kentucky Enquirer reported on its Web site Wednesday night.

”At this point, there's nothing more we can do for her,“ Dr. Steven M. Rudich of liver transplant services at the University of Cincinnati told the paper. ”Quite frankly, time is not on her side.“

Murphy, who works in Lexington as a counselor, was the state's first Miss Basketball in 1976, and she set regional and state tournament records.

The Newport standout held the single-game state scoring record of 42 points for some 20 years. Murphy, a member of the KHSAA Dawahare's Hall of Fame, starred in the first girls' Sweet Sixteen. In her first game of that event, she scored 42 points and grabbed 25 rebounds.

She also starred at Morehead State and played for the St. Louis Streak of the Women's Professional Basketball League before working as an assistant coach at several universities, including Kentucky. She started the college basketball program at Asbury.

In March of 2006, she was fired after two seasons at LCA, where she went 41-18. School officials never gave a formal explanation.

Murphy's brother, Duran Murphy, said his sister has been feeling tired.

”She's gone from perfect health to borderline coma,“ he told the Enquirer. ”She's not coherent. She has a breathing tube and a feeding tube.“