LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Some coaches coach. Some coaches win. Some coaches make a difference.
In a Hall of Fame life that stretched over 87 robust years before he died on Sunday, Jim Morris did all three.
"A good coach can impact a game. A great coach impacts lives," said Jerry Roby, who was an academic all-American for Morris at Indiana University-Southeast from 1981-85.
"Coach Morris impacted lives. An amazing amount of lives."
Ask anybody at the IUS campus in New Albany. Jim Morris made that athletics program part of the vibrant school and university community.
There aren't any records from the first three seasons of IUS men's basketball. You could argue that organizers were not convinced there would be a fourth or fifth season.
Morris changed that.
He was 24 years old when he coached Tommy Finnegan, Ted Deeken and the Flaget High Braves to the Kentucky state title in 1960. He coached at New Albany High School and led the Bulldogs to three sectional titles as well as an epic run in the 1967 semi-state where they were stopped by the unstoppable Bob Ford and Evansville North.
Morris coached at Oscar Rose Junior College and assisted at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. Jim Morris could have had a lot of jobs. You win a high school state title at 24, you've got credentials.
But, in 1975, the job that Morris settled on was the job at IUS, where he directed the construction of an athletic department as well as a basketball facility.
Why IUS?
With Morris' coaching pedigree, he could have coached at dozens of places with brighter lights and larger crowds. But he grew up in Jeffersonville. This area was home. This was also a challenge. Morris liked a challenge.
IUS was the perfect spot where he could win 278 games over 23 seasons but enjoy quality family time with his wife, JoAnn, sons Steve and Danny, and daughter Suzanne. It was a family that grew to include seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
"JoAnn was as much a part of our team as coach," Roby said. "She was always sitting with him in the front seat of the bus on road trips and a lot of times she kept the scorebook."
His summer camps were Must Attends for young hoopers in southern Indiana. It wasn't one of those camps where the head coach passes out a T-shirt and sits in an air-conditioned office while his assistants ran the drill stations.
I saw Morris on the floor, at the free throw line, advising 8-year-olds how to tuck their elbows at the free throw line.
That was the Jim Morris way. Teach. Encourage. Dream.
The record shows that Morris did more than his share of winning. After one season at Notre Dame, Morris played at Bellarmine and led the Knights in scoring in 1954 and 1955. He hit .300 as a catcher on the baseball team, hitting for the cycle with 7 runs driven in against Georgetown. No surprise that Bellarmine inducted Morris into its athletic Hall of Fame in 1982.
IUS presented him its Chancellor's Medallion. Morris was a U.S. Army veteran who was also honored as a Kentucky Colonel and Sagamore of the Wabash. IUS launched an annual fund-raising dinner where one athlete is presented the "Jim Morris Champion of Character," award.
"If you come to his wake you're going to see teachers, doctors, attorneys, business owners, male and female, who will have stories to tell about how Coach Morris affected their lives," Roby said.
(Public visitation will be at the Activities Building on the IU Southeast campus in New Albany Saturday from 1-to-6 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.)
Morris provided an opportunity for players across the region to keep playing basketball after high school while getting an affordable education. He navigated the school into the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).
Check the current scoreboard at IUS. In additions to men's basketball, the Grenadiers compete in baseball and men's tennis as well as women's basketball, women's tennis, softball and volleyball. There were seasons IUS also competed in cross country and soccer.
Credit Morris. He believed in IUS.
"He was a pure basketball coach," Bellarmine University coach Scott Davenport said.
"He was truly the father of IUS athletics," Roby said.
Some coaches coach. Some coaches win. Some coaches make a difference.
Jim Morris did all three.
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