Photo by Mike Rosier/Publisher

Wardlaw football coach Hubert Morris

JOHNSTON - In his 37 years as a head football coach, Hubert Morris has experienced it all.

But what he went through this season with the Wardlaw Academy football team ranks as one of the most satisfying stretches of football in his entire career, as the Patriots went undefeated at 12-0 and won the SCISA 8-man state title for the first time since the school won back-to-back crowns in 2002-2003.

The Patriots defeated Andrew Jackson Academy 36-30 in the championship game.

But it wasn't the unbeaten span this season that made it all so special.

Instead, it was the four lean years the squad just emerged from.

You could call them the Dark Ages of Wardlaw football.

Over that four-year stretch, starting in 2004 with a core group of freshmen players, the program went just 16-31 and the team was hammered in numerous ballgames which were never competitive.
Opposing teams the Patriots had routinely crushed during the past two seasons were now lining up for their shot at revenge in the form of 30-point victories.

It was open season on Wardlaw Academy.

"In the back-to-back championship seasons we had something like 22 boys on one team and 21 boys on the other and half and half were seniors and juniors one year and the next years we had a lot of seniors and the juniors didn't contribute," Morris said. "The next year (2004) we were down to 14 people and this class of (2008) seniors were only freshmen but they had to play for us. Teams were getting payback for the years when we won back-to-back good teams. Teams got a chance to score on us and they did that a lot."

But Morris could feel early on in preseason practice this season that something was different.

Those freshmen were now seniors - and tired of being pushed around.

"It was just a matter of them deciding that we had gotten beat and stomped on for three years and they were going to do something about it," Morris said. "We started out good in practice, but we never thought we might go undefeated and win the state title. But when we beat Bowman Academy we started thinking that maybe we could and it was pretty well set that we could do it when we beat AJA here. These boys had never been a winner and we were beating teams this year like teams had been beating us the past three years. We got it back this year, and I've said it before, but think we improved from the day practice started to the day the season ended better than any team we have ever had here."

Kevin Ginn, one of Morris' senior players, says he loved playing for him.

"It was an honor to play for Coach Morris," Ginn said. "We were so mad when he (was not named SCISA 8-man Coach of the Year after the season) because he really deserved it, but playing for him is something I will never forget. Coach Morris still gets fired up sometimes and he knows how to coach for sure."

Morris' football season, his 13th as head coach at Wardlaw Academy, finally ended last week with his selection by The Augusta Chronicle as the 2008 Independent Schools Coach of the Year.

"It doesn't feel like 37 years (of coaching)," Morris jokes. "But (coaching) makes me feel like I can get up and go a little bit because I am not getting any younger. I still enjoy coaching and being around the kids and just being around the game of football. I don't know how many more years I'll do it, probably as long as they'll have me. I have been very fortunate with the places that I have been along the way."

HUBERT MORRIS BREAKOUT

- Coached previously at Strom Thurmond, North Augusta and Augusta Christian
- Has served 13 seasons as head football coach at Wardlaw Academy
- Has four state titles at Wardlaw (1999, 2002, 2003, 2008)
- Has coached three undefeated teams at Wardlaw (2002, 2003, 2008)
- From 1998 to 2003, the Morris' Patriot teams lost just 6 games