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TheMichiganDaily, www.michigandaily.com
off his athleticism with a 40-yard
run late in the game. It wasn’t a
particularly flashy performance, but
it was a showcase of his skills and a
promising sign for the future.
Morris even got to bring his
family along for the game, resulting
in what his father called “one of the
neatest times we’ve ever had with
him as an athlete.” As the family
took advantage of one hour of free
time during bowl week to hit a
drive-through restaurant for dinner,
the excitement of the Michigan
experience finally hit them.
“We sat in the car, the whole
family just kinda talking about it
and laughing and picking at him and
just enjoying it,” said Shane’s father,
Bruce. “It was exciting — he was
very excited. From the bottom of his
heart, he loves that university and
he loves that program.”
* * *
Just nine months after that
moment, everything came crashing
down.
Reporters are parked outside the
Morris family’s house. They’ve come
by so often that Jennifer Morris has
to call her husband on her way home
from work to ask if they’re gone.
They aren’t.
It’s the last week of September 2014,
and Shane’s image is plastered over
almost every major television network
in America. By now, the details of
Morris’s second career start on Sept.
27 are practically common knowledge.
Morris struggled early in his attempt
to spark the scuffling 2-2 Wolverines
against Minnesota, and then a pair of
hard tackles left him with both a severe
ankle sprain and what would later be
infamously labeled a “probable, mild
concussion.”
Morris was briefly
left in the game after
both injuries despite
nearly collapsing in
offensive
lineman
Ben Braden’s arms,
and he later was
reinserted into the
game for a play after
Gardner had finally
relieved him. ESPN’s
commentators
lambasted
the
coaching staff on live television
for appearing to endanger their
quarterback, and the rest was
unfortunate history.
In a bitter twist of fate, the
presumed poster child for the Hoke
era of Michigan football suddenly
became unwittingly painted as a
symbol of the program’s dysfunction.
It was a rough time for the entire
Morris
family.
“Good
Morning
America” came to the Morris house
three times in a week. Bruce had
his phone blow up with calls from
multiple media outlets. One network
reporter even told the family that
the public “had a right to know”
what they were thinking.
But for Shane’s parents (who
maintained
communication
with
Hoke and the team trainer, among
other Michigan officials, but never
spoke to the public),
the concern wasn’t
about the scandal,
but about their son’s
mental
well-being.
Not only was Shane
worried about the
university he loved
coming under fire —
his “biggest concern
in the whole deal,”
according
to
his
father — he also was
afraid it meant the end of his dream.
“I got the sense that he felt like he
would never get another shot,” Bruce
said. “Like he took that burden,
he kind of put that whole burden
on himself of that game. Which is,
that’s what you’re supposed to do as
a quarterback, as a quote-unquote
leader, and a guy in that position.
I just kind of tried to, not take that
away from him, if you will, as far as
not completely dismiss that — I just
kind of wanted to put everything in
perspective. ‘At the end of the day,
you’re still a part of this team and
you all still have work to do.’ ”
Neither
Hoke
nor
Athletic
Director
Dave
Brandon
would
keep their jobs through the end
of the year, leaving Morris as the
only remnant of the debacle. Even
though it was, to date, his final start
at Michigan, the young quarterback
leaned on his support system and
found a way to remove himself from
the fire. In the end, it may have been
that guidance that saved him.
“It was a tough deal,” Morris said.
“Obviously it got to me a little bit,
having to go through all that. But
my teammates, my roommates, my
parents and the coaching staff did
a great job kind of keeping it away
from me, keep me away from it. They
didn’t make me do any interviews or
anything like that, so I was never
directly involved in it, and I think
that helped a lot. … It’s the past of
my life. I don’t really think about it
at all anymore.”
* * *
As he battled with Rudock for
the
starting
job
the
following
season, Morris started to let some
of the pressure go to his head.
When he threw a pick in practice
or overthrew a receiver, he said he
would immediately let the mistake
ruin his day and start throwing the
ball all over the place.
He maintained his confidence
in interviews off the field, but he
found himself struggling to rebound
quickly
from
football
mistakes.
To make matters worse, he was
struggling to learn his third offense
in three seasons, and the head coach
who brought him to Michigan was
gone. Despite his successes in high
school, Morris just couldn’t find a
way to play up to not just the fans’
expectations, but his own.
“I think all quarterbacks have it —
when they make a mistake, it gets in
their head, just like any player,” said
Paul Verska, Morris’ coach at De La
Salle. “You try to tell them that the
most important play is the next play
and it’s part of the growing process
where you have to let it go. … Being
able to shut it out is a tough thing
to do, but it’s something you do and
mature.”
After Morris lost the job to
Rudock and was written off again
this season, though, a curious thing
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Redshirt junior quarterback Shane Morris has never managed to take hold of the starting job at Michigan after arriving as one of the top recruits in the nation, but he feels content with the way his college career has ended up.
See MORRIS, Page 6B
“He loves that
university and
he loves that
program.”