Swimming
Favorite athlete: Simone Manuel
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory: Winning/breaking the state record in the 200 free relay with Hannah Zurmuhl, Anna Beno, and Brittany Weiss.
Most embarrassing/funniest memory competing in sports: When I was 12 years old, I went to Eastern Zones. I had pretty bad vision and I wore glasses. So I was on the pool deck and was walking to the locker rooms and walked into the boys’ bathroom and didn’t realize until I saw this bright orange sweatshirt down the hallway. I turned around and ran and all these guys were walking behind me. Later, a bunch of guys on my Middle Atlantic Team were talking about a girl and how she walked into the boys’ bathroom and no one knew who it was. I just sank into my seat and hoped that no one found out it was me.
Future plans: I will be attending Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana (I will be majoring in Biology). I would like to qualify for NCAA’s and compete for a title. Maybe even try to qualify for the National Team.
Music on my mobile device: Pop, Hip-Hop
Favorite motto: “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:13
One goal before turning 30: Get my dream job, make the Olympic Team, start a family.
One thing people don’t know about me: I love to ski.
By Craig Ostroff
In the pool, Morgan Scott is about as intimidating as they come.
Her five gold medals at the PIAA Championship meet; a stash of District One titles; pool, school, league, and age group records; and numerous appearances at Junior National Championships and other prestigious national elite-level events speak to an unmatched level of excellence in the water.
A burning desire to win every race, combined with an attitude that her club coach Stu Kukla describes as “a shark who can smell the blood in the water,” means that in the rare occasion that a swimmer finds herself in front of the Pennridge senior, she rarely stays there for long.
But when she’s not on the starting blocks or charging through the water, Scott – who specializes in the 100 and 200 free but also swims middle distance and backstroke – is anything but unapproachable.
“Swimming is not a sport like basketball, where you can argue over who’s better,” said Kukla, Scott’s coach at Central Bucks Swim Club. “The results are measurable in swimming. You know she’s the fastest in the state, you can’t argue it.
“When you’re that good, you could be cocky and arrogant about it. Morgan is not like that at all. She loves to actively cheer her friends on. She’ll be on the pool deck getting everyone motivated. She cares about the other kids on the team. She’s helped build an atmosphere, a culture, where these kids recognize and respect hard work.”
Just because Scott has goals beyond District and State medals, that doesn’t mean that she takes the high school swim season lightly. Once she’s in the pool with her Pennridge teammates, she’s just as focused on helping her team win as she would be in a Junior National Championship meet.
“My team is like my second family,” Scott said. “They’re very important to me, I’d do anything for them. I really want to take in every moment I can this year. It’s emotional knowing this is my last season at Pennridge. I already know that Senior Night is going to be heartbreaking.”
That means that Scott is prepared to do her part both in and out of the water to help the Rams find success.
“Anyone who comes into our program knows who Morgan is,” said Pennridge girls’ swimming coach Jacob Grant. “She’s rewritten the record books at Pennridge. Half the records on the board have her name, she’s on three different banners on the pool wall. That can be intimidating to the younger girls.
“But outside of the water, Morgan is one of the nicest, most down-to-earth girls you’ll ever meet. A lot of times, when you have someone with the talent she has, they can be selfish. Morgan is the farthest thing from it. She’ll go down as probably the greatest swimmer in Pennridge history, but she’s so much more than that when you get to know her.”
And her teammates have taken notice that Scott has been – and will continue to be – counted upon not only for her efforts in the pool, but for her ability to lead, teach, and inspire her teammates. Earlier this week, she was voted as one of three captains on the Rams’ squad this year.
It’s an honor that Scott takes very seriously.
“Being selected team captain was kind of like a dream come true for me because … I've wanted to be a captain for my high school team for a really long time,” Scott said. “I love to organize things for the team to get together out of the water.
“Being a senior, it’s important to look and act like a leader and encourage the younger swimmers. I think my parents really played a role in that for me. They always told me, ‘Don’t think of yourself as higher than others.’ I may be a faster swimmer, but I’m not better or more important than anyone else.”
Being names a captain is a true highlight of a competitive swimming career that began at age 10, though Scott has been drawn to water for as long as she can remember. Even a few bad experiences – getting caught in a riptide at Rehoboth Beach at age nine, almost losing all her teeth in a Boogie Board-meets-sandbar collision a few years later – couldn’t keep Scott out of the water.
“I’ve always been really competitive,” Scott said. “I didn’t like to lose, but back when I started swimming competitively, it was more about just having fun competing and having a good time with friends.
“Once we started going to invitationals and meets with teams from around the East Coast and the U.S., that’s when I got really competitive. I remember the Tom Dolan Invitational when I was 12 years old. I lost a race by .02 seconds, and I was furious. I was crying for a half hour. But that’s something you have to learn, too.”
That’s why Scott is quick to point out that swimming has not only helped shape her as an athlete, but as a person as well. Whether it was missing the Olympic Trials qualifying time by mere hundredths of a second (Scott did beat the time shortly thereafter, though it was past the qualifying deadline), or being bullied as a younger swimmer, the lessons she’s learned and the successes – and even the failures – she’s accumulated have all helped her to become who she is today.
“I was very disappointed I missed the Olympic Trials,” she said. “I know that right afterward, I became very, ‘I hate swimming, this sucks, I know I should have been there.’ And I went to Junior Nationals a couple weeks after, and I got those cuts. It sucks, but I know I can make it at the next Olympic Trials. I worked through it, and in the end, it motivates me, makes me work harder in practice.
“But that was one of many setbacks. I had a rough time with swimming when I first started, how I was treated by some people. But it all made me a better person. I look at where I am now, both as a swimmer and as a person. Swimming is not just a sport for me. It’s taught me life lessons, and I truly believe that that’s what sports are supposed to do for you.”
One of the major lessons that Scott has learned is that you can only fly under the radar for so long. You can only chase the leaders for so long until you become the leader. And learning how to handle that transition is important.
“It was definitely something I was not used to, but I’ve learned that having a target on your back is the best position you can be in,” Scott says. “It means others are aware of you and are intimidated by you.”
“When Morgan was younger, we had a bunch of really good athletes, who are now in college, who were older and faster, and she was gunning for them,” Kukla said. “She broke some of their records, and I’m talking National Age Group record holders, kids who’ve won Nationals, she was breaking some of their records. It’s fun looking up and catching up to them and breaking their records.
“But when you are the top and you know everyone’s coming up behind you, it can be hard to deal with. It was different for her last year, when all those kids had graduated, and now everyone was focusing on her. But she’s embraced it. If anyone comes at her in practice and thinks they can make a name by beating her in practice, she won’t let it happen. Whether it’s in a meet or in practice, Morgan always has that killer instinct. It’s part of what makes her great.”
And while Scott is content to quietly go about her business in the water and doesn’t mind avoiding the spotlights or headlines, her talent and her accomplishments are making it harder and harder to continue swimming “under the radar.”
“Morgan had a swim this year at Junior Nationals that was the talk of the meet,” Kukla said. “It was the 400 free, and Morgan doesn’t normally swim that. She dropped 5 seconds off her time in a meet in mid-July to make Junior Nationals. She comes in with no expectations and dropped 4½ seconds off that. And her finish was amazing.
“At the 300 mark, she’s 2½ seconds behind the leader, Morgan passes her and beat her by a second-and-a-half. She had the fastest last 100 of anyone in the meet, by far, it was so ridiculously fast. But that’s Morgan. She could tell that girl ahead of her was losing it a bit and Morgan can smell the blood in the water. When she got next to her, Morgan just ripped by her.”
Scott’s experience in national-level events has given her the opportunity to measure herself against the best in the world. She’s swam several times against five-time Olympic gold medalist and 14-time world champion Katie Ledecky. She met Olympic silver medalist Elizabeth Beisel at the Olympic Training Center last year, and recalls with awe that Beisel remembered her the next time the two met at the training center.
But once Scott steps up on the starting blocks for the Rams, her aim will be as laser-sharp as ever. While she has a few personal goals she’d like to achieve in her final campaign for Pennridge, her main focus will be to bring success to her team while helping set up the underclassmen for the future.
“Even though Morgan has goals that go above and beyond high school swimming, we have no focus issues with her at all,” Grant said. “During our season, she has very lofty goals she’s set for herself and she knows what she has to do and doesn’t let anyone or anything stand in her way.”
In fact, even with all the high-profile events she’s attended and excelled at, Scott still points to the Rams’ 200 free relay team that won the state championship in record time in 2016 as her most memorable moment in swimming.
“I love being part of relays, working together with girls who are working just as hard as I am,” Scott said. “That’s something that not everyone experiences, being able to set a state record with your friends. I still get goose bumps just talking about it.”
Not surprisingly, Scott is just as intense in the classroom as she is in the pool. In fact, she admits that she actually gets more nervous before a test than she does before a race. That’s not really shocking, considering she’s taking an Honors-heavy courseload this year that includes Anatomy, Criminology, Western Literature, Biology, Psychology, and Political Science. And in the rare moments of downtime between school, practice, meets, homework, meals, and sleep, Scott enjoys hanging with friends, and still plays some songs she learned when she took piano lessons as a youngster.
“My parents are very strict with schoolwork,” Scott said. “They make sure I’ve done my homework before I watch TV or go on my phone.
“They’re the same with swimming, always making sure I have what I need. My dad travels with me most of the time and makes sure I’m doing what I need to do to prepare. Mom does a lot for me. I don’t think she knows that I know, but she’s always making sure I have my pasta and chicken before a meet, packing me the little snack I love, things that make my day. And my little sister Lauren is my best friend. I wouldn’t be able to do everything I do if they weren’t there to support me.”
The next step of her swimming career, however, is one that Scott will take by herself. For someone who loves spending time in the ocean, Scott will head to the decidedly landlocked state of Indiana, where she has accepted a full scholarship to the University of Indiana (the closest large body of water, the southern tip of Lake Michigan, is 200 miles away).
“I was not looking up north at all,” Scott said. “I started my search early in my junior year. I was looking at SEC and ACC schools in warmer states. But during the US World Trial Championships, Indiana reached out, and I made an official visit. The program is amazing, the campus is beautiful. We were really impressed with it.”
Scott is looking to pursue a science degree and is hoping she can make an immediate impact for the nationally ranked Hoosier swim team.
“The coaches told me there’s a spot on the A Medley Relay team and I’ll have an opportunity to be on that,” Scott said. “But I have to earn that. I expect to train hard and eventually earn it. I’m going to do whatever it takes to earn that spot on the relay and see where it goes from there. I want to help as much as I can. I’m not only going for sprint, but also middle distance and backstroke, too. Whatever is best for the team, that’s what I want to do.”
But that’s still many months away. For now, Scott will be focused on going out with a bang … and a couple more district and state medals. And her coaches are going to enjoy watching.
“Morgan is a once-in-a-lifetime athlete to coach,” Grant said. “This is my third year with team and to have an athlete like this, all her groundwork and hard work was laid out before I got there. I’m just happy to have been brought along on this crazy ride.”
“This is my 21st year as a coach, and I’ve graduated many athletes, but when you have a really good athlete for a long period of time, you spend more time with them because you go with them to more meets and go longer into the season,” Kukla said. “That’s when you really get to know them better. I know Morgan better than probably 90 percent of the athletes I’ve ever had. I’m going to miss her tremendously.”
And once Scott has hung up her Pennridge swim cap for the last time, she said she hopes to have imparted upon the next group of swimmers how much she loves being a part of the team and how accomplishing your goals only comes if you put in the time and effort.
Most of all, though, she hopes she’s remembered less for being an outstanding swimmer, and more for being an exemplary person.
“I would love to be remembered as a great swimmer, but more importantly, as someone who was kind and caring and treated everyone as they would like to be treated,” Scott said. “Anyone can be a great swimmer and leave nothing else to be talked about. I would rather be remembered as being kind and nice. I think I’d like to be remembered like that.”
