Water Polo, Swimming
Favorite athlete: Derek Jeter
Favorite team: The New York Yankees
Favorite memory competing in sports: Getting third place in the 200 free relay junior year.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When the upperclassmen made me dance on a chair at Hooters my sophomore year when they said it was my birthday…it wasn’t.
Music on iPod: Kendrick Lamar, Mumford and Sons, Kesha, pretty much anything
Future plans: Go to college and major in political science
Words to live by: ‘Decide what to be and go be it.’
One goal before turning 30: To improve as a person everyday.
One thing people don’t know about me: I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina
By Mary Jane Souder
Jack Morris, underneath a laidback exterior, is a fierce competitor.
Coach Jeff Faikish recalls his team’s tightly contested meet against Souderton this year when the North Penn senior answered the call.
“Souderton was a very formidable opponent, and the meet was a lot closer than I expected,” the Knights’ coach said. “During the post-diving warm-up, Jack stopped at the wall, he picks up his head and looks at me. He knows we needed a win, and the first race after diving is the 100 butterfly. Souderton had Triston Loux, and he’s a very fast butterflier, so we knew it was going to be a tight race.
“Jack looked up at me and he goes, ‘You know what – I’m going to go 51 and win.’ My answer to him was, ‘Okay, let me see you do it.’”
Morris swam a 51 and easily won the race.
“That’s exactly what we needed,” Faikish said.
According to Morris, the butterfly can be an unpredictable stroke.
“The thing with butterfly is some days you can feel that you’re just on, and other days you’re just fighting and you don’t know what happened,” Morris said. “That day I was feeling good. I just decided I’m going to race this really hard and see what happens.”
It is that competitive drive that allows Morris to excel.
“He knows that as a North Penn swimmer you have to accept the challenge of always trying to be the dominant force in the water,” Faikish said. “When you are looking for someone to turn the momentum of the swim meet in your favor, he’s one of the kids that you can turn to to try and get a win. He’s a fantastic competitor.”
Watching Morris deliver when his team needed it most was not unusual. In the Knights’ meet against highly regarded Emmaus, the Knights needed a win after picking up a second and third in the medley relay.
“He went out and just outright won the 200 freestyle,” Faikish said.
Winning races was just one of many reasons why Morris was a natural choice for captain.
“He’s a very hard worker,” Faikish said. “He’s always – if not the last kid out of the weight room – then he’s definitely one of the last kids out of the weight room.
“Swimming is a sport – a majority of it happens in the pool, but there’s a big piece that happens during dry land and weight training, and he’s a leader in all avenues.
“He’s not your outright vocal leader. Where he leads, he leads by example. When you throw a challenging set out and tell the kids to try and accomplish a specific time, he will push himself to try and accomplish that time.”
Morris also found a way to add light moments to the Knights’ rigorous training regiment.
“He’s a funny kid,” Faikish said. “As draining, as taxing and monotonous as this sport can be, there were moments when he would just make a statement with a squint in his eye and a smile on his face.
“You would turn around and look at one of the assistant coaches or some of the kids in the pool and just start laughing. It was like, ‘Where did that come from?’”
Morris recently saw his high school career come to an end at the PIAA Class AAA Championships at Bucknell, and what an ending it was for the senior standout, who swam the anchor leg of the final event of the meet – the 400 free.
“The 400 is three sophomores and Jack Morris,” Faikish said. “I pulled everyone in, and my little pre-400 relay speech before the final was, ‘Let’s send Jack off on a good note. He’s earned it. Let’s give it to him.’
“It was coming up on his eighth race of the weekend, and he was the one who answered his own call. He threw up a time that was just insane – 45.5 as the anchor leg. It was a phenomenal split. I couldn’t believe my watch. I had to go back and do the actual math from the touch pad.”
The Knights finished fourth, and as endings go, they don’t get much better than that. “That was incredible,” Morris said. “Considering where we were at the beginning of the season, I would have never thought we would be in the ‘A’ final at states with three sophomores.
“The improvement from beginning to end of the season was incredible. The sophomores on our team are way faster than I was when I was a sophomore. Over the course of the year, they just broke out. It was really cool. It’s definitely something I’ll always remember. The feeling is indescribable.”
Morris, who also competed in the 100 butterfly and 200 free relay, also medaled in the 200 free, finishing fourth. While most swimmers would be ecstatic with a fourth place finish, Morris is not most swimmers.
“My expectations were really high going into the season and going into the meet,” he said. “I was expecting to break 1:40 and get at least third, maybe second.
“I didn’t regret my race strategy or how I swam it or my training or anything. I was baffled because I thought with all the work I put in I would be capable of more, but I have no excuses.”
Still, winning two medals at states is no small feat.
“I can’t complain,” Morris said.
Morris has been swimming with Towamencin Aquatic Club since he was six years old. Back then, it was one of many sports in his life.
“A lot of my friends joined the swim team,” he said. “My family had no swimming background, but since my friends joined, I wanted to join.
“I was pretty good when I was little, and I just stuck with it.”
Baseball remains a part of his life. Although Morris no longer plays for the high school team, he will be a key member of Hatfield’s American Legion squad this summer.
“It’s funny because I would definitely say up until senior year baseball was my priority,” Morris said. “That’s the sport I wanted to play in college, that’s what I wanted to do.
“It just shifted somehow. I play baseball now because I love it and I have fun playing and I just love the guys I’m doing it with.”
While Morris, who also competed in water polo, experienced success in the pool from the outset, it was a successful junior year that catapulted the North Penn senior to the next level. As a junior, Morris finished 11th in states in the 200 free and was part of the Knights’ third place 200 free relay. He also competed in the 100 free and 400 free relay at states.
“I just started taking the sport more seriously,” he said. “After my junior year, I was like, ‘I want to see what I’m capable of if I train as hard as I can all year round.’”
The results speak for themselves, and Morris plans to continue his swimming career in college. At what level depends on the school he chooses.
“It’s going to be a really, really tough decision,” Morris said. “There are schools I could go to and swim at, and I would be the best kid going into the school. I wouldn’t get much better, and swimming wouldn’t be that much of a priority.
“But I’m also thinking of walking on to a really good swimming school and trying to work my way up and improve and see how good I can be. I just have to decide how big I want swimming to be part of my life. I’m not sure which direction I want to take yet.”
An excellent student, Morris, who plans to major in political science, is enrolled in numerous AP classes.
“I like to challenge myself a lot,” he said.
For Morris, that has been a formula for success in both the classroom and the pool.
