Kevin Morris

Men's Basketball

'Where Are They Now Wednesday': Kevin Morris

Throughout the months of January and February, our weekly 'Where Are They Now Wednesday' features will take a look back at members of the 1991 and 2001 men's basketball teams, as well as 2001 women's basketball team as we celebrate the 30-year and 20-year anniversaries of those teams reaching the NCAA Tournament.

Kevin Morris may not have started his career at Georgia State, but he finished it as a Panther and has gone down as one of the greats of all-time. After transferring in from Georgia Tech, Morris became a three-time all-conference selection and TAAC Newcomer of the Year. He also won the Chevrolet Scholarship Player of the Game after leading the Panthers past No. 6-seed Wisconsin in the 2001 NCAA tournament. He finished his career with the 11th-most points scored in school history, 1,212, despite playing just three seasons. He knocked down 160 3-pointers, seventh-most in school history and stands third with 202 steals. He was a leader on the 2000-01 team that went 29-5, won the TAAC regular season and tournament titles and has had his No. 13 jersey retired in the GSU Sports Arena rafters before being inducted in the inaugural Georgia State Athletics Hall of Fame class.

Talk a little bit about what you have been up to the last 20 years (work, sports, family) since finishing up your time at Georgia State
Over the past 20 years I've just been continuing to grow up and mature into the man I am today. You never stop learning. Since I've finished up at the great GSU, I have had many life experiences - both tragedies and triumphs. I have had two tremendous losses in losing my older brother in 2009 and then a few years later I lost my father. Those events of course we're challenging times, but you have to keep going when life happens.

Also, during those immediate years after graduating from GSU, I had the unique opportunity to play professional basketball both internationally in the Dominican Republic for San Carlos Club and in Poland for Stal Ostrow where I won a Bronze Medal, the highest ranking they have ever accomplished as a basketball club. I also played professionally here in the States in the NBA development league formally known as the D-League, now known as the G- League, for the Ashville Altitude. I also played in the American Basketball Association (ABA) for the Las Vegas Rattlers and the United States Basketball League (USBL) for the Adirondack Wildcats. 

Fast forward and I have been coaching travel basketball here in Georgia for the past 8 years with the Athletic Club of Georgia (AC GEORGIA) founded by Garrick Respress who was a graduate assistant for Coach Driesell back in the day. I also have been working in the Atlanta Public Schools System for the past six years. I have coached at Maynard Jackson High School for two years with Travis Williams, another GSU alum, where we have gone to the region championship and state championship both years. I got married in 2015 to Tiffany Morris, an Attorney at the The Mabra Firm in Midtown. We are the proud parents of two children now, Kevin Jr., born on April 25, 2017, and Kamryn Monroe born on April 26, 2020. So naturally our lives revolve around those two bundles of joy.
Over these years, my jersey was retired at Georgia State and I have been inducted into the Inaugural Class of the Georgia State Hall of Fame which was an honor I can't begin to explain how gratifying it was. So, as you can see, I have experienced life in all it's up and downs in the past 20 years and I'm so grateful to still be here to talk about it. 
 
How did your experience at GSU help you get to where you are now?
My experiences at GSU has shaped the way I have been able to navigate through life over the past 20 years. Georgia State is such a diverse university that you come in contact with so many different races and cultures of people that you learn how to interact and understand the differences between people and also realize that as we may be of different heritages and colors, we are often times very similar in a lot of ways. It gives you great perspective on life and what to expect once you're out in the real world.

What is one thing you would go back and tell your 2001 self?
If I could go back to 2001, I would probably tell myself to do more training and individual workouts. I played all the time. I was constantly in the gym, but I didn't use that time as effectively as I could have. I discounted the importance of individual workouts.

What was so special about that 2001 team?
The 2001 Georgia State Panthers! We were some kind of team! A special group of guys that accomplished something very memorable that can never be taken away from us. That team was so special because for the most part we were able to put our egos aside for the betterment of the Team.

We were about winning games and not individual accolades. We policed ourselves when we saw somebody slipping or getting away from what our goals were for the Team. Also, with all the scoring threats we had on that Team (four guys averaging double figures), we really got after it defensively and that's where a lot of our wins came from. You couldn't just score on us. There was resistance at every position on the floor which led to myself and Shernard Long ending up in the Top 10 in the country in steals and Darryl Cooper wasn't that far behind. Aside from all that, I believe what truly put us over the top with that team was the fact that everyone accepted their role, whether they liked it out not, they accepted it and that says a lot about the caliber of guys that those men were. 

You got to play for Naismith Hall of Fame Coach Charles "Lefty" Driesell. Give us your best Coach Driesell story?
'Lefty' is the ultimate players coach, especially if he trusts you. He was definitely stuck in his ways on certain things that always didn't translate with the attitudes of some of the guys. But off the court there wasn't a thing he wouldn't do for his players. I know one thing he would always say is that all these coaches think they are so special, but at the end of the day 'Players Win Games'.

I remember one time we were practicing in the GSU Sports Arena and there was a kinesiology class going on upstairs on one of the upper courts and they were making noise so 'Lefty' sent one of the assistant coaches up there to tell them to keep the noise down or they had to leave. The assistant came back down and said the professor said they were not leaving - they have class up there every Tuesday and Thursday I think it was - and we couldn't just make them leave. 'Lefty' just lost it! Now I don't know what professor it was, but I guess he didn't realize 'Lefty' wasn't somebody you would want to challenge. All I know is that for the rest of the years I played at Georgia State, there was never another kinesiology class going on in the upper courts of the GSU Sports Arena while we were practicing. 

I also remember 'Lefty' was so mad at halftime of one of the games I think we were playing Stetson and he kicked a hole in the wall in the locker room but his foot got stuck and he almost fell. Coach Perry, I think, caught him and helped him get his foot out. That same speech he wouldn't even call them Stetson he would just refer to them as the 'Green Team' and he said we better not lose to the 'Green Team', we were supposed to eat teams like that for breakfast. 'Lefty' was so competitive, you had no choice but to feed off that energy and expect to win every game against whatever team you were playing against, no matter the name on the jersey.
 
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