Gary Griffin believes Columbus High School has the right man for the job.
Sammy Smith echoes that sentiment, as does Luther Riley.
Anthony Carlyle also feels Phillip Morris will do well as the new boys basketball coach at Columbus High.
The men have a great frame of reference because they preceded Morris in that role in the last four seasons.
Riley made history in leading the 2015-16 Columbus High squad to the program’s first state championship. Two years later, Carlyle duplicated the feat with a defensive brand of basketball that stifled opponents.
Even though Morris is the least experienced and youngest coach in the group, the other four believe he knows what it takes to succeed and to survive at a school where there has been plenty of turnover.
“I am not going to sit here and say I knew he was going to be a basketball coach, but I knew he was going to be a leader in something he was doing because at that age he was a leader and not a follower,” said Griffin, who coached Morris when he was in the middle school prior to his time under Smith on the Columbus High varsity program. “You could tell the maturity process he had at that young age. He had kids following him who were much older than him at that age. There was just something about him that there were going to be a lot of special dimensions about him.”
Griffin, who is the head girls and boys basketball coach at Caledonia High, said Morris led by example and showed people how to do things the right way. He said Morris always had the “vibe” he was all about business. Griffin said Morris, who was his assistant coach at Columbus High, was the same way as a coach. He said he will need that maturity to be patient with a young team following the graduation of Robert Woodard II, the two-time Gatorade Player of the Year from the state of Mississippi, and a talented group of seniors.
“His biggest challenge is going to be to fight within himself,” Griffin said. “It is a process. … He gets to go in there and build his own program from scratch, you could say. He has some pieces that have been around, but most of the guys graduated last year, so he gets an opportunity to rebuild a program. He just needs to recognize and realize it doesn’t happen overnight and that it is going to take some time to get it how he wants it to be.”
Smith, who coached in Columbus for 20-plus years, stepped away from his work as a coach and as athletic director after the 2017-18 school year. He said he didn’t know if the Columbus Municipal School District Board of Trustees would name Morris as Columbus High’s new boys basketball coach after Carlyle left in the summer to become the boys basketball coach at Yazoo City High and the athletic coordinator for that school district. Smith said it was “one of the proudest moments” when he learned in July that Morris had been named head coach.
“Phillip was tough nosed and real coachable,” Smith said. “All of the intangibles were there.”
Smith said he “knew he had somebody he could trust” when Morris was on the court. He felt the same way when he hired Morris to be an assistant coach. Smith felt no one was more deserving than Morris to take the job because he has waited his turn and had learned from the previous coaches. As a result, Smith feels Morris is “wise beyond his years.”
Carlyle also saw a young man who is older than his years last season when Morris worked for him as an assistant coach.
“I think he is going to do great,” Carlyle said. “We talk just about every day or every other day, something basketball related, some things not. He is very enthusiastic, and I think he is looking for to this challenge. I think he is grateful for the opportunity he has, so he is eager to get started.”
Carlyle feels “basketball is basketball,” so it doesn’t matter if someone is transitioning from a smaller classification to a larger one or from junior varsity to varsity play. He also believes Morris has the right personality to handle coaching at Columbus High. He said “it takes a lot” to make Morris upset, but that Morris means what he says and expects his players to follow direction and to be accountable. He said liked what he saw from Morris at a practice last week and made mental notes of a few things he saw that he will try with his guys.
“I think he will be fine because he is a student of the game,” Carlyle said.
Riley said he was thrown into his first coaching job at Provine High when he was 26, so he understands what it is like for a young coach to face high expectations. Given that Morris is from Columbus, he said he likely will face a tougher time than he did starting out when he said he was a “no name.” Still, Riley said Morris’ patience and maturity will serve him well.
“From a character point of view, you can’t find a better person,” said Riley, who is the head boys basketball coach at Jackson Murrah High. “I think he will be up to the challenge. He is not the type of coach who is going to scream and holler. I think he is a silent storm.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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