by Brent Harris<\/p>\n
WHEN CLYDE MORGAN\u00a0TOOK OVER THE WABASH TRACK\u00a0and\u00a0field program following the\u00a0retirement of legendary and beloved Coach Rob Johnson H\u201977, he had a lot more\u00a0to do than work with runners to develop\u00a0speed and endurance.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach Johnson was an excellent track and\u00a0field coach, but he was also a great people person,\u201d says Morgan, now a\u00a0six-time North Coast Athletic\u00a0Conference Coach of the Year. \u201cI had to follow\u00a0someone who cared a lot about everyone around him.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Morgan, that wasn\u2019t an obstacle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was one of the reasons I came here,\u201d he\u00a0says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really think of myself as a life coach,\u00a0not a track coach,\u201d Morgan says. \u201cIt\u2019s great that guys get to train to become\u00a0All-Conference or All-American\u00a0athletes. But what\u2019s important to me is that a\u00a0guy feels that if he has something going on in his life, he can call me. I\u2019ll\u00a0go around and ask that question of\u00a0the guys at practice and I\u2019ll look them in\u00a0the eye and make sure I believe them when they say yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The life-coach role that Morgan cherishes\u00a0shows in the slogans and sayings he\u2019s plastered on the walls of the Knowling\u00a0Field House. The 8\u00bd x 11\u00a0sheets of paper with these phrases are available for\u00a0anyone to see and take to heart:<\/p>\n
Talent is nothing\u00a0without toughness.<\/em><\/p>\n Attitudes are\u00a0contagious…is yours worth catching?<\/em><\/p>\n Luck is what you have\u00a0left over after you give 100 percent.<\/em><\/p>\n JOHNSON SINGS THE\u00a0PRAISES\u00a0of his replacement to anyone who\u00a0will listen: \u201cWabash College is lucky to have Clyde Morgan. He came in and hit\u00a0the ground\u00a0running. He looks like Ray Lewis from the Baltimore Ravens, but he\u00a0cares for his athletes like Mike Tomlin from the Pittsburgh Steelers.<\/p>\n \u201cI came out of a high-school situation, so\u00a0it took me a couple of\u00a0years to get\u00a0adjusted to both Wabash and to coaching college athletes. Clyde was a\u00a0very\u00a0successful college coach at Thiel College. He came in and upgraded the program;\u00a0he\u2019s bringing in big numbers of quality kids who are good students,\u00a0good\u00a0people, and good athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n WABASH\u00a0WAS\u00a0FORTUNATE TO LAND\u00a0MORGAN.\u00a0It took a phone call from a fellow\u00a0coach to set the wheels in motion.<\/p>\n Morgan, who was recently inducted into the\u00a0Thiel Athletics Hall of Fame for his accomplishments as a student-athlete and\u00a0coach, was ready to move on\u00a0in 2009. He ran every head coaching position by his\u00a0friend and mentor, Bill Ross, who was then track and field coach at NCAC cross\u00a0country and track\u00a0powerhouse Allegheny College. And every time, Ross replied\u00a0the choice was not the right fit.<\/p>\n Then came the Wabash job.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first mentioned Wabash to Bill, he\u00a0told me \u2018No, you don\u2019t want to go there,\u2019 but he chuckled after he said it,\u201d\u00a0Morgan says.\u00a0\u201cI asked him what the deal with Wabash was. His answer was simple: \u2018I don\u2019t\u00a0want to deal with you at another conference school.\u2019 Then he got serious and\u00a0said, \u2018I\u2019ve been telling you what to do since 1995. I\u2019m telling you now to go\u00a0after this one. It\u2019s the right place for you.\u2019 When your mentor tells you that,\u00a0you\u00a0have to go after it hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Morgan did just that. A few weeks after\u00a0applying for the position he was on campus interviewing. Midway through the\u00a0day, he felt the match was ideal.<\/p>\n \u201cI snuck away just before lunch to eat an\u00a0energy bar and get ready for the rest of the process,\u201d Morgan says. \u201cWhile I\u00a0did that I called [my wife] Jen and\u00a0told her \u2018You\u2019d better be ready to move,\u00a0because if they offer me the job, we\u2019re coming here. This is the right fit.\u201d<\/p>\n THE MOMENT THE MORGAN\u00a0FAMILY\u00a0arrived in Crawfordsville, the new\u00a0coach\u2019s predecessor became one of his biggest supporters.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a lot of people telling me, \u2018You\u00a0have some big shoes to fill,\u2019\u201d Morgan says. \u201cCoach Johnson was the first person\u00a0defending me, telling everyone\u00a0\u2018This is the right guy.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI already knew I had huge shoes to fill. I\u00a0was excited by the idea Johnson would still be around. He\u2019s a springboard.\u00a0Johnson will help anyone, and\u00a0that\u2019s the kind of person I strive to be. And if\u00a0need be, he\u2019ll be that guy who puts his foot down and pushes someone to be better,\u00a0to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Morgan dovetailed his style and philosophy\u00a0to the previous success of Johnson. One of the things that came out of that\u00a0merger was the now-familiar\u00a0slogan that guides the program\u2014Men of Wabash,\u00a0Nothing Breaks Us (MOWNBU).<\/p>\n \u201cI loved the phrase Coach Johnson always\u00a0used\u2014\u2018I am a Wabash Man!\u2019\u201d Morgan explains. \u201cThe \u2018nothing breaks us\u2019 portion\u00a0was actually created around\u00a02004 at Thiel. Things come to me when I run, and\u00a0that phrase popped into my head during a run at a time when so many people I\u00a0was around were going\u00a0through struggles and adversity in their lives. I cut the\u00a0workout short, ran back to the office, and wrote it down.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I got to\u00a0Wabash, I really thought the two ideals fit perfectly,\u00a0so our team combined them to create MOWNBU. The two\u00a0phrases matched up so\u00a0well; my mom tells me it\u2019s just another sign that says\u00a0this was meant to be.<\/p>\n \u201cThose six letters go beyond this program.\u00a0Other people on campus\u2014students, men and women on the staff, faculty,\u00a0administration, parents, alumni\u2014it\u00a0works for anyone.<\/p>\n \u201cWe made up cards with NBU on one side and\u00a0a quote from\u00a0Dr. Martin Luther King on the other\u2014\u2018The ultimate measure of a man is not where\u00a0he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands\u00a0at times\u00a0of challenge and controversy.\u2019\u00a0I pass those cards out to people I meet who may be going through challenges in\u00a0life.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really hits home when I get a letter\u00a0from someone who talks about MOWNBU getting them through their problems.\u00a0They\u2019re using that simple program\u00a0philosophy on other levels.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson believes Wabash is in a golden age\u00a0of track and field, with much of the credit going to its current stable of\u00a0coaches.<\/p>\n \u201cWabash\u00a0is fortunate,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cIt has what I refer to as the Dynamic Duo in\u00a0Coach Morgan and Coach Roger Busch. Those two\u00a0are\u00a0great\u2014I don\u2019t mean good, I mean great\u2014young coaches. J. Owen\u00a0Huntsman\u00a0was a very good coach, I think I was a pretty good coach, but Morgan and\u00a0Busch\u00a0are great coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Brent Harris Meet the man behind MOWNBU\u2014”Men of Wabash, Nothing Breaks Us” WHEN CLYDE MORGAN\u00a0TOOK OVER THE WABASH TRACK\u00a0and\u00a0field program following the\u00a0retirement of legendary and beloved Coach Rob Johnson H\u201977, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speaking-of-sports"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2014\/09\/morganwaterman2013indoornatlslores-1024x682.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}