Bowen: Late-bloomer from Germantown High at Senior Bowl
MOBILE, Ala. Jordan Morgan Sr. and Delores Morgan were "still in a state of shock," Jordan said Thursday, as they sat in the stands at Ladd-Peebles Stadium and watched their son, Jordan Morgan Jr., practice with the North team for Saturday's Senior Bowl.
MOBILE, Ala. – Jordan Morgan Sr. and Delores Morgan were "still in a state of shock," Jordan said Thursday, as they sat in the stands at Ladd-Peebles Stadium and watched their son, Jordan Morgan Jr., practice with the North team for Saturday's Senior Bowl.
"We're still trying to navigate it all," the player's father said. "We didn't send him to school for that."
The Morgans, from Northeast Philadelphia, have been trying to come to grips with the fact that the eldest of their three children is an NFL draft prospect, an offensive lineman who measured a shade under 6-3 this week and weighed in at 313 pounds. He is tabbed likely to go somewhere in the middle rounds, though he took up the game as a high school senior and walked on at Kutztown.
At Parkway Northwest High, the elder Morgan explained, his son had to either complete a community-service project or play a sport as a graduation requirement. The younger Morgan, a large but bookish kid who'd gotten his dad's blessing to quit basketball at age 13, decided to play football.
There was no football team at Parkway Northwest, so he had to go out for the team at Germantown High. His parents dutifully attended his games, but they didn't see him do much.
"He would be on the bench," the elder Morgan recalled.
Then fate intervened. College scouts would come to the Germantown practices, mainly to see Will Parks, who is now a Denver Broncos safety, after starring at Arizona. One day the younger Morgan came home with some news: he'd been offered a chance to walk on at Kutztown.
A redshirt year ensued. He got stronger and started to figure out what he was doing. The next year, he was a starter.
His father recalls coming to the game in 2014 when Kutztown dedicated its stadium to Hall of Fame receiver Andre Reed. The ceremony was nice, but what was even better was how his son dominated.
"I noticed that he was on a different level," Morgan said.
In 2016, Morgan became the first lineman named offensive player of the year for the PSAC Eastern Division. Saturday, in addition to playing with and against some of the top college players from the SEC, Big Ten and elsewhere, in an on-field ceremony, Morgan will receive the Gene Upshaw Award, given to the top offensive or defensive lineman in Division II football.
"Quite an experience," the younger Morgan said Thursday, following his third day of Senior Bowl practice. "Playing against this level of competition, and just being introduced to this many new and different things, I love it."
After practice, he answered questions from a checklist recited by a Baltimore Ravens scout. NFL teams want to know a prospect's background; Morgan was asked a question aimed at determining whether he came from a single-parent home. He gave his parents' details – dad is a psychotherapist, mom works for the Salvation Army – but didn't tell the scout that in fact, his parents were standing a few feet away, waiting for the interview to conclude.
"It's part of the process," Morgan said. "After a while, the answers start to become programmed, but everybody likes to ask 'em, anyway."
One trait scouting seems to emphasize more and more is love for the game. At the NFL level, where practicing and watching film and maintaining conditioning truly is a job, sometimes how much someone loves and needs football is the difference between success and failure, more than size or talent.
Morgan stumbled into football very late. It's fun when people tell you that you can be really good at something, but is he really committed?
"I think whenever teams watch my tape and they talk to people and find out the type or person I am, I don't think they question that," he said. "I arrived to it a bit late, but I think the love for it is just as much as the next man, if not more."
"He's a good kid, never been in trouble," his father said. He added that his son, who wants to someday own a training facility for athletes, recently got his degree in leisure and sports studies. "Very disciplined person . . . Never had to ask him about the homework."
Is the younger Morgan as shocked as his parents are to be in the middle of the draft process?
"From the beginning, I never expected to be here, but I know I gave my everything in the journey to be here," he said. "I know that I deserve to be here, and that I'm continuing to impress, so I just want to keep doing that."
At Kutztown, he was a tackle. This is his first week as a guard; Morgan lacks the length NFL teams covet in a tackle. His quick feet and strong hands have served him well, though.
"It's a bit of a transition, but I think I'm handling it well," he said. "Most importantly, I'm having fun doing it, too."
He said he feels he fits in with the other players in Mobile, at least until they start asking each other about their schools.
"Nooobody knows about Kutztown," Morgan said with a sigh. "Where you from? And they'll be like 'Western Michigan,' or 'Alabama.' Everybody will say, 'Yeah, I know about that.' They'll ask me where I'm from. 'Kutztown.' They'll be like, 'What?' Then I have to explain that to them . . . It's definitely different."
Morgan's journey is a big deal for Kutztown, a school of about 8,500 students between Reading and Allentown, in Berks County. Morgan flew down, but the school's director of university relations, Matt Santos, drove to Mobile with sports information director Bryan Salvadore.
They logged 17 hours on the road Monday, Santos said, stopping for the night just north of Montgomery, Ala., leaving themselves with a 21/2-hour drive Tuesday morning.
"Thankfully, Jordan had the second practice Tuesday," Santos said.
Santos was at Kutztown when linebacker John Mobley played in the 1996 Senior Bowl, but Santos didn't go to Mobile with Mobley, who was drafted 15th overall, by the Broncos. "I was with him at Madison Square Garden when he was drafted," Santos recalled.
Morgan is the school's first Senior Bowl invitee since Mobley, so Santos and Salvadore decided this was a rare enough occasion to warrant a road trip.
They'll have a shorter journey if they want to accompany Morgan to the draft, which is in Philadelphia.
@LesBowen
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