Jim Morris (baseball coach)

College coach infobox


ImageWidth = 150px
Name = Jim Morris
Caption =
DateOfBirth = birth date and age|1950|2|20
Birthplace =flagicon|USA Lexington, North Carolina
DateOfDeath =
Sport = Baseball
College = Miami (FL)
Title = Head coach
CurrentRecord = 642-245-3
OverallRecord = 1,146-489-4
Awards =
Championships = 1999 College World Series
2001 College World Series
Coach = Y
CoachYears = 1975
1976-1979
1980-1981
1982-1993
1994-present
CoachTeams = Appalachian State (AC)
DeKalb Community College
Florida State (AC)
Georgia Tech
Miami (FL)

Jim Morris (born February 20, 1950 in Lexington, North Carolina) is head baseball coach at the University of Miami. In his 15-season tenure at Miami, no other program has qualified for the College World Series as often as Morris and his Hurricanes. Miami, which has qualified for the NCAA Tournament a record 36 consecutive years, has made it to Omaha in 11 of Morris' 15 seasons in Coral Gables. Morris set an NCAA record for guiding a program to the College World Series in each of his first six years at Miami. In addition, Morris won a record 14 consecutive NCAA Regionals, dating back to his first year in 1994. His teams have qualified for NCAA Regionals for the last 24 years, 15 at Miami and nine at Georgia Tech. [cite web|url=http://hurricanesports.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/mtt/morris_jim02.html|title=hurricanesports.com: Miami (FL) Hurricanes Baseball|accessdate=2008-02-05] Morris won national championships in 1999 and 2001, and earned National Coach of the Year honors in both seasons.

Morris began his coaching career as an assistant at Appalachian State in 1975. In 1976, he then accepted the challenge of building, from scratch, a baseball program at Atlanta's DeKalb Community College.

At DeKalb, Morris started with no players and no field. After settling those "minor" issues, he quickly made a name for himself. His Eagles were nationally ranked three times in four years and advanced to the 1977 Junior College World Series. DeKalb finished second in just his second season. Morris added two more winning years at DeKalb before moving on to become an assistant coach at Florida State.

After a 2 year stint with the Seminoles, Morris would accept a huge challenge in accepting the head coaching job at Georgia Tech. It was a reclamation project as the Yellow Jackets were on the backside of four straight losing seasons and were 4-23 in their first two seasons in the Atlantic Coast Conference. At Georgia Tech, Morris was the all-time leader in coaching victories, in any of the school's varsity sports, as he had 12 straight winning seasons, nine straight NCAA regional berths, four straight Atlantic Coast Conference titles (1985-88) and a school-record 51 wins in 1987.

Head Coaching Record

References