In the Spotlight - Colorado College's Justin Morrison
Dec. 22, 2000
By P.J. Slinger
There's no doubting Justin Morrison's dedication to the game of hockey.
As a kid in his mid-teens, Morrison, from Los Angeles, would get up at 4:30 a.m. every Thursday just so he could play an hour of shinny hockey with some friends at a not-so-local rink.
"I was excited to get up. I was excited just to go to sleep so I could get up," the Colorado College senior forward said. You think that's dedication? How do you think he got to the rink, which was 45 minutes away (and 90 minutes back during rush hour)?
"I have to thank my mom for that," said Morrison. "We did that for at least three years. We'd always hit rush hour on the way to school." But Karan Morrison said it wasn't that bad.
"We just told him he had to keep his schoolwork up," she said. "But we knew he would. He was with a group of boys that were all like-minded." Morrison said if he wanted to play hockey, there really weren't any alternatives to that early-morning routine.
"Ice time was so limited, so we really looked forward to it," he said. "You have to take it when you can get it," his mother added. "But I enjoyed it. It was a decision we made as parents to be as supportive as we could. And we thought playing hockey was a very positive activity for young boys to do."
Although in L.A. it was more unusual than anything. Morrison said the closest rink to his West L.A. home was about 15 minutes away.
"My friends took me skating, you know, public skating, when I was about 10," he said. "Then I saw people playing hockey and it looked like fun and I wanted to play. I had to convince my parents to let me play. They thought I was crazy."
Maybe not crazy, but surprising for sure.
"He came home from the local rink and said he wanted to play hockey," Karan said. "I had no idea kids around here wanted to play hockey. I had no idea about hockey in general."
It just so happened that Justin's interest in hockey came about the same time that NHL Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky joined the Los Angeles Kings.
"That was all coincidental," Karan said. "Every local rink has a hockey club, and he just said that sounded like fun. It just so happened it was the same time Gretzky came to town. But that had nothing to do with (Justin) wanting to play hockey."
Justin agreed.
"I didn't know anything about hockey other than it was fun," he admitted. "Most kids played basketball or baseball, but I didn't really care. I wondered why more people didn't play hockey. It was so fun."
Helping Justin's cause was an innate ability to play the game.
"I caught on pretty quickly for starting out so late," he said. "But I also had to work pretty hard to catch up to everyone. I went to clinics, camps and I played a lot of street hockey with my friends because there weren't any outdoor rinks, obviously."
And as for indoor rinks, they had a hard time finding them, too.
"We had to go all over to get ice time," Morrison said. "I credit my mom, who drove us all around, anywhere from 15 minutes away to sometimes two hours. There aren't a whole lot of rinks, and the ones they do have are so crowded."
But Karan said that was all part of being a parent. And she didn't want to stifle his natural ability, either.
"We saw he had skill right away," she said. "When he first started, he didn't know the game as well as some of the others, but you could tell he had the skills right off the bat. And in no time at all he was playing on the better traveling teams."
By his second year of organized hockey he was playing for the Southern California Junior Kings, along with such players as Alex Kim and Noah Clarke, who now are also teammates of his at Colorado College.
And being from the Los Angeles area obviously wasn't a detriment to their hockey-playing ability.
"Once they started playing other teams, we found out these kids are as good as other kids around the country," Karan said. "And Justin's an athletic guy and can pick things up pretty quickly. Hockey just clicked with him."
And if being a hockey player from L.A. didn't put Morrison in the minority already, he also is a minority. His father is African-American and his mother is Caucasian.
"Growing up mulatto was harder than it is now," he said. "I went through some tough times. Some other kids I played against maybe didn't accept me. But as far as anyone I've ever played with, it's never been a problem, especially in California. And the more mature I got, the more I was able to cope with it. Kids used to crack jokes, but I didn't care. Most of them thought it was cool."
Morrison has not been alone, either as a L.A. area player or as a minority in a dominantly white person's sport. Berk Nelson, who played with Morrison on the Tigers until completing his eligibility last season, also was from Los Angeles and black. And now Sean Cromarty, a freshman, is also black.
"It's weird enough to have one black kid on a team, but to have two is very unusual," Morrison said.
And now with Clarke and Kim, a transfer from Miami University, on the Tigers, there are three L.A.-area kids on the roster.
"I was really pushing for them to come here," Morrison said. "I'm glad it worked out that way. It's kind of nice having three California kids playing together."
Morrison, like his L.A. neighbors Clarke and Kim, played for the better teams in California growing up. Morrison continued to improve and played for the Anaheim Junior Ducks as a high school freshman. He then played for the Harbor Red Wings and then again for Junior Ducks as a junior.
"That team always competed against better teams, but we always had to play tournaments all over, like in Canada, because there was never good enough competition in Los Angeles," he said. Morrison played for the National Under-18 team after his junior year on the team that won the silver medal in British Columbia.
"That's where I first started getting noticed (by colleges)," Morrison said. "That's when CC got in touch with me." As a senior in high school, he moved away and played for the Omaha Lancers of the United States Hockey League to hone those skills for college.
"I started off slow my first year at Omaha, and so I think a lot of teams backed off on me. But CC didn't. I didn't know what to expect in college. I never grew up watching college hockey because there weren't any teams that were close."
And it seems that Colorado College was glad I kept pursuing him. In his career with the Tigers, Morrison has 43 goals and 50 assists for 93 points in 134 games (through Dec. 21). So far in 2000-01, Morrison has nine goals, seven assists and 16 points in 16 games and has three game-winning goals against the likes of Michigan Tech, Minnesota-Duluth and North Dakota and has assisted on two other game-winners.
For all the success Morrison has had playing hockey, he knows much of it is due to his parents' dedication, both financially and time-wise. His father is a high school principal and his mom does home day care.
"Mom and dad scraped to get me by, to get me to all the tournaments," he said. "It was real tough financially for them. But somehow, someway they did it."
And now Justin is helping them by being a scholarship player for he Tigers.
"Colorado College is an excellent school and it's being paid for -- and
not by us," Karan said. "That's a huge benefit."
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