Weekend Words – The Godfather

Ro, great article about a fascinating man. You are spot on about the person he is. When I think of Morgan and my personal experiences with him, what first comes to mind has little to do with basketball, and much to do with life and character. To interact with Morgan (however brief), is to get the sense that you have a personal relationship with him. That can’t be possible with everyone, but it goes to show how patient, understanding, sensitive and empathetic a man he is. He has a sense of humor and whit that would warrant gigs on the comedy circuit, and wisdom that even Solomon might come to seek (well, perhaps he might consider it, if merely to supplement his own).

His humor would be self-deprecating and disarming. He’d tip over to you, warily looking in both directions so as to ensure that he what he was about to impart would be shared with you in the strictest of privacy, and ask with all seriousness, “Have you seen a picture of my girlfriend?” The first time he asked me that, I went into palpitations, knowing that he was an honorable man and wondering what I was getting into. Before I could answer, he pulled out his wallet, and then a picture from it, showing me a girl with eyes so crossed she was almost cycloptic, ears so big she could receive (and likely send) radio signals signals, a neck skinnier than a turkey’s, and buck teeth virtually horizontal. I bit my tongue, raised one brow and held what was becoming a dizzying gaze, praying all the while for some manner of safe escape. When I looked back up at Morgan, he returned an interminable glance that was seemingly wanting of a high compliment…and then he’d burst into laughter! My favorite was when he’d teamed up with the uber comedic DeMatha great, Pete Strickland, to give an instructional on the various types of defensive players- with emphasis on the master of “Matador Defense”. You’d better have a diaper on or be near a restroom.

My brother, Doug, once an outstanding cager in his own right, is quick to also recall Morgan’s great penchant for prompting laughter. He always recounts a particular incident that occurred during a session at the basketball camp of which Morgan was the co-director.

On an occasion when Morgan was teaching defensive skills to a group of approximately twenty campers, he reached a point where a technique called “Step-sliding” would routinely be demonstrated and, accordingly, called out for a volunteer. In an instant, five campers jumped to him before he could motion to the extras to stay seated. Being the diplomatic person Morgan typically is, he didn’t simply take the first individual before him and quickly dismiss the rest. Instead, he asked that first person a question that he would then ask the other four, in order to give each of the others an equal opportunity to be the demonstrator. “How many fingers am I holding up behind my back?” Morgan asked, with his right arm curled behind him, as he was turning to point with his left hand to the next camper to ask the same. In his excitement, the first camper screamed, “fifteen!” You could hear a pin drop. In fact, so quiet was it, there in upper northwest, that you could hear policy discussions downtown on Capital Hill. Anyone who knew Morgan knew that the young man was going to receive a retort to be remembered for the ages. Morgan now with his left thumb and index finger clamping his chin, was frozen, looking off into the distant clouds with an expression much like Rodin’s famous sculpture, The Thinker, and slow blinked (like Tim Conway) for what seemed like the next five minutes. Everyone within a stones throw was doubled over in laughter. Guts were splitting everywhere. No one could catch a breath. Minutes later, Morgan, now strait faced and crinkle browed, then asked the youngster, “What are the odds that behind my back…?”, which, before he could finish his rhetorical question, prompted another round of cataclysmic guffawing. Campers were recklessly rolling back and forth atop each other, counselors were leaning on poles, trashcans, stair railings, parked cars, anything, as they streamed tears. Coach “Joey G”, Morgan’s co-director and good friend- who could be equally as funny- made matters even more hilarious when he marched with urgency over to the young man, glaring at his forehead as though he’d suffered a head injury, futilely searching for a justifiable reason for such a response. Aching and drained, we had no more session, I don’t believe. This happened during the mid morning session. Folk, including me, were still laughing about it, at the slightest reminder, as we were releasing campers to their parents later that afternoon. For the reminder of the summer, if you wanted to kid someone about a brief mental slip, you’d say to him or her just the first three words, “How many fingers…?”, follow it with slow blinking, and laughter would erupt. Some of us even took that reference into the next school year.

Forty years later, Doug will call and, without greeting me, ask, in his best Morganesque voice, “How many fingers am I holding up behind my back?” Rarely can we fight through the laughter. We simply hang up and save conversation for another time.