The Godfather

Ro and Morgan in 2015 at a party to remember Ro’s father, Doonie Waldron. Doonie and Morgan were life-long friends.

Ro’s godfather Morgan Wootten died on Tuesday at 88 years old. In his honor, we are sharing the Words of Encouragement Ro wrote about him several years ago. To learn more about Morgan and his incredible basketball coaching career, you can read his obituary here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/morgan-wootten-winningest-high-school-basketball-coach-dies-at-88/2020/01/22/a7ad57b0-3c61-11ea-baca-eb7ace0a3455_story.html

My godfather is Morgan Wootten, the legendary Dematha High School basketball coach. He started his career as the basketball coach at an orphanage. He was then hired by a program at a Catholic high school in Hyattsville – Dematha. He spent the next 46 years building that program into a national basketball powerhouse with few peers. His career concluded with Morgan receiving the sport’s highest honor – induction into the National Basketball Hall of Fame.

It would take pages for me to list all of his many achievements during his long career. But I will highlight what I consider one of his most important achievements and one of the achievements that reveal the most about Morgan’s personal character: in 46 years at Dematha, every single graduating senior basketball player received at least one offer of a full scholarship to college.

Many of Morgan’s former players went on to become successful coaches on the college and pro levels. Others achieved success outside of basketball in various professional and business fields. Why were so many of Morgan’s players able to translate their success at Dematha into success in their later lives? I think a large part of it is because Morgan stayed involved in their lives even after they graduated from Dematha. In a recent Washington Post article, Morgan recalled that “People would come to me and they’d say, ‘What kind of year did you have?’ I would say, ‘See me in about 15 to 20 years and I’ll tell you what kind of year we had.’” [1] He measured his success not by how many wins that year’s team had or whether or not they played for the national title. Rather, it was how the players turned out in 15 or 20 years that defined success for my godfather.

Chuck Brown is widely considered the Godfather of Gogo, the unique DC music genre. I would say Morgan Wootten is the Godfather of High School Basketball in the DC area. In the last 50 or so years the DC area has become one of the top basketball regions in the country (the current record of our professional men’s team notwithstanding). Much of the talent and interest in the game that has prompted that transformation originated at Dematha High School in Hyattsville, MD.

I love you, Morgan. You’ve been as good of a godfather to me as you were a coach to your boys at Dematha. I can’t think of any higher praise to give.

Have a great weekend,

Ro