Morris in 2014
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Sport(s) | Baseball |
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Current position | |
Title | Head coach |
Team | Miami (FL) |
Record | 1,031–419–3 |
Biographical details | |
Born |
Lexington, North Carolina |
February 20, 1950
Alma mater | Elon College '73 |
Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
1975 | Appalachian State (AC) |
1976–1979 | DeKalb CC |
1980–1981 | Florida State (AC) |
1982–1993 | Georgia Tech |
1994–present | Miami (FL) |
Head coaching record | |
Overall | 1,535–663–4 |
Accomplishments and honors | |
Championships | |
1999 College World Series 2001 College World Series |
|
Awards | |
1983 ACC Coach of the Year 1987 ACC Coach of the Year 1993 ACC Coach of the Year 2008 ACC Coach of the Year |
Jim Morris (born February 20, 1950) is the head baseball coach at the University of Miami and previously held the same position at Georgia Tech. His teams have qualified for NCAA Regionals for the last 32 years, 23 at Miami and nine at Georgia Tech. 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, but 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 two–year stint with the Seminoles, Morris would accept the head coaching job at Georgia Tech. 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.
In his tenure at the University of 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 44 consecutive years, made it to Omaha in 11 of Morris' first 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. Morris returned Miami to Omaha in 2015 and 2016 after a seven year absence. It was announced in June 2014 that Morris would retire following the 2018 season with longtime assistant Gino DiMare as his successor.