Morgan Leads UW Talent Hunt After Dealing with Husky Recruiting Drama as Player
Considering all of the suspense surrounding his own University of Washington football recruitment, it seems only right that Courtney Morgan now leads the perpetual talent hunt for the Huskies.
In 1999, Morgan was a budding offensive lineman from Los Angeles who was at dinner on his recruiting trip to Colorado when Buffaloes coach Rick Neuheisel suddenly announced he was taking the UW job.
Morgan had planned to visit Washington but he never made it to Seattle. He'd developed a strong connection with Ron Milus, a former Husky player and the cornerbacks coach for Jim Lambright's coaching staff. Two players from his Westchester High School near Los Angeles International Airport, defensive tackle Larry Tripplett and inside linebacker Chris Waddell, were on the UW roster. He grew up watching Husky football on TV.
Yet the situation became overly complicated for him.
"Coach Lambright was out and Rick tried to recruit me to here," Morgan recalled. "There was too much going on. Ultimately, Michigan was where I wanted to go."
Morgan would grow into a 6-foot-3, 300-pound player for the Big Ten powerhouse, appearing in 28 games and starting 11, while playing each of the five positions on the offensive line. He was on Michigan teams that split home and away games with the Huskies, taking part in a 31-29 Wolverines victory in Ann Arbor in 2002.
Courtney Morgan was recruited by the Huskies
Dan Raley
Twenty months ago, he also was the Michigan director of player personnel, which is a fancy title for recruiting coordinator, when Kalen DeBoer was hired by the UW and coaxed Morgan to join him in Montlake.
"I enjoyed it, it was great being back," Morgan said of working in Ann Arbor. "But I knew Coach DeBoer was going to do something special here and I wanted to be part of it."
It seems people have been continuously fighting over the services of this personable and persuasive man who's always been a salesman. Besides acquiring football talent, he's sold medical devices and founded Pro Influence Group that brought athletes, entertainers and businesses together in creative opportunities.
Over the past four years, he's been the recruiting guru for four different schools — the UW, Michigan, Fresno State and San Jose State, plus he spent the 2012 and 2013 seasons at UCLA in that capacity well before that. The common denominator has been DeBoer at two of those stops.
The people at Morgan's alma mater were more than a little incredulous when he left the Wolverines football program after just a single season to join the Huskies.
"No, they didn't understand it," he said. "Michigan people feel there is no better place than Michigan, which is true. Michigan is a great place."
Yet his previous association with DeBoer for just that one season at Fresno State in 2020 was so memorable it was enough to lure him back to the West Coast.
"When you work in this business for awhile, it's about the people and nothing else," Morgan said. "In football, you work so closely with your staff every day, you want to be with people you enjoy being around."
At one point, it was just DeBoer and Morgan as UW football hires before everyone else was brought on board in a hurry following the coaching change.
"I won't say it was a no-brainer, [because] it was a hard decision," Morgan recalled. "But I knew it was good to go work for him."
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