Jason Morris
Jason Morris
Title: Head Beach Volleyball Coach / Assistant Women's Volleyball Coach
Phone: (423) 636-7328
Email: jmorris@tusculum.edu

Jason Morris joined the Pioneer women's volleyball staff as an assistant coach just ahead of the 2019 season. He added the role of beach volleyball head coach in June 2020.

Year three under Morris was the program's most successful season to date, finishing with a 22-11 record. He also becomes the winningest head coach in program history with 29 victories. The Pioneers repeated as the SAC Beach Challenge champions and collected the AVCA Small College Beach Championship Bronze Playoff title, while Destiny Ramsey and Morgan Pacione won the Pairs Challenge at the AVCA event. Haley Davis became the first in program history to reach 50 wins (53) and the duo of Olivia Knutson and Katie McLamb racked up the single-season victory record (25). The freshmen pair earned the prestigious AVCA Top Flight award. In the classroom, the beach team recieved a third-straight USMC/AVCA Team Academic Award and had 21 listed on the TU Athletic Director's Honor Roll, with five student-athletes recognized via the Division II Athletic Directors Association (D2 ADA) Academic Achievement Award.

In his first season as the full-time beach leader, the Morris-led team ended as a semifinalist in the Silver Bracket at the AVCA Small College Beach Championship. Destiny Ramsey and Madalyn Bass earned a runner-up finish in the Pairs Challenge Bronze A Playoff. Overall, TU racked up a 7-9 record and swept through the SAC Beach Challenge as the tournament champions. In the classroom, five of his student-athletes collected Division II Athletic Directors Association (D2 ADA) Academic Achievement Awards.

As the interim in 2020, he contributed to the beach squad before COVID-19 made its impact on collegiate athletics. The second-year team was in the midst of a Florida swing against tough competition when the decision was made to end the season, going 2-8 in the shortened campaign.  

Morris, a native of Ocala, Florida, spent the 2019 indoor season on the TU bench, helping lead the Pioneers to their most successful campaign since 2014. Reaching the postseason for the first time in two years, Tusculum racked up numerous individual accolades under Morris’s tutelage: SAC Freshman of the Year, AVCA Regional Freshman of the Year, SAC Player of the Week, four Zaxby’s Athletes of the Week, a trio of all-conference performers, and two Applebee’s Student-Athletes of the Month. 

While enrolled at the Law Enforcement Academy at the College of Central Florida, the former sheriff’s deputy began playing competitive beach volleyball and won several tournaments around the state.
 
After a few years in law enforcement, Morris began coaching volleyball full-time. He started his coaching career at Vanguard High School (2009-16) and was one of the four founding members of the Ocala Power Volleyball Academy. In his eight seasons at the Ocala school, he coached a final four team (2010), back-to-back state championship teams (2012 & 2013), and two runner-up squads (2014 & 2016). Morris was chosen as the 2013 Florida Dairy Farmers Coach of the Year and the 2016 AVCA District Coach of the Year.
 
A two-time head coach of the USA Volleyball national champion (2013 & 2018), Morris was also a leader of the 2012 AAU title squad. His most recent accomplishment came as the mentor of River Cities Volleyball Club, which was the first such triumph in West Virginia’s history. Collectively, six of Morris’s teams won qualifiers for USA Volleyball nationals, including the 2018 JVA World Championship in 18's Premier Division and the 2019 Music City Qualifier in Nashville. 
 
Prior to Tusculum, Morris was on the Marshall University women’s volleyball staff as a volunteer assistant from 2017-19, where he helped mentor two All-Conference USA honorees.