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.