Nothing can keep Morris from putting her cleats on

This archived article was written by: Carly Dalton

The way that Josie Morris can hustle down the field, you would never know she is still in pain from a previous hematoma in her shin she received the fall of her senior year.
A hematoma is swelling that is filled with blood caused by a break in the wall of a blood vessel. The blood is usually clotted or partially clotted, and it exists within an organ or in a soft tissue space, such as muscle. It started as a bruise, but with time, only got worse. It ended with swelling the size of a grapefruit. She couldn’t walk on it for two weeks, and was on crutches for over a month.
Morris is from Layton, Utah, and comes from a family of five girls and one boy. She plays holding mid, which is a defender in the mid field and prevents through balls. The season so far is, “totally legit, cause we cream.”
The best advice Morris has ever been given is, “Never look at the past, always learn from your mistakes and don’t dwell on them.” If she was to give advice to someone coming to USU Eastern to play soccer in the future, Morris would tell them, “Make sure you are in shape when you come or the conditioning will be rough and never give up on your team.”
Being a part of the first USUE soccer team has been awesome. “Coming in with a new team is cool because we all have the same opportunities and we all have to learn to play together.” Morris stated.
The craziest thing that has happened to Morris in a soccer game was when one of her teammates dribbled the ball down the field. When she tried to cross it, it almost went out of bounds. A different girl from her team bicycles it just before it crossed the out of bounds line, which ended up being a perfect pass to Morris, who headed the ball for a goal. The ref whistled and denied the goal. The the ball had gone out of bounds before the girl kicked it back into play.
One of Morris’s most embarrassing moments while on the field was when she was running to kick it and no one was by her and she completely missed it and landed on her butt, “or when you get a sticky ball and you go to kick it, but you step on it and then you fall over.” she stated.
Morris’s biggest athletic accomplishment is playing on as a collegiate athlete. She says the hardest thing about playing soccer is, “finishing to the very last minute, anything can happen so you have to stay focused the whole time.” Her passion for soccer never fades because of her love for the game, “and she’s scared of getting fat.”
Morris’s coaches view her as an, “aggressive and coachable player, who plays for her team and not for herself. She is fun and her personality and kindness is contagious. She’s just a good person and a really good soccer player.”
The craziest thing Morris has ever done is when, “my cousin made me sit down on a long board down this huge hill. I was going 50 miles an hour and I swear I was going die. I hit a crack and fell into a bush and was surprised I didn’t die.”
Morris’s biggest regret is not playing more sports when she was younger; she felt that she just missed out on different opportunities. Besides soccer she loves playing ping pong, racquet ball, and other racquet sports, and she is always up for a challenge.
Morris’s biggest fans are her parents, “they support me in everything that I do, and also my little sister because she is always at my games and cheers for me.” Her hero in life is her older sister Kayla, “who is serving an LDS mission. We were really close and she is such a great example to me.”
Morris wants to go to a RSL soccer game, or go to California to, “surf the beaches” if she had a day of no responsibilities. If she was to trade places with anyone, it would be with Emma Watson, “because she is Hermione Granger.”
Morris is pleased with how the season went and all the great friends she met at USUE.