Winning 300 games as a high school basketball coach is an honor, but it’s not quite as difficult as it is for a soccer coach.
Poway’s Gene Morris will get his 300th victory this season — guaranteed.
But think how much quicker it would have come if, like basketball, there were no ties. Morris has 94 of them in his 21-year career
Standing at 296 wins to start the week, his Titans have posted an 8-0-1 record, that includes winning the Parker Cup Tournament with a 1-0 victory over Pacific Ridge. The Titans have allowed just four goals all season but after nonleague games against Scripps Ranch and Montgomery, things get a little dicey.
Palomar League play starts on Jan. 14 at San Pasqual, whose 6-3-0 record is very deceiving. Next up is Del Norte (3-0-2) on the road, followed by Westview (3-1-3) and Rancho Bernardo (6-1) before a Jan. 28 showdown with Mission Hills (8-0-1) to complete the first round.
“There are no easy games in the Palomar League,” said Morris, whose Titans also have a nonleague game against San Diego on Jan. 25.
“It’s so hard to get 300 wins in soccer. All the other sports like basketball, football and baseball, there are no ties. Unlike those other sports, we don’t even have overtime until the playoffs. Cut those number of ties in half with possible wins and I’d have at least 47 more victories.”
Morris is only the second soccer coach in Poway High history, succeeding the legendary Bob Champion, an original inductee into the San Diego Coaches Hall of Fame. Morris played for Champion from 1985-1988.
Champion ed away last October after winning 483 games and three San Diego Section titles.
OK, the school and section record may seem a ways away, but Morris will an elite group when No. 300 is recorded.
“Coaches don’t stick around like they used to,” said Morris, who works security at the school as well as coaching club ball. “The s said they needed someone to be on campus as well as coach soccer, and that sounded good. I never did get my credential.
“I played for Bob and was a scorer, but I wasn’t Messi or anything.”
Whether Champion or Morris, the Titans have always been a soccer power.
Morris has had a lot of league championships — 11 — but the team that made the biggest impact was the 2008 squad that went 22-2, winning the section Division 1 title with a 1-0 victory over San Diego in penalty kicks.
“That was the first year of the Southern California Regionals and we made it to the finals against Santa Monica,” he said. “We were tied at the end of regulation, but we lost 2-1 in overtime.”
Morris, like so many coaches, feels his sport has been adversely affected by the COVID-19 virus.
“I didn’t change but soccer has changed,” he said. “We used to score 85-100 goals in a season but now we have a lot of 1-0 and 2-1 games. It seemed there used to be a lot of 25-goal scorers but now 20 goals are a lot.
“The emphasis has turned to defense — you don’t see as many 11-0 games and there are more good teams. The goal-keeping is much better and so is the coaching. In the past, coaches like Bob Champion never played but now most of the coaches have the experience of playing.”
As if to his claim, this year’s Titans club has allowed just four goals all season, two of them that led to a 2-2 tie with San Diego Southwest, the lone blemish on the record.
But Poway also has four 1-0 wins and a pair of 2-0 victories. Three goals against Carlsbad in the opener and another three against El Camino are the most the Titans have scored.
“We are a team,” said Morris, emphasizing team. “There is no individual, no one guy like on some teams. We don’t look for just one guy to score, we have eight players who can score. In that tie game, we were down 2-0 at the half but they didn’t put their heads down and came back to tie. That was a real test.”
A good team in which to record his 300th win.
