Tom Morris, a native of Columbia, S.C., graduated from Atlantic Christian College in 1979 and was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
As a high school tennis player he led Spring Valley of Columbia to two State Team Tennis Championships and won three consecutive state titles in both singles and doubles competition. He was also the only player ever to hold the South Carolina 16-and-under and 18-and-under championships at the same time.
Under coach Tom Parham he achieved outstanding success at Atlantic Christian and led the Bulldogs to the N.A.I.A. National Championship in 1979, his senior season. Morris won 105 career singles matches at AC and earned All-Carolinas Conference and All-District 26 honors all four years. He was also named as the Carolinas Conference Player of the Year all four years and won two district titles in singles. Twice he was selected as an NAIA All-American. Morris was selected as Atlantic Christian College Male Athlete of the Year three times.
Upon graduation from AC, Morris worked as a tennis professional in Vero Beach, Fla., Orangeburg, S.C., and Asheville, N.C. He continued to enjoy outstanding competitive success as a tennis player. Morris has played numerous exhibition matches against top-ranked opposition and has conducted many instructional clinics. He then served as head tennis professional at Columbia’s Windimore Club, one of the top such facilities in the Southwest.
Morris returned to Wilson to coach the Barton tennis teams from 1990 to 1998. In his tenure at Barton, he guided his men’s teams to six conference championships while his women’s squads won four league titles. He was named Carolinas Conference Coach of the Year four times and earned NAIA District 26 Coach of the Year honors once. Following the 1997 season, Morris was tabbed as the NCAA Men’s East Regional Coach of the Year, making him one of four finalists for the NCAA Division II National Coach of the Year award. At Barton, Morris coached eight All-America selections and eight conference Players of the Year.
Most recently, Morris has been coaching for over a decade at East Carolina University. After seven seasons as head coach of both the men’s and women’s programs, Morris then became the Director of Tennis at ECU and just head women’s coach.
Morris was enshrined into the North Carolina Tennis Hall of Fame on January 30, 2010.
