Morgan's path to Pitt

Justin Morgan’s path that led him to Pitt is a little different.

Sure, most recruits have an interesting story about how they picked their college, and a lot of them involve unique circumstances that come together to create an ideal destination.

But Morgan’s story…

“My story is kind of weird,” he told Panther-Lair.com.

Like many New York City stories, the big offensive lineman’s tale got interesting on a train.

“I was attending school in Harlem and one day I was on my way to school on the train and this man was looking at me,” Morgan said. “Now, I’m a New Yorker; if someone looks at you for too long, you have to say something. So I looked at him and said, ‘What are you looking at?’

“He said, ‘Nothing. I’m just noticing how big you are.’”

That man was Wali Lundy, a former sixth-round draft pick of the Houston Texans who had some connections to a private school in Brooklyn - private school with a football team that could use a lineman with Morgan’s size. So one thing led to another…

“He took my info and gave it to Coach (Lance) Bennett at Poly Prep, and he he called me in the middle of basketball practice,” Morgan said. “He was like, ‘Have you ever heard of Poly Prep?’ and I said no. Then my basketball coach took the phone and said, ‘Justin’s not going nowhere, he’s staying with us.’ That was the end of that conversation.”

Bennett didn’t give up, though. That night he called Morgan’s mother and convinced the family to schedule a meeting at Poly Prep. Morgan and his mother lived in the Bronx, and they agreed to make the trip to Brooklyn. That trip took nearly two hours, but once Morgan set foot on Poly Prep’s campus, the time invested became time well spent.

“It was a pretty easy decision because I fell in love with the campus,” he said. “I didn’t care about the schoolwork being tougher; I can handle that and it didn’t bother me. But it was really the campus. It has two ponds - what school in New York City has two ponds? It’s gated, there are farm animals on campus; it was just crazy. I fell in love and my mom fell in love.”

In addition to the ponds and farm animals and gates and schoolwork, there was one other thing that stood out about Poly Prep:

“They have football.”

There were a lot of differences between Poly Prep and Bread and Roses Integrated Arts High School, the school Morgan attended in Harlem. The academic program was a significant one, but he would most certainly not be in line to attend Pitt on a football scholarship if not for the athletic programs.

Poly Prep had football. Bread and Roses did not. And even though Morgan had been primarily a basketball player until transferring as a sophomore, the new game came to him rather naturally.

“It wasn’t hard to pick up football,” he said. “Our program was pretty good and I caught on quick, so for me it wasn’t hard. My main thing was getting in and really learning the playbook. Once I learned the playbook, I was fine. Everything went smooth.”

There was also the matter of his size. By his own accounting, Morgan weighed about 400 pounds when he was a freshman. As he sees it, losing that weight - he’s down to 345 as he gets ready to head to Pitt this summer - went a long way in getting him in position to receive scholarship offers.

For the push to achieve the weight loss, the push to do better on the field and the push to succeed in the classroom, Morgan credits Bennett, the offensive coordinator at Poly Prep who made the phone call that interrupted his basketball practice four years ago.

From that phone call - and the chance meeting with a stranger on a train that led to it - to a spot on Pitt’s roster…

“It’s been a wild trip.”