All-American Flashback: Charlotte Morgan (2007-10)
1/7/2016 12:00:00 AM | Softball
In honor of Alabama softball's 20th anniversary, rolltide.com will be catching up with our 20 former All-Americans in a series of feature interviews. Our 13th feature is with Charlotte Morgan (2007-10), a three-time All-American who set a school record with 264 career RBIs and was twice named SEC Player of the Year.
While Alabama and the SEC quickly rose to national prominence throughout the first half of the 2000s, the balance of softball power was still firmly planted on the west coast. With UCLA and Arizona battling annually for national titles, top-level recruits from the west coast tended to stay put. That dynamic started to shift in the latter half of the decade however, as more impact players began leaving the west coast for other destinations, including the SEC. For Alabama, Charlotte Morgan from Moreno Valley, Calif., arrived with plenty of hype and ended her career with a stellar legacy both on and off the field.
"I really first got put on the national stage my sophomore year at 15u nationals," Morgan said. "That's where [former Alabama pitching coach] Vann [Studemann] saw me. All the big coaches were there. Vann said that I reminded her of Stephanie VanBrakle, since I was both a pitcher and a power hitter. She was standing there alongside a bunch of other big schools thinking she had no shot of getting me. At the end of the fall my junior year, my coach Bruce Richardson told me to write a top 10 list and take unofficial visits in the spring before the coaches were allowed to talk to me in July. I had my list and Alabama was maybe down towards number eight or nine. They were mainly emailing my stepmom so I didn't always see a lot of the stuff they were sending. My coach told me to look at Alabama more because he knew they really loved me.
"I talked to my dad and we arranged to take all my unofficials over spring break. We flew to Alabama for two days, Texas for two days, Florida for two days and then out to UCLA before driving home. That was my recruiting process. I got to Alabama and [Pat] Murphy was actually suspended for two games so he got to sit with me in the press box and watch the game. They lost to Ole Miss that game for the first time in a long time, so he was worried he wouldn't get me. Honestly, sitting in the press box with him was probably the best thing because I got to know him and spend time with him. I was supposed to take other visits the next week but I had already narrowed it down to Texas and Alabama. I loved the feeling I got at Alabama. It felt right."
Morgan was both a pitcher and a hitter, but some schools didn't see it that way.
"That was a big part of it," Morgan said. "Florida, Texas and Alabama all wanted me to pitch and hit. UCLA already had a pitcher in my class and looked at me as more of a hitter and first baseman. I worked my butt off pitching since I was eight years old. I just wanted an opportunity. I knew the defense would be what lasted my whole career but I just wanted an opportunity to pitch. If I didn't make it, then I didn't make it. That would be on me. Murphy told me he'd give me the opportunity to do both and that showed me that they had faith in me. I knew I wasn't a power pitcher or anything but I just liked having the ball in my hand."
Morgan eventually did choose Alabama, but the culture shift coming from southern California made for a difficult adjustment early on.
"It was an adjustment to the southern culture," Morgan said. "I had a much different upbringing. Everyone is very friendly in Tuscaloosa. Where I grew up, you didn't talk to strangers. Everybody did a great job of helping me adjust. I had to learn it was OK to give people a hug. I wasn't a hugger and I'm still not really a hugger honestly. One of my good friends Prince Hall was an Alabama football player who was also from Moreno Valley and he really helped. He was out there a year before I got there and he had redshirted. I was really homesick early on and everyone knew it. I'm a big family person as the youngest of six. It was hard not to have my dad and mom there too. The family environment of the team really helped me out. They were always there when you needed to talk.
"I wasn't from the best area back home. Everyone here really helped me with the transition. At first when I got there, I was all about softball. I was here for school and softball. Once I got into it, I realized it's about molding me into a different person and about life. I started giving lessons after my freshman year. I had about 21 kids, I was out in the community and I loved teaching. Those kids would come to our games and be in the front row. I knew then that this was bigger than me."
By her own admission, Morgan's transition on the field was not an easy one either. A hard-headed attitude had the potential to strain the relationship with coaches, but a pair of former players ultimately provided the necessary guidance.
"What helped me was Stephanie VanBrakle and Staci Ramsey were both fifth-years my freshman year," Morgan said. "Stephanie helped me a lot in the bullpen and Staci helped me with hitting. Steph was always hard on me and really stuck with me. I hated losing and I really had an attitude. There was one game where Staci came up to me after the game and got in my face and just told me, 'the sky is the limit for you'. That's all she said and it really woke me up. The sky was the limit. Why am I settling? I should push to get even further."
At the end of her freshman season in 2007, Alabama traveled to Washington for Super Regionals and, led by their All-American pitcher Danielle Lawrie, the Huskies swept the Tide. Morgan and the entire team took it as a wake-up call.
"I know when we lost to Washington my freshman year that my class was mad," Morgan said. "That was really the switch where we realized this isn't good enough and we thought we were better than that. The next year, we knew we were going to do whatever it took and we all came back in the best shape of our lives. Everyone took their work ethic to another level. That's when we became ranked No. 1 in the nation for the first time and did a lot of things the program had never done before. We realized we could do anything, it didn't matter that we were at Alabama. Why don't we show people who we are?"
Morgan responded with a fantastic sophomore season in 2008, setting a single-season school record with 79 RBIs along with a career-best .417 batting average and 19 home runs. The 79 RBIs stood as a school record until 2015 when Marisa Runyon finished with 80. In the circle, Morgan contributed to a solid pitching rotation with an 18-2 record and 1.27 ERA over 22 appearances.
The majority of her home runs and pitching victories that season came in conference play, where she led the team in both batting average (.437) and ERA (1.00). The rivalries and traditions of the SEC was new to the California native, but conference play soon grew to be her favorite time of year.
"I was raised that every game is the same, but I really loved conference play," Morgan admitted. "That was always when I flipped the switch during the year. I always hated playing at LSU because it was so hot and I couldn't hold the ball because I was sweating. I think I had the most hit batters down in Baton Rouge. I loved facing [Florida All-American pitcher] Stacey Nelson. We played them in a lot of big games. She definitely got me more than I got her. It frustrated me because she would beat us and we knew that if we got through her, we could beat Florida. I hit a home run off her my junior year at the SEC Tournament in Knoxville over the scoreboard. I think it was the first home run she had given up all year. That rivalry is still huge. I loved to pitch against Georgia because they were so aggressive. They would swing out of their shoes. Auburn's mentality against me was they didn't want to get beat in the count so they swung at first pitches every time. Aly started timing each half-inning. I think I had like 47 pitches in an entire game against Auburn. That was probably the most fun we had because we'd time it and it would be like a 46-second inning. It was just fun.
"When you go to places like LSU, Florida or Tennessee, it's loud and the fans are obnoxious. I loved it. I would rather play on the road all day long. There's something special about the SEC."
While SEC rivalries developed over her time in the south, Morgan didn't need to dig deep for motivation when she had the chance to play against the west coast teams that spurned her during the recruiting process. As a junior in 2009, Morgan and the Crimson Tide took a preseason trip to Palm Springs where one of the teams they faced was UCLA. She entered the game with a chip on her shoulder but, in the end, learned a humbling lesson.
"When we got to play UCLA in Palm Springs, things didn't go in my favor," Morgan said. "I got hit pretty hard by [UCLA first baseman] Megan Langenfeld on the inside of my leg. I still have a permanent bruise because of that one."
Alabama lost the game, 4-1, as Morgan would not make it out of the first inning, recording just one out while allowing three runs on four hits before she was moved to first base. At the plate, Morgan went 0-3.
"I was pretty humiliated after that," Morgan said. "I took a chance on Alabama and everyone back home thought I was crazy for not going to UCLA. Murphy gave me the ball that game and I got destroyed. That night, I was crying in the hotel hallway. Aly came to me and I told her I didn't want to pitch. I didn't think I was good enough. Other coaches had told me before they didn't think I was good enough to pitch in college. At that time, I thought maybe I wasn't good enough. She sat and listened to me and told me they were going to give me the ball the next day against Hawai'i, who were pretty big hitters. Aly told me, 'that UCLA game doesn't define you. What they say doesn't define you. You don't play for them.'"
Morgan rebounded the next day with 10 strikeouts over seven shutout innings against Hawai'i as Alabama won, 1-0, in its final game of the tournament.
"I was playing to prove them [UCLA] wrong and I let it get outside of me," Morgan said. "I believe in respecting the game and, when the game realizes you aren't respecting it, it'll put you in your place. When I wanted to give up and I was so embarrassed, my coaches gave me the ball and I shut out Hawai'i. After that, I knew I wouldn't ever make the game bigger than for just me, my team and my family. I had worked too hard to let one game define my career. We got to the World Series later that year and we destroyed Arizona. It was their worst loss in a long time. Murphy gave me the ball in an elimination game and we all just played for each other. That was a lesson for me. I was playing against UCLA for all the people that told me what I couldn't do, but I was playing in the World Series for the school that gave me the opportunity. I had to learn my lesson before Murphy could give me that opportunity. I wanted to go to Alabama to do something different. I could have gone to UCLA, but they already had national championships. I wanted to be different and let people know that they could do something different."
That season, Morgan was named the SEC Player of the Year, the first at Alabama, and was also named to the College World Series All-Tournament team. She would repeat as SEC Player of the Year again as a senior in 2010.
"I was pretty selfish coming in," Morgan said. "The coaches taught me life lessons even when I stumbled, and I stumbled a lot. They never gave up on me. It would have been easy for them to do that. I wasn't the easiest player to deal with. We would butt heads a lot. At the end of the day though, we showed up every day like it was a new day. They mentored me not just as an athlete but also as a person.
"I was with the wrong group of friends growing up. I was happy just to get out but when I got to Alabama, Murphy taught me that it was all about other people and how you treat them. When I played professionally and when I coach now, I wanted to represent myself in a way that everyone else knew what it took. I wasn't just going to go play for me. I had the work ethic and did the right things, but I made sure to share that. Early on, I was pretty closed off. I was going to do what I had to do because the coaches said so and that was it. When you're in a team sport though, it's more about the team. It wasn't just about how good you were as a softball player but how you treated others, how you were as a teammate and how you were in the community. That's how I was able to do the things I did. I was more proud about winning the Senior CLASS award than being an All-American because that award was about everything, not just softball."
Academics were a huge emphasis for Morgan during her time at Alabama, as she earned three Academic All-America awards during her career. Morgan and fellow All-American Kayla Braud are the only three-time Academic All-Americans in program history and are the program's two winners of the Senior CLASS Award, given annually to a Division-I senior that best exemplifies the four aspects of community, classroom, character and competition.
"Growing up, my mom was about school and my dad was about sports," Morgan said. "I wasn't allowed to bring home a 'B' on my report card and, if I did, I had to have a reason. I knew there was more to me than being just a good softball player. I came in to Alabama with good grades but I got my first 'C' in my life my freshman year in psychology and I was devastated. I thought the world was going to end. I took academics more seriously than I ever took anything else. As women, we have opportunities in things like sports but we still have to be knowledgeable. I took every class not just to pass, I took it to get an 'A'. A lot of people don't look at me as an Academic All-American and are surprised to find that out. I'm more proud of that than being an All-American. I was about school, softball and the community at Alabama. I wasn't about going out and living the life of a typical college kid. I got out of Moreno Valley and I didn't want to have to go back. I wanted to be able to be on my own. You never know who you're going to meet so you never want to slack on anything. I was at study hall and with tutors even when I didn't have to. Why not use those resources? My mom instilled that pride in me when I was a kid. I wasn't going to go to school and just forget that pride because I played softball. I had to make sacrifices on other things in college but I would never take it back. I played pro softball but the academics are what have lasted."
Morgan, now an assistant coach at Oklahoma State, applies the lessons learned at Alabama into her everyday life.
"Sometimes, a person just needs to hear you say you're proud of them," Morgan said. "You might just need to talk with them an hour after a game when you might not want to. Your players need to know that you care about them as a person, not just as an athlete. I know that now through my coaching experience. You can't let these kids limit themselves from what other people say. I was a very introverted person. I kept a lot of things to myself. Alabama taught me that it was OK to share it when you did good things because it would help others. I've taken that into my life as a player, coach and family member. Just being there for people when they can't see outside their own situation. I try to be a good role model. I had to check myself when I wanted to throw my helmet or when I didn't want to sign autographs. I tell my kids now, 'I know you're mad or upset, but that little girl over there doesn't know that. She just wants to be you when she grows up. Remember when you were that girl.' I'm able to give that advice because it was given to me. I am so blessed that I had that opportunity because I know I wouldn't be where I am today without it."
