Trying season for South Fayette’s coach highlighted by WPIAL baseball title
As dusk gave way to darkness May 29 at Wild Things Park, Ken Morgan was able to look around during the inning breaks.
He didn’t venture far from his post in the dugout, but didn’t need to in order to see what he wanted to know.
“This place was filled. I couldn’t believe it,” Morgan, in his fourth season as the South Fayette High School baseball coach, said.
As the Lions lifted up the WPIAL trophy after defeating Ringgold 4-1 in the Class 4A championship, the first in 19 years for the SF baseball program, Morgan ran over to embrace his wife, Gen, in the crowd.
The 19-year drought was over. But for Morgan, who played four years for South Fayette before graduating in 2008, it was about much more.
It was for his mother, Denise, who died Jan. 27 after battling primary lateral sclarosis. She was 61.
“It was tough,” Morgan said. “She was sick for a while. It’s never easy. But one of the things she always enjoyed was baseball. She would come to see these guys play, but the last couple of years, she really wasn’t able to make it. She would have been in the front row.”
After taking some time away from a program he has been around a majority of his life following the passing of his mother, Morgan returned to guide the Lions to their most successful stretch since he was hired prior to the 2015 season.
South Fayette won 10 of its last 11 games. The Lions strung together a comeback win against West Mifflin in the WPIAL quarterfinals, edged Hopewell in the semifinals then defeated Ringgold, also in come-from-behind fashion, to win the WPIAL.
“(Our players) knew when it happened. (Her passing) is something you wake up every day and think about,” Morgan said. “The best thing was coming to practice. It was therapy. Whatever workload you have, or whatever is going on in your life, when I come around these guys it leaves. It’s at least 2 or 2 ½ hours of just baseball.”
Not returning to finish coaching the season never entered Morgan’s mind.
“If this were to happen during a different season, I wouldn’t be as strong as I appear,” Morgan said.
He said it motivated him even more because this was where his mother, who worked in the school district, would want him to be. Morgan’s sister, Melissa, and father, Ken, were at the forefront of caring for Denise through her illness that she battled for approximately six years.
“I hope (our players) know how much they’ve done for me, my family and the community. It’s healing. It’s moving. And I’m thankful. This is for her. We had a guardian angel with us this whole time.”