Morrison's Windy City Edge Pushes Gators to Follow His Lead
Saturday, October 10, 2015 | Football, Scott Carter
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Antonio Morrison lives like he plays.
Ask Morrison a question he thinks is dumb, and the reigning SEC Defensive Player of the Week might just tell you it's a dumb question. Ask him about himself, and the answers come in short and quick bursts. Morrison has little interest in basking in his achievements.
Ask Morrison where his no-fluff, no-nonsense approach comes from, and he takes you to the South Side of Chicago.
"My whole family from the South Side,'' Morrison said. "Both my parents are that way. My brother is that way. It's how I was raised."
Morrison's edge is apparent to anyone who comes within contact of the Gators senior linebacker.
When Morrison enrolled at UF in January 2012, he showed up with a purpose.
"When I first got here, I came to work,'' he said. "I really kept to myself. I'm still that way."
But when "Tone" steps onto the field -- that's what those who know him call him -- he comes out of his shell.
The 6-foot-1, 229-pound Morrison plays with a fiery abandon as one of the leaders of Florida's defense. As a freshman, Morrison's hit on FSU quarterback EJ Manuel and fumble recovery turned the momentum around as Florida defeated the Seminoles in Tallahassee.
That was the most memorable play of Morrison's career prior to Jan. 2 in the Birmingham Bowl. Trying to make a tackle against East Carolina, Morrison didn't get up off the turf at Legion Field.
Instead, he grabbed his knee as ESPN microphones picked up Morrison's painful shrieks. Morrison suffered a serious knee injury that required offseason surgery.
When the Gators reported to preseason camp in August, head coach Jim McElwain made a surprising announcement: Morrison, expected to miss at least a portion of the regular season, was so far ahead of schedule in his rehab that he wasn't ruling him out from returning well before the normal 10-to-12-month recovery period.
Morrison was in the starting lineup in the season opener and has gotten better each game.
"There's the story of this football team,'' McElwain said Monday, two days after Morrison recorded a career-high 16 tackles and 3.5 tackles-for-loss against Ole Miss. "There should be nobody in this room that ever expected this guy, you know what I'm getting at? My hat's off to that guy for what he did giving up himself for this team to be good."
An All-SEC second-team selection as a junior, Morrison has returned with a vengeance following a long spring and summer of daily rehab. Morrison has 40 tackles, which ranks ninth in the SEC and tops on the team.
Teammate Brian Poole said it felt like Morrison was in on every play against the Rebels.
"It seemed like he made every tackle out there,'' Poole said. "It's great to have him back. If anyone could do it, I would say he could."
Morrison was somewhat of an outsider when he joined the Gators, recruited to Florida primarily by former defensive line coach Bryant Young and linebackers coach D.J. Durkin.
When Morrison committed to the Gators, he had never even been to a Florida game. The transition from Chicago to a college town in the South took time.
"As he got used to everybody, he started to open up a little bit,'' teammate Marcus Maye said. "But Antonio has always been to himself. He's got that edge about him and that's how he plays."
Morrison saw the move far from home as an opportunity to play against the best and continue to better his life the way his parents did when he was growing up.
Anthony Morrison Sr. moved the family from the South Side of Chicago when Antonio was a kid. They settled in Bellwood, Ill., which is about 15 miles from the most dangerous neighborhoods in America.
According to a USA Today story this week, there have already been 371 murders in Chicago in 2015, most of them on the South Side and West Side of the country's third-largest city.
The murder rate on the South Side is higher than some of the world's most dangerous places. Murder is such a concern in the city, The Chicago Sun-Times publishes Homicide Watch Chicago to keep a daily log of the violence.
Former Florida basketball star Joakim Noah, who has spent his entire NBA career with the Bulls, launched an anti-violence initiative earlier this year to hopefully help combat the violence, which involves primarily African-American and Latino men in their 20s.
"I mean it's a harsh reality here in Chicago. Violence is out of control,” Noah told The Chicago Tribune. "We got to find solutions. One way we can all help is by putting in more programs, getting these kids more jobs, getting these kids more activities, more things to do. Some of these kids don't have the opportunity that we have in the suburbs. I just think it's important to help."
When Morrison's father moved the family outside the city's most dangerous spot, Antonio and his older brother, Anthony Morrison Jr., developed into standout football players. Antonio helped Bolingbrook (Ill.) High win a state championship his senior season.
Morrison Jr. played at Eastern Illinois and moved to Gainesville to help Antonio navigate college life at the end of Antonio's sophomore season.
He rebounded from a disappointing sophomore season by getting in better shape and finished last season with 101 tackles, the most by a Florida player in four years.
He also served as the pulse of the defense.
"We know if Antonio is going, we are behind him 100 percent,'' Maye said. "There is no letup at any position. He is going to be down your throat if you miss a tackle or not in the right spot or miss a call."
As Morrison worked tirelessly through the offseason to overcome his knee injury, he stayed in town and rarely ventured far from the training room.
Since coming to UF, Morrison's trips home have been few. Still, he keeps those back in Chicago in his thoughts daily.
"I'm lucky to have two parents. A lot of people don't have two parents,'' he said. "They put me in a great situation so I could wind up here. If I lived there, I might not even be here.
"I've got a lot of friends [on the South Side], all my cousins are there. They all look up to me and see how I wound up. I'm trying to be an example."
Morrison's arms are covered in tattoos, four words on his arms that define his outlook: Respect, Loyalty, Deathless and Greatness.
He lives by those words. And he plays by them.
"I just be myself man. That's all I know,'' he said. "Guys just feed off that. I know one way. That's the way I am every day."
