A.B. "Bugs" Morris

A.B. "Bugs" Morris is known as one of the most influential men in Texas collegiate sports. After a brief professional baseball career in Oklahoma, Morris joined the ACU staff in 1924 as the head football, basketball and baseball coach and professor of physical education and chair of the department.

Morris officially launched the ACU intercollegiate athletic program in 1924, although the school had some teams before that year. He coached at ACU as head football coach until 1941 and head basketball coach until 1955 when he became full-time athletic director. He was on leave from ACU in 1943-45 to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II. In 1969, when he retired as ACU athletic director, he had been at his position longer than any other coach and athletic director in the state. His all-time basketball coaching record at ACU was 306-243, including an amazing 178-64 mark in the Texas Conference in 1933-54, as his teams once went three straight years without losing a league game.

In 1982 the university honored Morris by establishing a coaching scholarship fund to aid ACU student athletes preparing to be coaches and teachers. ACU's athletic development fund in which he was active in from 1969 until his death is also named in his honor. The university named a men's dormitory, A.B. Morris Hall, now a women's residence hall, in his honor in 1975.

During his career at ACU he was instrumental in the formation of three athletic conferences and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. He served as NAIA vice president in 1958-59 and was a member of the NAIA executive committee in 1956 when the first national collegiate football playoffs were started.

Morris graduated from Texas A&M University in 1923 with a degree in agriculture. During his time there, Morris earned three varsity letters in baseball and four in football, helping the Aggies to the Southwest Conference championship in each sport as shortstop and quarterback. In 1976 he was named to the A&M Hall of Fame.

Wally Bullington, Morris' successor as athletic director said of Morris: "Very few men I have ever known gave themselves to young people and intercollegiate athletics as did A.B. Morris. He was truly a builder of men. This very fine Christian gentleman never failed to meet the needs of young people."

Morris died in 1983 after 59 years of service to ACU. He and his wife, Rebecca, had one son, Charles Morris ('49).