Morgan has had several athletes earn All-New England honors in the past decade, along with a pair of All-Americans–an impressive feat. However, this exclusive list of athletes is not showcased anywhere in the school.
Last month, senior Jonathan Gutierrez capped off his historic senior season by being named to the United Soccer Coaches High School All-America team. The prestigious honor was awarded to the top 110 high school boys soccer players from all across the country. Gutierrez joined Morgan alumnus Megan Cafferty, a gymnast, as the school’s second All-American in the past five years.
Gutierrez received All-New England honors for the second straight season to compliment his All-American status. Senior Sadie Passante joined him as an All-New England recipient this year, adding to the pipeline of Morgan soccer talents to earn the recognition. In the past ten years, Morgan alumni Sebestian Kadlof, Sean Cafferty, and Juan Avila also fit the criteria.
Currently, the banners that fill the walls of the Morgan gymnasium recognize conference and state championship teams, state championship coaches, all-state athletes, and members of Morgan basketball’s 1,000 point club.
For a variety of reasons, Morgan’s Athletic Director, Meagan Sears, intends to preserve the tradition of reserving gymnasium banners for those specific achievements, while honoring All-New England and All-American athletes in an alternative way.
According to Sears, banner space has become limited in the gym. “Each year, we’ve been obviously very successful, which is a wonderful problem to have,” Sears said. Knowing that the school is seemingly producing a handful of all-state athletes on an annual basis, there is already concern of eventually running out of room.
As an alternative, Sears and the administration have discussed creating a metal plaque for these All-New England and All-American athletes, where names would be inscribed onto the plaque as they got awarded.
The plaque allows for more flexibility as it can lay in the trophy case or be mounted somewhere in the gym. In Sears’ opinion, “The trophy case would make more sense. Just protected, obviously.”
There is no estimated timeline for this potential project at the moment, but it is on Sears’ “to-do list in the forefront.”
She is committed to making sure she has all of the accurate information first, and has been diving into the historical records. “I want to make sure if we do something like this and recognize them, we do it right,” Sears said.
Since it has not been tradition to recognize All-New England and All-American athletes in gymnasium banners, the athletic department needs to look at historical records to ensure that they have a fully accurate list of the qualified athletes and are not leaving anyone off.
Sears has engaged in talks with the Central Office in the past couple of weeks in regards to retrieving some records, and so far they have done so successfully. She also plans to talk to long-tenured coaches at Morgan, who can help her create an accurate list.
“It is going to take a little bit of work and time to get those historical documents and other records,” Sears said.
“Everyone loves banners, but at the same time, I also want to make sure we’re able to continue to honor our traditions that we do currently have, but then also continue to recognize our newer recipients of these awards as well.”
