Christian Morris couldn’t believe where he was. He was standing on the field of TD Ameritrade Park and warming up to play in the 2013 College World Series.
His parents Patrick and Brenda, who traveled all the way from Florida, were in the stands. After watching the College World Series every year since Christian was 3 years old, this marked the first time the family had actually been to Omaha, Neb.
“Each day it means a little more,” Christian said. “It was kind of like a dream.”
Given how much had happened in the past two years, none of them thought they would be here in Christian’s freshman season.
Not after Feb. 15, 2011 — the night ?everything went wrong.
***
The game was supposed to be routine. On opening day of the 2011 Florida high school baseball season, Williston was preparing to play Chiefland.
Starting for the Williston was Christian Morris, a junior who already committed to Florida State and was still receiving interest from MLB scouts.
Christian would pitch four innings, or that was the plan. After Williston scored 8 runs in the bottom of the third, it led 9-1. Three more outs, and Christian’s night was done.
A simple fourth inning and Christian could rest and watch his teammates secure his win.
He would probably talk to a few scouts after the game, just like he probably would for much of the season.
The first two outs were simple. But then, things became complicated. The next pitch he threw went, at the most, 45 feet — 15 feet short of home plate, Morris said.
The 6-foot-4 pitcher felt something in his arm, a pain he had never felt before. He stepped off the mound, shook his arm out and threw another pitch. Nothing changed.
The ball traveled 45 feet again, and the pain was still there. He came out of the game. A thought crossed his mind — was he stepping off the mound for the final time of his life that night in Florida?
He went and had the arm looked at, and the injury was only a UCL strain. He wouldn’t need Tommy John surgery. He went to another doctor and took another MRI, just to be sure. Same diagnosis, just some rest and soon he’d return to the mound. Simple.
But the recovery wasn’t simple. Morris rehabbed the injury for a year, he said, and his arm wasn’t improving. The pain was still there, but the velocity and movement on his pitches weren’t.
He went to another doctor and took another MRI. This time the diagnosis was different. He learned for the past year, he had been trying to pitch with a torn UCL. He was going to need Tommy John ?surgery.
“I was terrified,” Christian said. “I thought for sure I had thrown my last pitch. I went into tears for a little bit and didn’t know what to do because I lost some attention from schools.”
Everything had changed for Christian. His verbal commitment to Florida State no longer meant anything. The scouts were gone.
But one thing remained constant — in the middle of June, in their home in Archer, Fla., the Morrises still sat on their couch and watched the College World Series together.
***
The rehab process was rough. Not just for Christian, but for his parents, too.
“He’s our only child,” Patrick said. “So anytime your child gets a possible career-ending injury, it’s pretty hard on the family.”
The Morrises wanted Christian to go to college and get an education — that was the expectation. Christian’s dream was to play Major League Baseball after college.
Patrick’s dream for Christian was still intact. Christian kept performing well in school, like he always had.
The rehab process was tough. The surgery came during his senior year of high school. He would leave school and drive to Gainesville, Fla., for rehab, which ranged between one and three hours. During baseball season, he would then drive back home and go to practice, because he was still the team’s starting first baseman.
He led Williston in home runs with 11 and in RBIs with 45 during his senior season.
“He never really got down,” Patrick said of his son’s attitude. “He just put his head down and went to work.”
For the most part, Christian went through this process alone. His dad would go with him once or twice a month, but other than that, the routine was the same for the nine and a half months Christian rehabbed while still in school.
His parents supported him. Christian called his mom and dad his rock and his prayer warriors during his recovery. But for the most part, he was alone.
What Christian did have during his rehab was his faith in Christianity.
“It was basically everything,” Christian said.
He had always been religious. He remembers finding Christ for the first time during a prayer circle in the first grade. His faith helped him through his rehab process.
And his faith helped ?Christian find IU.
***
Christian was getting ready for bed and couldn’t stop thinking about the next morning. When he woke up, he was going to lay on an operating table and have his right elbow reconstructed.
The next morning, he would have his Tommy John surgery.
As Christian tried to fall asleep, he tried to not think about the next morning. His phone rang.
It was Ty Neal, IU’s recruiting coordinator at the time. Neal was curious as to why Perfect Game, a recruiting service, still showed Christian was uncommitted in September of his senior year. Neal wanted to offer Christian a scholarship to IU.
Christian had this conversation plenty of times before. Coaches expressed interest before, but each time after Christian told them about his surgery, the interest vanished.
This time, the response was different.
Neal paused for about five seconds, and Christian assumed he knew what was coming next. Neal would backpedal and wish him luck with his recruitment.
Instead, Neal said, “That doesn’t matter for my offer. I’ll call you in a few days.”
Morris said he immediately wanted to be a Hoosier, but he wanted to be sure.
He researched the school and the program. He visited campus in January. He prayed, too.
“It just seemed like in the blink of an eye there was just this one school at the end of the tunnel ... I felt like it was what I was supposed to do,” Christian said.
***
Once Christian arrived in Bloomington, things did not get easier. Yes, he was medically cleared to throw again, but it wasn’t the same.
His velocity wasn’t there. He couldn’t throw any of his breaking pitches out of fear he might re-injure his elbow.
“All I could throw for a while was my fastball,” ?he said.
He had some setbacks. His shoulder swelled a few times. It took a while to develop his curveball again because after a year of not throwing his breaking ball, the pitch was a ?little rusty.
Christian’s freshman season was also the first time he had pitched after two full seasons of baseball.
He was also overweight when he enrolled in the fall, checking in at 262 pounds, around 70 pounds heavier than today. Christian attributed his weight gain to his eating habits during rehab.
He was still playing ?baseball but wasn’t exercising off the field. He also ate anything he wanted.
Then-IU Coach Tracy Smith wasn’t happy with Christian’s fitness.
“He sat me down in the fall of my freshman year and he was blunt. He was to the point,” Christian said. “He said it was up to you what you want to do with it. Everything’s here for you, the people are here for you. He basically said ‘How good do you want to be? And your work ethic will ?answer that.’”
Christian wasn’t happy with his coach. He questioned Smith the rest of the day before calling his dad that night to vent.
The phone call helped Christian sort out what Smith told him.
“I’ve got a choice here, and I can really turn this thing around,” Christian said.
Smith’s pep talk worked. Once Christian was back to full strength at the start of his sophomore year, he transitioned into the starting rotation. Once he was there, he posted a 2.04 ERA in 2014, third lowest in the Big Ten.
He was named to the first team All-Big Ten. His 1.34 ERA during conference play was tied for the best in the Big Ten and the fifth best in program history.
But 2015 hasn’t been the same. A simple look at his record suggests something ?different, he’s 2-0 this season, but his ERA is 6.32, second-highest on the team.
After starting the season as IU’s No. 2 starter, he has been demoted to the occasional midweek start.
“He’s fighting it a little bit,” IU Coach Lemonis said after a no-decision at Kentucky on March 31. “He’s a great pitcher. We have a lot of confidence in him.
But compared to what Christian has come back from already, bouncing back from a string of troubling starts ?seems easy.
“If you ask a pitcher what’s the worst thing that can happen to you, he’ll tell you shoulder or elbow surgery,” Christian said. “So I mean struggling here and there, at least you’re out there pitching.”
That’s the mentality Christian has taken this season. Yes, he is upset with his current struggles, and yes, he is working tirelessly to remedy his struggles.
But it could be worse. At least he can fix something. He’s no longer helpless.
“I’m going to beat myself up after a bad outing and overanalyze everything,” he said. “But if you think about it, you’re out there, you’re pitching and you’re playing the game you love.”
