Full Steam Ahead

Sporting News, The, March 13, 2000 by Kyle Veltrop

When ROB `FREIGHT TRAIN' MORRIS tackles a ballcarrier, the past collides with the present for an NFL prospect who has old-school dreams of being like Sam Huff, Chuck Bednarik and Dick Butkus

Rob Morris got to keep the equipment at his house. That's one advantage of having your dad as a coach, even on the Pop Warner level. And why would you let all that great stuff sit in the corner of the garage when there's football to play?

So Morris would get his friends together and his brother Jason would get his, and they'd break out the football, helmets and pads and go at it. Jason and his friends were three years older, but a sibling rivalry was there, so it was the older guys against the younger kids.

"We got the snot kicked out of us," Rob says, "but that just kept us going at it harder."

Go, go, go. It's the only way Rob Moms knows how to do anything. Most backyard games end when the neighborhood kids have to go home, but that didn't matter to Rob and Jason. Who says one-on-one is just for basketball?

"One would be a star quarterback, and the other would be a great linebacker," their father, Don, says. "After a while, they'd switch roles and play some more."

To say the Morrises of Nampa, Idaho, are a football family is like saying the Cleavers of Mayfield were a bit square. "We have four boys and one daughter," Don Morris says, "and even she likes football."

They used to gather around the TV and watch NFL Films as a family, with the favorite being "Crunch Come," a tribute to the league's biggest hitters. When the show evolved from a spectator event to a participatory one, a piece of furniture would get broken, a hole would get knocked in the wall. The furniture would get fixed; a new picture would go over the hole. They were ready for "Crunch Course" again. That's just how things went for the family that named its dogs after Dick Butkus and Bronko Nagurski. Rob, 2 5 and fresh off a standout career at Brigham Young as a--what else?--middle linebacker, devoured every morsel of his gridiron-rich upbringing.

"As a kid, Rob was learning about the greats of the game, or he was doing book reports on Jack Lambert," says Kansas City Chiefs offensive tackle John Tait, Moms' best friend and former college teammate. "What he learned translates in the way he plays today because he is a throwback."

Morris talks reverentially about Chuck Bednarik, football's last great two-way player. How many other players of today have heard of Bednarik? "I play the game the way it was supposed to be played, hard-nosed and tough," Moms says. "Old-school guys never took a down off, and I pride myself in never taking a down off."

Morris tracks the guy with the ball on every play, and almost every pile has him in it. And when he gets off that pile, he'd better have blood on him somewhere, and if that's too much to ask in the name of Sam Huff, then he'd at least better be dirty.

Soon enough, Moms will bring that style to the NFL, the league his heroes built. He is a probable first-round pick in April's draft, but how high he goes isn't so much the issue. Though he isn't on top of any team's draft board, he should be on top of yours.

Go, go, go. Rob Morris went to work at 8 a.m., and his day wouldn't end for 13-plus hours. That's a long, hard day for anyone, but not too surprising for a guy who knows only one speed. Moms had Waded in his shoulder pads and ripped jersey for a white, button-down shirt. After his freshman year at BYU, Morris went on a two-year Mormon mission.

Based in Toronto but covering multiple regions from Sudbury, Ontario, to Niagara Falls, Morris spent his days knocking on doors and trying to get people to listen to his message about the importance of families. It was a job which makes shedding a lead-blocking fullback seem like a vacation. He talked to strangers. He talked to members of the congregation. He talked to friends of members of the congregation. And when he wasn't doing that, Moms spent his time preparing or serving food at soup kitchens, visiting the elderly or stopping by the local .YMCA to talk some more. "Doing the community-service work," he says, "that part was something else. Just the feeling of being able to help people or make them feel better."

Morris could call his family only on Christmas and Mother's Day, but in a strange way, that was for the best. Talking to the people who are where you wish you were leads only to distractions. Isolation helped Morris get over the homesickness. That allowed him to attack his mission and its message with more vigor.

"What it comes down to is this: Be a decent human being," Morris says. "There's a lot of intolerance in the world, be it ethnic, social or religious. But you can't go around thinking everyone has to think like you.

"You have to accept the differences in people. That is so true going into the NFL bemuse there are so many different beliefs and so many different types of people. At BYU, I got along with everyone, regardless of religion, race or whatever. And I'm looking forward to the NFL, where there are a lot of people who have strong beliefs and have the same feelings as me regarding how you treat people."