Q & A with Men's Volleyball's Jason Morrow

Jason Morrow is a senior center for the men's volleyball team. He recently sat down with staff writer Matt Simmons.

Prince: When did you start playing volleyball? How did you get started?

Jason Morrow: I started playing organized volleyball in eighth grade. A couple of kids that lived in my neighborhood and friends of mine in school were players. I just kind of got exposed to it and started playing because friends were.

P: Have you always been a setter?

JM: Yes, from day one. The first time we scrimmaged and I was on a team, I was setting, so yeah, pretty much.

P: How is the volleyball back home (California) different from the way it is here?

JM: There might be more of a focus on all-around skills just because a lot more kids grow up playing on the beach where that's more important. And, yeah that's the biggest thing. Guys who grew up playing the game and have more of sense of the overall game.

P: Describe the 1998 Final Four appearance.

JM: Once in a lifetime. It was awesome. It was the culmination of ten years or twenty years [for head coach Glenn Nelson] at this school. Coach has been here twenty some years. It was good; it was just great to get a chance to go play in the national semi-finals, or whatever, and get to see a bunch of guys that I had played against in high school and all that. To see them, especially them thinking that Princeton would never get there, and to be able to beat Penn State for the first time in school history — it was an awesome experience.

P: What does it take for a team to make a run like that?

JM: That team had four seniors who were all great players. Everything just kind of came together at the right time. We didn't have a great regular season, but during the playoffs we just really came together. Everyone started playing well at the same time and had a great run through the playoffs where we were playing the best volleyball we had played all year. Good timing, everybody coming together and everybody playing well at the same time.

P: What about this year's team? What would it take for this year's team to make the same kind of run?

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JM: A lot more consistency, certainly. Winning a fifth game once. I don't know, I don't think it's impossible. I don't think anybody's the clear-cut best team back here. I mean we hung with Penn State when we played them.

I don't think we've had a game where everybody's played well, and if we came together where everybody was playing well and we were playing really good defense and passing really well, I don't think it's unheard of. I mean, it would just take six guys on the floor at the same time, everybody playing well, everybody doing what they have to do.

P: Was that one of your goals for this season, to make it back to the Final Four? What were your goals for this year?

JM: I guess that's always kind of a goal in the back of your mind. Whether or not it's as realistic as it was sophomore or freshman year is hard to say. In the back of your mind, you always want to think that you can do that, but a little more realistically I think we wanted to be in the top two or three teams in the East and, you know, get a chance to play Penn State in the playoffs, in the finals maybe, and hope things were going well for us. So, just to get back to that upper echelon of teams was more than necessarily getting back to the Final Four.

P: Looking ahead, the team's got some strong young talent on it like Dennis Alshuler. Who do you see as being the leaders in the future?

JM: I think Dennis is going to be a very good player. I think next year they could be a pretty good team; I know they're getting a couple new guys. I think they could be good next year. Hopefully Dennis won't spend too much time on football, and devote enough time to volleyball to be as good as he can be.