Morgan Jones was surrounded by the world of basketball from a very young age. Growing up in Orlando, Florida, Morgan remembers her family members, coaches, and mentors encouraging her to play the game at the highest level. As she continued to develop and strengthen her skills on the court throughout high school and college, Morgan began to inch closer to the goal of playing professional basketball. Before she knew it, she had accomplished just that. After graduating from college, she embarked on her professional career and headed to Puerto Rico to play basketball. But, life had other plans. Throughout that time, Morgan faced a series of challenges that pushed her to reflect on her passions, personal goals, and true interests in life. It was then when her purpose began to unfold. She was interested in using her own experiences to impact the next generation. She wanted to pay it forward. As Morgan began her career off the court as a sports broadcaster, she continued to brainstorm ideas about ways to support, encourage, and mentor athletes beyond the game. Suddenly, an idea came to mind—Athletes to Visionaries. An idea that initially began as a hashtag to empower athletes to understand that they are more than what they do, but quickly became a network for them to discover their identities and true potential beyond the court. Since then, Morgan has grown “Athletes to Visionaries” through workshop events and mastermind groups, and has continued to guide student-athletes to discover who they are. Truly inspiring!
When was that moment when you realized you wanted to step away from playing the game on the court and transition into the mentorship and empowerment side of the industry?
I played basketball my whole entire life. I had a sister that was two-and-a-half years older than me, and I followed her footsteps growing up. I followed the people that were leading me in my life—which were my parents, coaches, and mentors—, and was always told that the dream was to get to the professional level. When I was a little girl, I would go to WNBA games and would watch the cheerleaders. I would want to take pictures with the cheerleaders and not the players. So this idea of my journey (playing basketball) was something I think I was a little bit confused about for a long time. But I followed it, and ended up becoming pretty good at basketball—I was the ninth player in the country coming out of high school so I got to select almost anywhere I wanted to go for school. I went to Northwestern University initially, and then I transferred to Florida State University to get more of an athletic experience. There, when I graduated, we were in the Elite Eight and we lost to South Carolina to go to the Final Four. Then I transitioned to saying, “Okay, what’s next?” I decided to go pro, I tried out pro, and went to Puerto Rico. I played a season there. Beautiful place to be, great people, but at that point, I was at a place where I was exhausted mentally, emotionally, physically, and it was no longer fun. I was not having fun playing the game of basketball. I was a bit over the: “I love you when you are doing great, I hate you when you are not.” I can just remember the coach saying something in Spanish and what he said was, “Morgan, your job here is to score the ball. If you don’t score the ball, you can go home.” I was like, “Wow, that is really where my value lies. Right there.” That became a real issue for me, and that started to make my spirit uncomfortable. I was at a place where I was playing for teammates, I was playing for the people, and I got to the place that everyone told me: “This is it. You are here playing at the pro level.” Yet, my value was still only if I put that ball in the basket. For me that was the point where I was like, “Alright, I am going to take the leap of faith and just say ‘What’s next?’” I think all athletes come to that point at some time. In stepping out and seeing, I realized that it was a lot more difficult than I could have ever imagined.
What were some of the challenges that you faced when you made that decision to step away from the game?
As an athlete, you become so conditioned to the next game, the next practice, the next meal, and the next workout that going from that to having your whole entire day a blank canvas to recreate who you are, that is a very difficult transition for a lot of athletes. I fell into depression, substance abuse, and then I found myself pregnant all within a year. So that is when I had to stop and say, “Woah, I have not healed the athlete-identity in Morgan and here I am about to walk into the identity of being a mother. If I don’t start to define who I am right now, and what I want the standard for myself and my life (to be), someone else will.” That is where my deep discovery process started, that is where everything that you see now started and manifested outward.
You have also gotten involved in the world of sports broadcasting. Could you share more with us about how you got into that space and what your experience has been like thus far?