New Gov. Mifflin football coach Nick Morrissey has strong roots in the game
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By the time he was 6 years old Nick Morrissey knew what he wanted to do with the rest of life: Play and coach football.
He was a ballboy at Wyomissing in the early 1990’s when his father Mickey was an assistant coach with the Spartans. He looked up to the players on the field and to his dad on the sidelines and wanted to be just like them.
“It was my dream to someday be a head coach,” said the 39-year-old Morrissey, who realized that dream Monday night when the Gov. Mifflin school board approved him as head coach of the Mustangs.
He played and coached at Muhlenberg and for the last nine years has been part of the Mifflin program as an assistant coach.
He’s been fortunate over the past two decades to have learned from some of the best in Berks football history: John Yocum and Kerry Ciatto at Muhlenberg, Mick Vecchio and Jeff Lang at Mifflin. Now his Mustangs players will benefit from those relationships, as well.
“They’ve taught me so much, and I want to take a little bit from (each of) them in everything I’ve learned over the past 16 years,” Morrissey said. “Without them this would’ve never been possible.”
Morrissey was an all-league guard at Muhlenberg who played on Inter-County League Section 1 champs as a junior and senior, in 2001 and 2002. Ciatto was his offensive line coach, Yocum his head coach. Both were still in place when he returned to coach there.
At Mifflin he has been part of five Berks League Section 1 championship teams and the Mustangs’ only District 3 championship, in 2021.
He was offensive line coach that season, in charge of creating seams for Nick Singleton to run through.
For the past two seasons he has served as Mifflin’s defensive coordinator.
All the while he let Vecchio, and later Lang, know his goal was to someday become a head coach and each helped on that path.
“Coach Lang, along with Coach Vecchio, has been mentoring me for the past couple years, getting me ready to be a head coach,” Morrissey said, “doing everything he could to show me the ropes and teach me the ins and outs of everything.
“They’ve been nothing but supportive throughout that entire process.”
Lang hinted before the season began that this could be his final season, and shortly after it ended he resigned, ending a 33-year association with the program, including seven as head coach.
Morrissey is hoping both Lang and Vecchio continue to contribute to the program is some form next season. Same goes with former assistant coach Doc Vecchio; Morrissey is hoping he can return to the program.
“I want as many great minds around me as possible,” Morrissey said. “The most important thing is continuing the values and culture that Coach Vecchio and Coach Lang have built over the last 35 years. To have them around, to maintain what they worked 35 years to build, that is No. 1 on the list.”
Morrissey is encouraged that most of the coaching staff plans to return. That will help make for a smooth transition into next season.
The Mustangs are coming off back-to-back losing seasons – an anomaly for a program that had reached the postseason 18 straight years and won 13 league titles over an amazing 15-year stretch.
Morrissey doesn’t expect those losing ways to continue. Mifflin has a strong junior class, featuring 22 players, including all-league defensive back Reese Hohl, center and captain Gavin Kelly, quarterback Javien Pletz, fullback Grady Garner and some big linemen.
“The kids we have coming up through, they’re all team-oriented kids and that’s the biggest thing with Mifflin,” Morrissey said. “It doesn’t matter who gets the ball, we line up and get 4 yards and a cloud of dust. The classes we have coming up definitely hold true to those traditions that have made Mifflin great for two decades.”
Morrissey understands and respects the tradition at Mifflin is about to change a thing.
“The traditions and the legacy of Mifflin football and the brand of Mifflin football that we play, that’s not going anywhere,” he promised. “We’re gonna go with what got us there.”
Morrissey’s first football lessons came from his father, and he’ll surely lean on them as a head coach. Mick Morrissey taught his son one of the keys to success in football is perseverance.
“There’s gonna be ups and downs,” Nick Morrissey said, “there’s gonna be times where it’s not going well. There’s gonna be dark times. You just have to wake up every day and understand that you’re doing it for the right reasons.
“You’re doing it to help kids. You’re doing it to be part of a community. You’re doing it to make people better. Ultimately, when you’re around those people they’re making you better, as well.”