• Alfred Morgan - Class of 1948

    Football, Baseball, Track

    Presenter - Marvin Morgan

     

    Ask most Manasquan Athletes who the best family of athletes is and they will tell you the Morgans.  Ask most Morgans who the best athlete was in their family, and they will tell you Alfie.  Coming from a family that has donned the Blue and Gray for over 60 years, that is quite an endorsement.

     

    Like the robber baron the Asbury Park Press nicknamed him after, Alfred "JP" Morgan had no equal.  His performance in three different sports would earn him legendary status throughout his career. 

     

    Alfie led his football teams to Shore Conference and State titles in 1946 and again in 1947, under Granville Magee (who was just returning from his 5 year stint in the Army).  He was a three-time All-Shore running back, a two-time All-State running back, and in 1946 was awarded the Shore Conference's Most Outstanding player by the Asbury Park Press.   Writer Jim Sullivan described Alfie as "a great kicker, a long passer, an outstanding runner, a good blocker and a certain tackler - a player who carried an unbeaten, but twice tied Manasquan 11 to a Central Jersey Championship". But he wasn't finished, he would return for an All-shore, All-State encore in his senior season, where the superlatives continued, causing Sullivan to claim "Alfie Morgan is unquestionably one of the greatest backs in Manasquan High School history".  As a senior, he was given the Peter Blocksom Roetzel Award as the school's most outstanding football player.

     

    In baseball, Alfie prowled centerfield for long-time Coach Jack Schellenger.  He would bat .370 lifetime at Manasquan, and was a two-time All-State selection in the outfield, and winner of the Vernon King, Jr. Award for the school's most outstanding player.

     

    In track, under Coach Magee he would set records in the 100 and the 220, the latter of which still stands at 22.1 seconds.

     

    Alfie would go on to North Carolina A & T, where he would continue to star in football, and what he described once as his "pet sport" baseball.  Described by his legendary coach William Bell as "one of the fastest backs he'd ever coached", Alfie helped lead the Aggies to CIAA Conference titles in 1951 and 1952, as well as the 1951 National Black College Championship. 

     

    In baseball, Alfie would lead the Aggies to a CCAA titles in 1951, leading the team in hits and stolen bases three consecutive seasons in a row.   Upon leaving NC A&T, Alfie had set the single season record for runs scored (44) and stolen bases (34 - a record that still stands today). 

     

    He would later turn down professional football and baseball offers to join the United States Army where he would continue to play and coach both football and baseball.

     

    Alfie is a 1999 Inductee to the North Carolina A&T Hall of Fame.