Fern Park lawyer still finds time for gridiron glory Fern Park lawyer still finds time for gridiron glory Mark D. Killian Managing EditorForget the rocking chair and remote control.At a time when most guys his age have left contact sports behind to chase a little white ball around a golf course, Fern Park lawyer Chris Morrison decided there was still some gas left in the tank.So last year Morrison, who will be 39 next month, tried out for the Orlando Starz, a minor league football team in the Southern States Football League. He made the cut, and almost 20 years to the day that Morrison played his last game for the Winter Park High School Wildcats, he again buckled-up his chin strap and hit the gridiron to compete against guys half his age and near twice his size.“They can’t see my age through the face mask, but they can see my size — I’m all of 5’8, 170 pounds,” said Morrison, who leads his team this year with 35 receptions and averages slightly more than seven yards a catch.“Fortunately the offense we run lends itself to a receiver of my type, which is the get-open type,” said Morrison, a former Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division board member.So what persuades a man to risk not only his memory of himself as a fine young athlete, but, well, his memory?“At an age when many competitive sports have been foreclosed to me, minor league ball gives me a forum to compete – especially in the sport that I love,” said Morrison, who describes himself as “short, slow, and old.”“Clearly, the best thing about playing football is the team atmosphere and camaraderie. You’ll meet friends and experience events unlike any others.”Starz Coach Steve Casteel said Morrison’s participation is an inspiration for the younger players, many of whom played in college and some who have limited pro experience.“This semi-pro football thing is really a bunch of guys who love to play the game and [Morrison] is one of them,” Casteel said. “He works his butt off in practice, he brings good leadership, he leads by example, and he plays hard.”Morrison admits to having his “bell rung more than my share of times,” but he loves the game and his teammates and tries to act as a role model and mentor to the younger players.“I try to get them to think seriously about their careers away from the field and teach them by example that your work ethic off the field must be as great as on the field,” said Morrision, who also has a front office role with the Starz as director of football operations.“I’m older than some of their fathers. They see a guy out here who is a successful business man, who has worked hard in school, and can still go out there and play the game hard — and if that makes them look differently at what they are going to do in the future, I’m all for it.”The SSFL (www.ssflonline.com) has 11 teams across the state from Jacksonville to Ft. Lauderdale to Naples and a myriad of places in between and plays from January through April. The league also this year will stage an all star game May 11 at Miami’s Historic Orange Bowl Stadium.Since high school, Morrison has kept active in sports, playing intramural flag football at the University of Florida and recreational leagues since then. Then one of his buddies convinced him to try out for the Starz.“I did pretty well in the agility drills, I can still run a pretty good 40-yard dash, and I figured I would give it a try,” said the Nova Southeastern University law graduate.Coach Casteel said he was surprised by how well Morrision could still play, but he has coached long enough not to make judgments based on appearances, but evaluate players on how they perform on the field.“He is a possession receiver,” Casteel said, adding that he is not as slow as one might think of a man getting up there in football age.“He has good quickness and plays the game very intelligently.”After the Starz’ Saturday night games, however, age does seem to creep up on the general practitioner whose favorite NFL player is Jerry Rice, who is still going strong at 40.“Let’s put it this way: I’m not spending the time in the office on Sundays that I used to,” Morrision said. “I’m very sore.”He says his partners and office staff can’t wait until Mondays to evaluate his physical health.“Everybody at the office gets a kick out of me coming in Monday morning to see what is going to be hurting that week,” Morrison said.“Am I going to have a black eye, are my fingers going to be all mangled, am I going to be limping? They mostly shake their heads and think I should grow up.”Does being trained as a lawyer give Morrison any on-field advantages? Not really, but after a 24-21 overtime victory against cross-town rivals, the Orlando Panthers, on March 22, one of the young Panthers told Morrison he played the game like a lawyer.“I had to think about that for a while,” Morrison said. “Are my skills that bad? But what he was saying was I’m a thinker, I’ll get to the first down when we need to, I’ll get open by finding the little dead spot to sit down in and catch the ball. All the players say I never take a hit, that I can really manage to avoid getting hit. I just tell them that is old age, self-preservation.”Does the “stately old gentleman of the league” have another season or two left in him?“I think I can squeeze out another year,” Morrison said. “I absolutely will be back next year, barring some kind of unusual circumstances.”Besides, he said, “I’m having the time of my life out there.” April 15, 2003 Managing Editor Regular News read more