Lee Morris:  

LEE MORRIS BIOGRAPHY Lee Morris is the youngest of three brothers born to Dr. and Mrs. Vernon Morris. Lee's father was the Upper Moreland School District Assistant to the Superintendent after he received his doctorate of Education in 1968. Ten years prior, Lee’s father, Dr. Vernon Morris moved his family from Northeast Philadelphia to Willow Grove to accept his new position as Elementary Supervisor at Upper Moreland School District in 1957. Lee’s father was extremely proud of his thirty year service to Upper Moreland School System with zero teachers’ strike under his authority! Dr. Vernon Morris’s sons are; Vernon Morris Jr. from UM’s Class of ‘66, Wayne Morris from the Class of ‘69 and Lee Morris from the Class of ‘71. Lee’s mother, Jeanne Morris who is ninety-seven years old lives with Lee and Lee’s wife, Beth at their farmhouse. Dr. Vernon Morris Sr. sadly passed away on November 2004. RIP. Lee was on Upper Moreland’s Wrestling Team in Junior High, but found a love for tennis and soccer in High School. Lee played the top singles position on the varsity tennis team rotating with best friend Dave Seitz! Unfortunately, Upper Moreland’s tennis team did not have a large program and the players knew more than the coach! The best advice Lee got from his high school tennis coach after splitting sets with his opponent was, “Lee, just do the same thing you did to win the one set.” LOL. Lee and Dave also got into the varsity soccer team in their senior year 1971. After graduation from High School, Lee attended Montgomery County Community College in the fall of 1971 where he also played varsity soccer and tennis. Unfortunately again, the tennis coach was inexperienced and was more of a cheerleader and morale booster during match play. Lee was the number one singles player with a 16-1 record but relied on his speed and quickness rather than the control that Lee had not yet learned. After Lee graduated from Montgomery County Community College in the spring of 1974 with an Associate Degree in Health, he was recruited by the West Chester University tennis coach Dr. Ron Woods, a nationally ranked coach, during the fall of 1974. Coach Woods allowed Lee to challenge in on the varsity from the bottom up. The team was the East Coast champion with a ton of talent! In spite of the fact that Lee won every match from number 10 to number 3, his unorthodox style confused many players! Consequently, Coach Woods pulled Lee to the side and said “You have to change all your strokes if you want to play for me”. Lee sucked in his pride and spent one year totally relearning strokes with the coach’s brilliant help. The following year Lee had developed a controlled game along with his natural speed and quickness, and played top singles positions for West Chester University. Lee’s singles record was 22-2 as they won the conference again on his senior year as Lee graduated West Chester University in the spring of 1976 with a BS Degree in Health. Lee taught one year at Abington Junior High School right out of college but yearned for a tennis pro coaching career since Coach Woods helped develop his strokes and instilled the progressions of learning them. Lee then moved to Miami Beach living in his “Tennis Travel” customized van not having any connections or money in 1977. He went from motel to motel looking for a tennis pro job when he landed at the North Miami Beach Thunderbird Motel along Collins Avenue in November of 1977. After two years at a dead-end at the North Miami Beach Thunderbird Motel while getting a great tan, Lee got his big break when a senior pro got him a tennis job at world famous a billionaires’ club called The Ocean Reef Yacht Club in Key Largo, Florida. In just four months as a teaching pro, Lee was offered, without any interviews, five tennis director jobs due to his clientele from the former President Richard Nixon and the NFL film owners from Villanova, Pennsylvania, and Ed and Steve Sabol. Lee spent many hours flying with Ed Sabol in his private airplane around the Florida Keys and talking about the Philadelphia Eagles! Lee spent his first night at The Ocean Reef Yacht Club stringing tennis rackets for his boss at midnight as the ship, The Queen Elizabeth, docked next to the Pro Shop, and Queen Elizabeth strolled in for tea! The Radnor Racquet Club in Philadelphia was where Lee found work for winter employment, becoming its Director, and then was hired at the Wintergreen Resort in Virginia for summer employment as he left The Ocean Reef in April of 1980. At this time, Lee completed his professional tennis certification called the USTPA P1, the highest degree of certification in the industry, which he needed to obtain in order to be the Director of these two nationally ranked tennis clubs. Lee’s exclusive mainline clientele at Radnor Racket Club included Dr. Julius Erving and family, Gary Maddox, Billy Cunningham, Merv Griffin, and Brooke Shields, to name a few, hosting and playing exciting exhibition events with tennis greats such as Stan Smith, Rod Laver, Don Budge and Dennis Van der Meer. An interesting tidbit in Lee’s career was the experience of playing against the number one ranked male player in the world, Johan Kriek. Johan had just beaten John McEnroe to become number one as he was in New Jersey at Cherry Hill Racquet Club for a junior development event. Lee was invited by the hosting pro to play doubles against Johan, but then it became singles when the club pro became too nervous to play Johan in front of his packed stadium. Lee found a way to get two games in against Johan in that singles exhibition set, even though Lee was running clinics at his club from 6am to 3pm before that exhibition! At Wintergreen Resort during the summer months, Lee directed a 24-tennis court facility in the Blue Ridge Mountains where he was introduced to hang gliding off those mountains in 1982. From that point on, hang gliding became Lee’s passion over the next forty years giving him much joy and solitude away from the rigorous tennis directors work. Lee taught many Senators and Congressmen from D.C. and from that, Ed Harper, the Policy Development Director for President Ronald Reagan, offered Lee a position to teach tennis to the White House staff on Sundays. Lee became the official White House tennis coach for two years teaching Nancy Reagan and many other White House staff members as well. On Lee’s last day of his tenure at the White House, President Ronald Reagan walked to the South West Lawn to thank him for the two years of tennis lessons for his wife Nancy! Lee states that he will never forget the image of President Ronald Reagan standing at the side fence of the tennis court observing and saying “How she doing, Lee?”! After ten years as the Director of The Radnor Racquet Club and still single, Lee left for a change in life for a second visit to Florida. He accepted the position as Tennis Director of the Dolphin Swan Hotel, Epcot Property at Disney World in 1990 where he taught Dustin Hoffman and many other celebrities. The “Dick Tracy” movie held its premier at the Dolphin Swan Hotel Resort during Lee’s first week on the job, which also coincided with the grand opening of the Dolphin Swan Hotel Resort. Warren Beatty, Madonna, Danny DeVito, along with many other cast members and celebrities were on Lee’s tennis courts while Lee was teaching the CEO of Sheraton Hotels and his wife. Suddenly, a long white stretch limousine pulled up alongside of Lee’s tennis court, and Dustin Hoffman jumped out demanding a three-hour tennis lesson immediately with Lee Morris! Dustin ordered Lee to rem...Expand for more