Jené Morris

Classroom

Morris is a communications major, who has a 2.86 cumulative grade point average and will graduate in May 2010. Morris was tabbed an SDSU scholar-athlete this past spring. After graduation, she intends to enroll in graduate school to pursue a career in advertising.  This past summer, she served an internship with JHG Communications, a San Diego-based digital marketing agency that focuses on interactive, mobile and digital public relations.

Character

Work ethic, drive, leadership and competitiveness are all words to describe Morris, who has taken the Aztec basketball program from a 3-24 record a year prior to her arrival to a 24-8 mark last season. Morris possesses all the physical tools of an elite college athlete, but it is her desire to be great that sets her apart.  She practices at 110 percent every day and raises her game when the stakes are the highest, as evident by her 21.9 Aztec career scoring average in the postseason. As a senior this season, Morris was named a team captain and has taken it upon herself to mentor the underclassmen with the common goal of getting better every day.

Community

Morris has been an active participant in the team’s community service events.  She has served as a counselor at Aztec basketball summer camps and has helped at the Senior Women’s Basketball clinic in both 2008 and 2009.  She volunteered her time at the Girl Scouts’ Run/Walk for a New Day the last two years and helped rebuild a playground at EJE Elementary Academy in El Cajon, Calif.  As a freshman at Cal, she participated in the team’s project of feeding the homeless.

Competition

Morris is on the 2009-10 preseason watch list for both national player-of-the-year awards. She is one of just 25 players nominated for the Wade Trophy and one of 31 student-athletes up for the John R. Wooden Award.  She has already been tabbed a third-team All-American by The Sporting News as well as the preseason Mountain West Conference Player of the Year. Last season, Morris led SDSU to its first-ever MWC regular season title and first NCAA tournament bid in 12 years.  She was named a State Farm Coaches Honorable Mention All-American, the program’s first since 1994.  Morris was also tabbed the MWC Defensive Player of the Year and a first-team all-MWC pick and earned a spot on the first-ever MWC all-defensive squad.  She has garnered a spot on the conference all-tournament team in each of her two seasons and boasts five career MWC player-of-the-week awards. Her career statistical numbers at SDSU (two seasons) include 919 points, 95 three-pointers, 149 assists, 192 steals and 61 starts.  Morris has led the team in scoring each of the last two seasons and has been No. 1 in the Mountain West Conference in steals in both 2008 and 2009, ranking seventh nationally in that category a year ago.