NORFOLK, VA (WTKR)- ML Morgan knows what it takes to win. Throughout his college baseball career, coaching ventures and pro experience, he's tasted the top level of success.
Now he hopes to bring that same mentality and success to Norfolk State's baseball program. Morgan was officially announced as the Spartans' next head coach last Wednesday and was introduced to the media on Monday afternoon on campus.
"This opportunity is one I couldn't pass up," the new head coach said. "Just the potential, being in a recruiting hotbed in this area and also the conference. I think it's an opportunity to compete in the conference as well, being the southern-most team in the conference (NEC), it's a lot of opportunity for growth here."
This marks Morgan's first collegiate head coaching job, but he's no stranger to being around successful programs. His father is the longtime head coach at Virginia State and he's served as an assistant coach at both VCU and Randolph-Macon. During Morgan's three seasons with the Rams, his alma mater, the team advanced to the NCAA Super Regional for the first time in program history. He also helped RMC reach a number one national ranking during his three year tenure in Ashland.
Morgan's most recent job saw him serve as the Mid-Atlantic area scout supervisor for the Tampa Bay Rays. That organization has a reputation of excelling, despite being among the lower payrolls in Major League Baseball. The ability of that team to develop talent successfully could serve him well as a college head coach.
"It's all about the process and the people that you have in place," he noted. "Hiring a good staff is huge and then putting processes in place to allow guys to get better and the players have to have equal ownership in that development process. They're going to have ownership so they can take pride in it, so it's just about setting processes and then putting guys in positions that can help them."
Since winning the MEAC championship in 2021, Norfolk State has stumbled the last four years, culminating with a 4-38 showing in 2025. Morgan says he'll put a dynamic team on the field in hopes of turning things around.
"I want to be really multi-faceted on offense," he said. "We want to be able to put the ball in play, steal, be really aggressive on the bases, hit home runs, but putting pressure on the defense is the main piece of that. Defensively we want to be as conservative as possible, take care of the baseball, limit free bases, throw a ton of strikes and let our athletes make plays."
Morgan played his college baseball at VCU and helped the Rams to two conference championships. He replaces Keith Shumate, who guided the program since the 2018 campaign.
