MISSOULA — Ty Morrison had a late start to football, not for lack of interest, but when growing up, you have to listen to your parents at the end of the day.
"I had always wanted to play football," Morrison said. "I didn't want to be a kicker. But my mom wouldn't let me play anything else because she'd heard all these stories about people getting hurt and stuff. So that was my in.
"My freshman year of high school, I was just playing soccer. I was a soccer player. And some of my buddies knew how strong of a leg I had because you play soccer during P.E. and stuff in middle school growing up. And so they told me that they didn't have a kicker and they asked me to come out and try and hit a couple balls, and the coaches were begging me to come back out and play."
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So after a lifelong pursuit of soccer, Morrison found himself on the football field.
Fast forward to today as a Division I athlete, the conversations with his mom now are a little different.
"The one that comes up a lot is with NIL stuff lately," Morrison laughed. "Because I go back, I was like, bet you wish I was a quarterback now. Because they make a lot of money now."
Now a senior with the Montana Grizzlies, it's proven to be a fruitful switch in sports for Morrison, who was drawn to football because of the environment it provided.
"I realized the kind of family that a football team has," Morrison said. "You come in every day, you lift together, you're doing conditioning together, you practice for twice as long as a soccer team does. You get to know the guys really well. And ultimately, that's what made me fall in love with it, was the rapport that you build with your teammates."
Morrison has a unique job in college football, as a multifaceted athlete who handles all of the kicking duties for the Griz, including punting, field goals, point-after attempts and kickoffs.
He did so in high school and at his first community college stop at College of the Canyons, and the Valencia, Calif., native has made the most of them all.
"It definitely adds a toll on my leg," Morrison said. "But with the training staff that we have here, how coach (Bobby) Hauck manages the reps that we are taking, and then ultimately it comes down to just wanting to do the best for our team and trying to help us win football games.
"I would say kicking is 99% mental. If you have the ability to do it, you have the ability to do it. But if you can go out there in front of the Mecca of FCS football and do it, you're in a good spot."
Morrison joined the Griz last season where he picked up most duties right away. After his stop at community college, he'd had commitments to San Diego State and UCLA before changes at those schools altered his plans, and even after a multitude of offers from other schools, Montana stood out.
"Knowing the kind of school that Montana was, how successful they were, and how long they had stuck with me showed how loyal they were," Morrison said. "And to me, that was worth more than anything. And so I called coach Hauck up and went on a visit the next day and committed on that visit and haven't looked back since."
This year, he's gone to the next level and twice has been named the Big Sky Conference special teams player of the week. After going 17 for 23 a year ago on field goals, Morrison is 5 for 7 this season with a season long of 42 yards coming against North Dakota in a pivotal moment in that win. His career long at UM is a 50-yard conversion he had last year in the playoffs against Tennessee State.
Of his 29 punts this season, 13 had been inside the 20-yard line.
For Morrison, it's the support around him that has meant the most as he's thrived in one of the most high-stress jobs in sports.
"I like doing it for them because they stuck with me this whole way," Morrison said. "So I want to give back to them."
He hasn't looked back, and has come up in the clutch time and time again as he winds down his career at Montana.
"To be a kicker that's getting recognized, it shows how much the community cares," Morrison said. "And just the way the program is built, with it teaching me things that I'm going to use after my college career, the hard work ethic, it really has set me up for my life later."
