Elizabeth Zanghi/The Ram Devon came back from a torn shoulder ligament to help lead his team to fifth place in the A-10 championship.
The Fordham Ram: How does it feel to be a senior?
Devon Morris: I guess it happened kind of quick, the four years went by really fast. It’s good, though, glad to be done with college.
TFR: Why did you choose to come to Fordham all the way from Washington state?
DM: It was actually a tough choice; it was between here and Denison University, a D-3 program, and it was mostly for swimming that I chose, and the last day I just flipped a quarter, and it ended up on Denison, but I chose Fordham anyway, so I really don’t know.
TFR: Do you have a favorite place in the city?
DM: Probably Union Square; My friend had a girlfriend that went to NYU. We went there a lot freshman year, so I like it there a lot.
TFR: What are your plans for after graduation?
DM: I don’t really have any plans after graduation right now. I’ll probably end up doing the same thing I did with college; it’ll probably come down to a quarter toss to stay in New York or to go back home, but I’d like to stay in New York.
TFR: Do you have any plans to do anything with swimming after you graduate?
DM: I haven’t really thought about it until probably this weekend at A-10s when I realized swimming was coming to an end, and for the longest time I thought I’d be done with swimming after college, but now I think I might continue it. If I stay in New York I would want to join NYAC.
TFR: Can you tell us a little bit about that?
DM: Yeah, NYAC is a mash program. It’s the New York Athletic Club, and usually it’s kids that have done swimming in college, so usually it’s Princeton and Harvard and a few other schools around the area end up swimming at NYAC. It’s a master’s program that’s focused more towards competitive swimming than swimming just to stay in shape.
TFR: What’s your favorite Fordham memory?
DM: Favorite Fordham memory? Well that’s a tough one, let me think for a second. I would say my favorite Fordham memory probably comes from swimming. It was last year’s A-10s in Buffalo, it was the 200 freestyle relay, and it was the first time our team has gotten a gold in a relay in I can’t remember how many years, but it was a really exciting moment.
TFR: Do you have a favorite non-swimming memory?
DM: Favorite non-swimming memory, yeah, sure. I would say spring weekend my freshman year, MGMT. I thought that was a really good concert, and I had a lot of fun there.
TFR: How did you get started with swimming?
DM: I started swimming I think when I was four, but I didn’t get serious about it until about eighth or ninth grade, and that’s when I started to focus on swimming more.
TFR: What was it like being a team leader this past season?
DM: This past season was great; we had a great team, everybody was a contributor from the junior class down. It wasn’t hard at all — didn’t do anything different. They all knew what had to be done, as in the juniors and sophomore class. There’s just a bunch of great guys. They’re all really friendly, so it was really easy.
TFR: How was your final season and tournament? Are you sad to see it go?
DM: The final season had a lot of ups and downs because I tore my shoulder at the beginning of the season, so I didn’t compete much until probably January so that was the downs. The ups, we went to Hawaii for winter training, and that was great. And then A-10s, seeing everybody swim really well was another great moment.
TFR: Is there anything you want to share about swimming or about Fordham, or in general?
DM: Um. I can’t think of anything specific, no. Come to the swim meets I guess. There’s not many people there sometimes, good showing a lot of the time though, parents are nice.
TFR: Does the team look like it’s going to get better in the future?
DM: The conference definitely got better this year. The conference was ridiculously fast this year so hopefully the team can stay at the same pace as the conference. St. Bonnie’s [Bonaventure], just to know about the conference UMass has won the past, I don’t know, 15 years in a row, and St. Bonnie’s put them on upset alert for the next few years. They got two Russian kids that are really quick. The team, I think the team has a lot of promise for the following years, a lot of good young talent.
