- December 13, 2025
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The floodgates opened as anesthesia wore off. When Joel Morris returned home from surgery last October, the tears began to flow.
A cast encased his right leg. His junior season was over. Initially poised to play a major role in the offense, he wouldn’t be playing any role at all.
Morris cried once more when Booker football — the team he was supposed to help lead — reached the 2024 FHSAA Class 3A state semifinals.
“Once I (saw) these guys go out to the Final Four and I (saw) the atmosphere they were playing in, I’m not going to lie, I shed a couple tears then,” Morris said. “I knew that was something I always wanted to do.”
The road to recovery had its lows. It demanded month after month of work just to play football again. If he wanted to come back better than before, even more work was required.
Just over a year later, there are no more tears for Morris. Only triumph.
Booker concluded its 2025 regular season at 9-1 behind his brilliance. In his only full season as the program’s starting signal-caller, the senior has played a consistent, error-free brand of football, offering a steady hand since the start of the team’s campaign in late August.
Starting all 10 games under center, Morris has tossed 23 touchdowns against zero interceptions — 191 consecutive pass attempts without a pick. He’s thrown for 1,803 yards on a completion rate of 63.9%.
“You can see how much (Morris) appreciates this opportunity that he has right now. He has full control of the offense,” said coach Carlos Woods. “He has full confidence in his offensive line with the protection, and with the elite receivers that he has.”
Booker brass has long known Morris had the talent and IQ necessary for a season like this. After he transferred in from Lakeland Lake Gibson ahead of his junior year, they realized it early.
Willie and Sheritta Morris, though, had such insights several years before.
Growing up in Lakeland, Joel Morris’ first coach was his father, Willie, in flag football. He played safety/linebacker for Lakeland back in his own high school days and first put a football in his son’s hands at 2 years old.
“He knew my plays better than I did,” said Willie Morris. “He's a very cerebral player, so his football IQ probably was a little bit more advanced for his age… I knew he had a chance at being a special player at some point.”
Joel Morris started playing the game as a 4-year-old, and by the time he was old enough for Pop Warner, it was his mother, Sheritta Morris, who stepped up as the team mom. Always busy with that role, she never had much time to sit back and watch her son in action.
Then, in eighth grade, she began to truly understand something big was in his future.
“It was when I started hearing other people, like the opponents, complimenting him and saying how good he was,” said Sheritta Morris. “(That was) when I realized, and I took a moment to watch, I was like, ‘Wow, he really is good.’”
Following his sophomore season as Lake Gibson’s starting signal-caller, Morris transferred to Booker. Injury troubles, though, mounted before he could ever get comfortable in his new home.
He suffered a left high ankle sprain in the team’s season opener on Aug. 23, 2024, and put in a boot for three weeks. Two attempts at a return on Sept. 13 and 20 were both unsuccessful as he played only a few series behind senior quarterback Ryan Downes.
Oct. 4 became a nightmare. Morris earned the starting nod against Sebring, but while still moving gingerly on his left leg, took a fateful tackle.
“When it happened, it felt super weird. I thought my ankle was going to be facing me,” Morris said. “Luckily, my linemen came and got me up and I limped off the field.”
He had fractured his fibula and tore ligaments in his right leg. That required two months in a cast and two weeks in a boot afterward. From January through April 2025, he would attend physical therapy.
Morris remained present for the rest of the season, offering a morale boost at Booker’s games when he could — not that he enjoyed being a spectator.
No ability to tangibly impact the team’s success ate at him.
“Watching him cry, that was hard,” said Sheritta Morris. “He was on his way to having a special season in his junior year, and then for that to happen, to be sidelined … it just broke your heart.”
Coaches, private trainers, physical therapists, and family made up his support system. All of them pushed him to come back stronger, and at his lowest moments, they lifted him up.
Their collective message was to trust the process. Results will come of it.
“He was still hungry on the field and off the field. With his trainer (private coach B.J. Hall), he worked his tail off, getting back healthy and getting ready to play for this season as well,” Willie said. “His drive never wavered. He was still the same Joel.”
Results have been decidedly positive. The Tornadoes are champions of Class 3A-District 11, and at No. 3 in Class 3A as of the Oct. 28 FHSAA rankings, are well-positioned for a deep postseason run.
Booker has averaged 33.5 points per game against the sixth-toughest schedule in 3A. And the squad will ride a nine-game winning streak into the Nov. 14 regional quarterfinals.
“I’ve thrown for more yards than I have my whole career in football, just this season,” said Joel. “It’s really made me fall in love with the game again, because when you stop doing something that you love so much for such a long time, you miss it."
On the Tornadoes’ senior night Oct. 31, Morris sent a message to his family group chat. He thanked everyone for coming out to support him in his final regular-season game.
He also added another text.
“I’m going to bring a state championship to Booker.”
If Morris indeed delivers on his promise, no sorrow will accompany such an accomplishment. He can cry tears of joy as confetti rains down.
