Huw Morris celebrates 50 years of building Saskatoon soccer community

When Huw Morris stepped off a plane from his home country of Wales in the summer of 1976, he immediately immersed himself in the Saskatoon soccer community.

When Huw Morris stepped off a plane from his home country of Wales alongside his new wife in the summer of 1976, he immediately immersed himself in the Saskatoon soccer (or rather football as he calls it) community.

“Back in those days, a lot of athletes came over, not only to worked in the mining industries, but also came believing in the sport in earnest... brought over for the purpose of developing the country not only in sport but economically as well, to make sure that we brought our trades with skills and education, to make stature and to make Canada a richer, more valuable country,” Morris said.

An engineer by trade, Morris has spent the last 50 years developing his skills first as a player, and then as a coach for soccer athletes across Canada, after settling in Saskatoon, Morris quickly became involved with the Saskatoon United Soccer Club (SUSC).

“We played for what they called the Saskatchewan Shield, which was a fabulous, fabulous, piece of heritage in this province... We went to many national championships,” Morris said.

Morris shared that near the end of his career as a player, he received a profound piece of advice from a friend.

“One day when I was starting to complain about football development in Saskatchewan, in Canada, he said ‘well, hey why complain about it? Maybe you should get into coaching’?” Morris said.

• Get the latest news from Saskatoon, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App

Morris joked that while some colourful language was used in this exchange, it truly set him on a path that which he continues to follow to this day.

“So that’s when I started getting into coaching and I learned rapidly. Playing the game is vastly different than coaching,” Morris said.

After going through various training and mentorship programs and certifications, Morris dove into the world of coaching. Sharing his expertise with all athletes of all ages.

“After playing for Saskatchewan and playing at the various levels and the all star leagues started coaching those teams. And then now I’m trying to put what I’ve learned as a player into what I’ve learned as a coach, and putting it all into the practical aspect of developing players, not only developing players on the high level, but developing players at the youth level, at grassroots,” Morris said.

The coach expressed how his perspective of the game shifted as he took on a mentorship role with countless young athletes.

“It’s not about winning....of course, watching these kids, they all want to win, right? But winning to me is having children that can aspire to their highest level, but...seeing them come back for the next season and the next season, that is winning,” Morris said.

Over his lengthy career, Morris has witnessed a number of changes to the game, specifically, the increased number of women in soccer. However after coaching so many girls in the sport, Morris shared that he would love to see more female representation on the international stage.

“How do we get women to be confident in teaching the game when it’s a man’s world? And the women that we see that encompass the world of soccer... you can count them on one hand, when you look at all major organizations in soccer, you can count the women involved in one hand,” Morris said.

The coach added that while a number of positive changes have been introduced to the sport, he sees one major difficulty that is becoming more prominent nowadays.

“The negative one is it cost way more to play. And that to me is until we can come up with a way to be able to handle the increased financial workload. That’s where I see the biggest burden. Kids that can’t pay for the game... children that haven’t got the support of families to play this game,” Morris said.

Morris has served as the director of player and coach development for the SUSC, and he has kept that love for the game in the family. His daughter, Adele Bandet, is the technical director of SUSC.

“It’s in the blood. We talk about it all the time... I grew up on the side of the field watching him as a player, transforming into a coach and just being at that mentorship role of being always there, learning, guiding, growing from him and just being inspired,” Bandet said.

Morris shared that while the duo butt heads at times, it all comes down to a shared love of the game.

“We go knuckle to knuckle at times, but the ability to see her grow, to see her develop, to see her heart that’s in the game, to see how she acts with children, people, fellow coaches, national coaching staff, nothing prouder than the world,” Morris said.

After celebrating 50 years of building the soccer community both in Saskatchewan and Canada, Morris is beginning to eye retirement, although he never plans to be far from the sport he loves.

“I’m still supporting companies right now in my engineering field. I even at my age. But I do promise at the end of this year, it’s time for me to maybe take a sabbatical, come out and watch the children, watch the games and hopefully, sit back and enjoy maybe a legacy and maybe that I’ll be remembered for,” Morris said.