WASHINGTON — Morgan Wootten, the legendary basketball coach at
DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Md., died Jan. 21. He was 88.
Wootten led his teams to national prominence while teaching his
players to prioritize God, family, school and basketball in that order.
“He lived by those priorities every day, and it drove every
decision he ever made,” DeMatha said in an email sent the next morning,
noting he “was surrounded by his family in prayer and passed away
peacefully.”
Wootten’s son, Joe, played for his father at DeMatha and is now
the athletic director and varsity basketball coach at Bishop O’Connell High
School in Arlington.
Wootten’s funeral Mass will be celebrated Jan. 27 at DeMatha’s
Brendan Looney Convocation Center in Hyattsville.
“Morgan, or Coach Wootten as many of you knew him by, was a
loving husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, friend, mentor and
coach,” the school said. “While we mourn the passing of Morgan, we
also celebrate his remarkable life. It was a life that touched so many other
lives.
“Morgan cared deeply about his faith, family, his community,
the DeMatha family and most of all his beloved wife of almost 56 years,
Kathy.”
Wootten helped hundreds of his players earn college basketball
scholarships, and more than 12 of his players went on to compete in the NBA,
including fellow Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley.
From 1956, when he began coaching basketball at DeMatha, through
his retirement in 2002, Wootten led the Stags to 1,274 victories, five national
championships and more than 30 conference championships. In 2000, he was
enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield,
Massachusetts.
“His DNA is all over the darn game,” said Duke’s
“Coach K” Mike Krzyzewski, the all-time winningest college basketball
coach, in an interview in the 2017 documentary “Morgan Wootten: The
Godfather of Basketball.”
The film also quoted John Wooden, who led UCLA to 10 national
basketball championships, who said of Wootten, “I know of no finer coach
at any level — high school, college or pro.”
The documentary highlighted how Wootten was an innovator whose
players pioneered the fast break on offense and taking charging fouls on
defense and who helped start the nation’s first basketball camps.
Over the past four decades, more than 200,000 boys and girls have
learned how to play basketball at Wootten’s day and overnight camps in the
summer. Many of his basketball players at DeMatha went on to become high
school, college or pro coaches.
In retirement, Wootten continued to attend daily Mass at St. Mark
the Evangelist Church in Hyattsville, and volunteer at the food pantry there
with wife Kathy.
After a screening of the documentary about him, Wootten told the
Catholic Standard, Washington’s archdiocesan newspaper, that his faith remained
central to his life, and he reflected on how much he loved coaching and
teaching history at DeMatha over the years.
“None of this would have happened without my Catholic faith,”
Wootten said, adding, “My faith has shown me the way, what I was supposed
to do.”
In a 2007 talk to Catholic young adults at a Theology on Tap
gathering, Wootten said, “Successful people who can handle challenges
generally have their priorities in the proper place. That is one thing that
never changes. God is first. It will make you a better student. It will make
you a better ballplayer. It will make you happier in life.”
The coach advised the young adults, “Never try to be better
than anyone else, but try to be the best that you can be.”
Noting that “the Lord was, has been and continues to be very
good to me,” Wootten said he hoped that someday “all of us would be
in God’s Hall of Fame.”
A special exhibit on Wootten in the coach’s wing at the
Basketball Hall of Fame pointed out the irony of his putting basketball
“no higher than fourth on his list of what is truly important in
life,” after God, family and education.
But the exhibit’s commentary added that credo in his more than 45
years of coaching at DeMatha was “a formula that Wootten has used himself
to become one of the most revered and treasured educators and coaches in the
nation.”
In that display is a banner showcasing DeMatha’s national
championships in the 1962, 1965, 1968, 1978 and 1984 seasons, along with one of
his sneakers and a simple white DeMatha polo shirt he wore at practice.
The esteem with which Wootten is held in the sport of basketball
also is reflected in the Basketball Hall of Fame’s Morgan Wootten Lifetime
Achievement Award, presented annually to coaches who have dedicated their lives
to coaching high school basketball and “who exemplify the core values of
the game.”
In 2010, DeMatha Catholic High School dedicated its new gym,
named the Morgan and Kathy Wootten Gymnasium in honor of the longtime coach and
teacher’s family.
In a 2019 interview with Washington’s WTOP radio, Coach Wootten
said that it was meaningful to him that while some of his players went on to
play in the NBA, many others went on to successful careers in medicine and
other fields and are making a positive difference in people’s lives.
Wootten, a native of Durham, N.C., began coaching baseball,
football and basketball at a Washington orphanage then operated by the Holy
Cross Sisters, St. Joseph’s Home for Boys. He then served as a junior varsity
basketball coach for three seasons at St. John’s College High School in
Washington, mentored by its legendary coach Joe Gallagher.
Wootten is survived by wife Kathy and the couple’s five children
and their spouses — Cathy (Mike) Stamper, Carol (Steve) Paul, Trish Wootten,
Brendan (Elizabeth) Wootten and Joe (Terri Lynn) Wootten; 15 grandchildren; his
brother Angus (Batya) Wootten; his sisters Clare (Bob) Crawford-Mason, and Lee
Wootten; and his extended family at DeMatha.
Zimmermann is editor of the Catholic Standard, newspaper
of the Archdiocese of Washington.
