Morgan Hackworth, 8 years old and ready to show off a new move he had been working on for some time, stood surrounded by his father and the United States U-17 Men’s National team his father coached.

“I used to be a little ball boy that would just run around,” Hackworth said. “One day, my dad was like, ‘If you can do a rainbow in front of the whole team — because I had been working on that for a long time — then you can come and play with the team.’”

Hackworth flicked the ball from behind him over his head, rainbowing the ball and then getting mobbed by the crowd of players.

John Hackworth, Morgan’s father, has coached all levels of soccer, from Wake Forest men’s and women’s teams and youth national teams to the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer. The foundation that John helped Morgan form in soccer is the one that Morgan has used to forge his own path.

Morgan is now a freshman at Syracuse and the 140th-ranked recruit in the Class of 2015 by College Soccer News. He’s started in two of the Orange’s preseason games. 

“Morgan is a coach’s son,” SU head coach Ian McIntyre said. “He’s very smart, he’s intelligent, his use of the ball is good, he really sees the game very well.”

Morgan knew he’d end up a soccer player. His two younger brothers play the sport, and from a young age Morgan hung around his father’s teams. John’s coaching career moved the Hackworth family from Florida to Philadelphia, where John coached the Union when Morgan was in eighth grade.

While initially the Union didn’t have an academy — a youth development program to grow talent — Morgan joined the first Union academy team when it came to fruition.

Morgan’s father didn’t coach him directly, but did provide advice for his son. Although some of the critiques his dad would hand down were repetitive, Morgan has seen their value over time.

“Listening to him talk about his ideologies of soccer,” Morgan said, “… tactically and formationally and thinking on the ball, that’s been huge for me just to, like, know the game and become a smart soccer player.”

When Morgan was recruited in high school, Wake Forest came knocking, partially because his father both coached and played at the school. But after Morgan met McIntyre, he knew McIntyre was a coach he wanted to learn from.

John missed the Orange’s three preseason exhibitions while coaching the U.S. U-15 boys’ squad in England as Morgan’s started down his own path. He spent this summer at SU, working with assistant strength and conditioning coach Corey Parker. Morgan ran 2,000 meters before class and lifted weights after. McIntyre said Morgan has been one of the fittest players on the team.

So far, McIntyre has rotated Morgan and various players into the preseason lineup to decipher combinations for the regular season. Really, it’s not all that different from when Morgan was doing rainbows in front of the U-17 U.S. Men’s National Team.

The gaze of his father has been replaced by that of McIntyre, the U-17 players have been replaced by his Syracuse teammates and instead of a rainbow, all eyes are on his collective game.

“I wanted to do my own path. He went to Wake Forest and there was a lot of pressure on me to go in that direction, to go there,” Morgan said. “… I really wanted to come here and win a national title with this team and start my own thing here at Syracuse.”

Published on August 25, 2015 at 7:37 pm

Contact Chris: cjlibona@syr.edu | @ChrisLibonati