In other words, Morris either sold the school to blue-chip recruits, or took the best players he could find and molded them into elite hockey teams. It’s hard to say which would be more impressive.

“I’ll let my record speak for itself,” Morris said. “I’m still the same guy I was for the last 20 years.”

And that is the most frustrating thing about his predicament. Objectively speaking, he is an outstanding hockey coach, and he wants nothing more than to get back into college hockey.

But Division I openings are scarce, and there is essentially the same qualified crop of candidates considered each time. You almost have to be the perfect candidate for the perfect school just to get an interview. The process gets that much more difficult if the events of an afternoon scrimmage are dragging you down like a giant-sized parachute around your waist.

“He’s staying in hockey, trying to get doors open for himself,” Comley said, “but the doors that are most important to him—those in college hockey—are closed right now.”

It doesn’t have to be that way. Someone, somewhere needs to give this man a break. Did he make mistakes at Clarkson? Sure. He admitted that he is “far from perfect.” He didn’t have many friends in the administration and may have lost touch with his players a bit during his last years there.

But in talking with Morris, you get a genuine sense that he has truly learned something from his ordeal. He is a better man for it and, thanks to his time in Vancouver and Saginaw, a better hockey coach, as well.

“Things happen for a reason,” he said. “It’s a healthy thing for me to turn the page, and move onto something new, but letting go of something near and dear to you is awfully tough to do.”

Morris is, in his heart, a college hockey coach, and you get the sense that he ultimately won’t come to terms with his dismissal until he’s coaching another Division I team. In all fairness, he should get that opportunity. “He deserves a second chance,” said Saginaw head coach Moe Mantha.

A look around college athletics shows several prominent cases of redemption-gone-right. In November 2002—the weekend after Morris was fired, in fact—first-year Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves had a physical confrontation at a hotel with one of his players, Alex Leavitt. The incident was reported to the athletic director. A letter of reprimand was put in Eaves’s personnel file, one of several low points for the Badgers in a 13-23-4 season.

But the administration stuck behind Eaves—and is undoubtedly satisfied with his performance since. Wisconsin is 17-9-6 this season and is a good bet to make the NCAA tournament, while Eaves won a Gold Medal last month as head coach of Team USA at the World Junior Championships.

You also might remember Bobby Knight, the Neil Reed tape and alleged Kent Harvey arm-grab/cuss-out incident. Indiana had enough of him, but he’s found a new niche at Texas Tech and has made the Red Raiders a Top 25 program.

And how about George O’Leary, he of the deceptive resume and Notre Dame embarrassment? He’s a head football coach again, at Central Florida.

And Mike Price, whose Alabama coaching career ended before it began because of a well-publicized night at a topless bar in Florida? He’s the head man at Texas-El Paso.

Now, there will be no attempt here to rank order Morris, Eaves, Knight, O’Leary and Price in a coaching sin bin. But it is fair to say that what Morris did certainly doesn’t put him on a moral low-ground when compared with the other four, and they are all coaching Division I teams again.