DATE: Saturday, July 26, 1997               TAG: 9707260834

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Tom Robinson

                                            LENGTH:   67 lines

MORGAN NO LONGER SWIMMING WITH SHARKS

He was going to lead us to green pastures. Into the Canadian Football League, anyway. Remember?

Less than two years ago, T.J. Morgan and the semipro football team he ran called the Sharks launched a mom-and-pop, season-ticket drive to get a CFL franchise.

One of Morgan's eyes was on the invading Shreveport Pirates, the CFL team that tried to move here, and which Morgan was desperate to block.

His other eye was always sort of glazed. It gave off the impression of Morgan as a football nut fixated on utter fantasy, including his wish to eventually bring an NFL team here.

The drive was short-lived, and the Pirates died, but the Sharks are still around, as amateur as ever. They open their first season in a new league, the International Football League, in West Virginia tonight.

Morgan? He'll be there in spirit only.

That's one of many things that have changed for a guy, a chiropractor by trade, who once lived, breathed, owned and coached the team - while serving as league treasurer in his spare time.

Today, Morgan's involvement in the Sharks is spare. The majority owner since 1995, Morgan sold all but a minor interest to partners. His coaching days are over. Road trips are out, too, though he plans to make the home games.

``I'm the team chiropractor,'' Morgan says.

So much for dreaming impossible dreams. That's the trouble with them. They're a bear to get your arms around. Then while you're trying, everybody gets to call you a kook.

``It hurt me that people couldn't respect the fact that maybe those dreams could come true,'' says Morgan, 31. ``Sometimes this world is made up of people that beat the odds and take the road less-traveled.''

Road-weary now, Morgan will never tell you that he didn't mean well. Still, he has seen the light, retrenching and simplifying for the sake of his wife, two young daughters and his business.

It was all too much. Football still consumes him, he says, but it was to the point where the Sharks were affecting his ``higher priorities.''

``I had to step back to get more balance,'' Morgan says.

While he was stepping, some of his players were bolting. Six of the best ex-Sharks, including one of Morgan's best friends, Darryl Nimmo, split to form the Bay Neptunes, who will play in the Sharks' former Mason-Dixon League.

It's interesting, this passion over glorified recreation-league football with all its free-form chaos. For example, in what turned out to be Morgan's final turn in his lone season as head coach, the Sharks had three sideline fights break out among teammates during the league championship game. Between bouts, some players verbally abused the guys on the chain crew.

You could dismiss everything as insignificant, say just let the boys have their fun. You could judge Morgan guilty of reaching ridiculously beyond his grasp.

Yet it was football, his football, and Morgan insisted it was important. That it was making a difference.

He had the Sharks adopting an elementary school, visiting nursing homes and doing other charity work. Probably, that will continue with part-owner Bob Bobulinski, who tutors at-risk school children, taking a more active role in the team.

But Morgan won't lie; to be less active himself will seem strange.

``I feel like I should be there (tonight),'' Morgan says. ``But that's part of gaining balance and starting to refocus.''

With some luck, he might find a few green pastures after all. ILLUSTRATION: T.J. Morgan

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