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PREP Athletics Basketball Podcast
PREP Athletics Basketball Podcast
Lehigh Basketball, Perkiomen, & Player Development feat. Coach Harry Morra of Perkiomen
In this episode of the PREP Athletics Podcast, we sit down with Coach Harry Morra of Perkiomen School. Coach Morra shares his journey from playing and coaching basketball at various levels, including his extensive experience as an Associate Head Coach at Lehigh University, where he played a key role in recruiting and developing high-level players. We discuss his unique coaching philosophy, his first season at Perkiomen, and what it takes to build a competitive basketball program at the prep school level.
Coach Morra also reflects on his playing days at DeSales University and his experience playing overseas, including a stint with the Belfast Star of the Sea in the Irish Superleague. He emphasizes the importance of personal growth and development both on and off the court, particularly for student-athletes seeking to succeed at the next level.
đź“ŚKey Topics:
✅Coach Morra’s Move to Perkiomen: Transitioning from Lehigh University to lead Perkiomen’s basketball program.
âś…Coaching Philosophy: How personal growth and a growth mindset are core to player development.
✅Recruiting Strategy: Coach Morra’s approach to recruiting and building a competitive team.
âś…D1 Basketball Insights: What it takes for players, particularly guards, to compete at the Division I level.
âś…Balancing Academics and Athletics: How Perkiomen emphasizes both to prepare student-athletes for college.
âś…Future of Prep School Basketball: Trends in prep basketball, including reclassing and post-grad opportunities.
🗒️About Coach Morra:
Coach Morra comes to Perkiomen School after serving as the Associate Head Coach at Lehigh University for eight years, during which time the team played in three Patriot League Championship games. He’s worked with players who went on to play professionally, including NBA star CJ McCollum. Coach Morra has extensive experience as both a player and coach, having also played overseas in the Irish Superleague and coached with PeacePlayers International. His dedication to student-athlete development and fostering a strong academic and athletic balance makes him a respected leader in the prep school basketball community.
đź”—Connect with Harry:
Email | HMorra@perkiomen.org
Twitter | https://twitter.com/harrymorra
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/harrymorra/
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/coachmorra/
đź”— Connect with Cory:
Website | https://www.prepathletics.com
Twitter | https://twitter.com/PREP_Athletics
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/prep.athletics/
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/PrepAthletics
Email | coryheitz@gmail.com
Phone | 859-317-1166
đź”– Subscribe to the PREP Athletics Podcast:
iTunes | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/prep-athletics-podcast/id1546265809?uo=4
Spotify | https://open.spotify.com/show/6CAKbXFiIOhoHinzsReYbJ
Amazon | https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/3c37179d-3371-47f9-9d97-fd569e8802a7/prep-athletics-basketball-podcast #AmazonMusic
Cory Heitz (00:00)
Welcome to this week's episode of the prep athletics podcast. We've got coach Harry Morra, the new coach at Perkiomen school on, and he came from being at Lehigh for the past eight years. So Patriot league assistant coach was actually on staff when CJ McCullum was there and they beat Duke in the NCAA tournament. He was in video and scouting then, but talks about that year. He also grew up in a foster home and talks about how he used basketball to kind of help him, you know,
get through his situation, he ended up playing at DeSales, doing very well there at the D3 level, played overseas for a couple years, and then is now at Perkiomen in his first season. And he does a good job talking about the Perkiomen program and how they do 6 -6 -6, 6 D1 guys, 6 D2 guys, 6 D3 guys, and how that really helps the program, talks about all the workouts they do, their schedule, and much, much more. So enjoy this conversation with Perkiomen coach, Harry Morra.
Cory Heitz (01:18)
Harry, welcome to the podcast.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (01:21)
It's exciting to be here, beautiful Thursday in Pennsylvania right now. So I'm excited to be catching up with you.
Cory Heitz (01:27)
Yeah, it's a beautiful Thursday here out in the mountains of Colorado. So thanks. Thanks for coming on today. You played your college ball at DeSales University. Where did you grow up and why did you choose this college for your college playing experience?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (01:41)
It's a long story. grew up in New Jersey. And, you know, just to be brief about it was I grew up in kind of like a foster home situation and, you know, going through high school, I, you know, got good guidance. I wanted to be a college basketball player in the town. I grew up in Phillipsburg, didn't necessarily have the people in the community that understood college basketball. So I was fortunate enough to have a connection to a guy at the sales named Scott Colville.
And, know, through just good people in a community trying to help a kid that was in a tough situation. I love basketball. They connected me with them. And so ultimately I chose to go there, honestly, because it was the only outlet that I had. was, you know, it's a weird life experience to be a teenager and, you know, living with a foster family and, and, you know, nobody really having a way to help me get to my goals, achieve my goals. So it was just really cool experience to wind up in.
but I think it's one of the best division three programs in the country. And I think in a lot of ways, one of the best college basketball programs in the country, it's just division three. We all know what the perception is on that level of basketball, but I mean, the integrity, the brotherhood, the alumni network, the winning, mean, DeSales wins as much as anybody in the country. yeah, so was just a really fortunate, really good level of basketball. By my senior year, we were nationally ranked. I was really lucky, really lucky.
in a really tough situation to wind up playing there, because who knows if I hadn't gone there where life would have taken me.
Cory Heitz (03:09)
Yeah, and you were pretty good player at DeSales. Growing up in a foster home, where did, was basketball your outlet for, you know, maybe some of the emotions you were feeling or how'd you get good enough in the upbringing you had to make it to the high level you did at D3?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (03:23)
So it was, you know, it's like therapy is a great word. Just an outlet is another good word. And honestly, one honor in my honor, my family, I have three adopted brothers and a mother and father that came from modest, you know, jobs and they, they, gave me a bed, you know, so I just want to honor them. I want to be a positive outlet for them. So was one of those things where I worked out all the time and
Lifted weights and jumped rope and trained and it was for me just a way to honor a family that had done something incredible for me. So in that situation, you know, I could have easily just gone, you know, for me it was to go down the railroad tracks or go down, you know, in the neighborhoods where kids weren't doing good things. And I really just embraced the idea that I'm going to avoid that stuff and train for basketball because I didn't want to be a burden. And, you know, I don't know if that makes sense to you, but that's a powerful statement for me to say out loud.
And it worked. I'll tell you this little story. So you can zoom in on Google maps if you want on this. This is fascinating. The family that adopted me when things really went south had one of the nicest basketball courts in the backyard I have ever seen. The guy took decking, wood decking on the court and put a basketball court on it. So it wasn't concrete. It was actually wood. So like all the stuff you do in your teenage years to your knees, ankles and your hips and your back.
I was jumping all the time and working out and training on actually a deck, which is really soft wood when you think about that. And they had this beautiful court that had lines paint on it. So I actually became the annoying kid in the neighborhood that would, you know, just be out there dribbling all the time and everybody tell me to go to bed. But yeah, it was great. I was really lucky, you know, cause you and I both know around the country and around the world, there's not a lot of kids that get dealt that kind of hand that wind up in a good situation.
Cory Heitz (04:53)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, that's great to hear. Thanks for sharing that, Harry. Upon graduation, you ended up at Lehigh during a very special year. Tell us what your job was there and what made the year so special.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (05:23)
Yeah.
So I came back from overseas and I've been overseas for about five years doing stuff in Europe and Africa and Asia. And I wound up a grad school at Lehigh and I was not going to grad school for basketball. I was not done with basketball, but I got accepted into a program fully funded, know, fellowship and I was excited about that. Got on campus, sent a couple of emails to the coaching staff and just basically said like, I have a lot of professional basketball experience. And if you guys ever need help, let me know.
And, you know, Coach Reed, Brett Reed said, we'd love for you to do advanced scouting and video coordinating, which around 2009 was a lot more, you know, a newer position than it is now. Right now it's very common. NBA style position, know, high major position. Now it's like, kind of like everybody has a video coordinator, everybody has an advanced scout. So I was lucky and that's what I did for the years that I was at Lehigh as a grad student. And I fell in love with it.
In that year, I don't want to take any credit for it because CJ McCollum was going into his junior year, had already won an MVP as a freshman. They had really put themselves on the map. had another five or six great players. And that year was the year that Lehigh beat Duke was the years that I was at Lehigh. And so we're very fortunate shaking Mike Sieszewski's hand in March. I just got lucky. I hope I added something to the culture to program, but I wasn't. I don't want to take.
Any credit for the architectural design it takes to run to build a championship caliber basketball program. I would just kind of like put into it as it already was built so.
Cory Heitz (07:01)
But you played a lot. You played overseas obviously too and worked overseas. Like what did Lehigh have special that year? Was it just good players? Was it the culture that was built? Was it lightning in a bottle? Can you explain a little bit like what they had? Because know, coach you're trying to replicate this. I'm just curious. Is there a prescription to get to that point?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (07:20)
I think, you know, there's, there's a lot of answers to that question. I would say that we all know the obvious answer that CJ McCollum is special, right? The things that he could manufacture on a day to day basis were unbelievable. You could do a 10 minute three on three offensive drill where you're working on some specific action, say a ball screen. And after 10 minutes, you're like, man, I don't think he missed a shot. Like he scored 25 points. And so.
Cory Heitz (07:28)
Yeah.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (07:47)
Outside of that, everybody kind of understands what great players can do. I would say the number one piece was that the secondary players that were all conference players, Patriot League, all conference players were as bought into their roles as CJ was into his superstar role. And those guys made sacrifices socially. They weren't out and making decisions on the weekend that were bad academically. did the work that they needed to do.
Everybody knew that we were around one special individual. So it made everybody better. there, one of the guys scored a 1500 points and he's the second score on that team. Mackie McKnight broke the Patriot League record for assists. He's the, the other guard that played with CJ. So they were really good players that bought into being role players on a great team with a great player. So.
Cory Heitz (08:41)
Hmm, interesting. So know your roles and make sacrifices. That helps. mean, those guys are probably resting and recovering versus being out late partying, so that's good. They had a goal in mind.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (08:50)
Right. And yeah, you know, lot of college athletes, it's easy to, the distractions are real, you know, and it's, it's, could be a small distraction, but they all bought in and it was, they showed up, you know, at every workout and gave everything that they had and, they knew, they knew that it was a special group. So, yeah.
Cory Heitz (09:10)
Well, tell me before you get to Lehigh during this year, tell me about your overseas experience.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (09:14)
So, you know, like a typical model for a division three player, you're not going to get a contract worth major money, you know, for division three guys. So I had to figure out what that meant. So I wrote some proposals and got accepted into a fellowship nonprofit organization called Peace Players, which is, you know, in its own right is its own it's won an SB award, you know, like it's, it's yeah, it's, it's really highly decorated. And so
I got part of the fellowship. The proposal I wrote allowed me to do this nonprofit work during the day. And then they sent me to Ireland and I got to play basketball in the super league at during the nights and weekends, which is European basketball, right? Majority of international pros practice at night. Your games are at night or on the weekends. And so it was a perfect fit of two things I'm passionate about, which is education and basketball. So
And then in the process of that, I got really close with the leadership of the professional team. was playing for Belfast star of the sea. And they let me into the coaching meetings and they let me into the professional contracts with the pros that they were bringing over. And, then that opened doors and I got to play with the Irish national team on some tours and wanted to play in all over Europe. And then at one point I was down in South Africa and got to train with the, South African African cup.
Olympic qualifying team. it's just, you just wind up in the right places at the right times. If you're really into it. That's the thing I've learned about basketball is that, you know, if you just keep showing up and you keep being passionate and likable and, a good person, like people want to help you out. So was a lot of it was just being, just being there, you know, and, just enjoying it and guys resonate with that. So, yeah.
Cory Heitz (10:56)
That's my alarm system right there. Well, thanks for sharing that. you went back to Lehigh before you got the procurement job and you were for eight years. What are your biggest takeaways from being at the D1 level that you're now going to incorporate in the prep school world?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (11:06)
Yeah.
like being on the other side, like my wife, it's interesting. Your dog just barked. My wife works for a Westminster dog show. So she's a director of marketing. And so she does agency work and you learn what, how there's two sides of sports. There's, there's the team and then there's the representation. And, and it's always really valuable to be on the other side of the process. Right. And that's, that's what I learned the most from Lehigh is,
Cory Heitz (11:21)
Okay.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (11:39)
the academics, the player development, the scouting and preparation, the weightlifting, strength and conditioning, interacting with families from all over the world and learning things that are important to them. You're dealing with young men that basketball is a part of their life, but it doesn't define them, right? They're more than basketball. So learning that as they're figuring that out is gonna help me now in this level where I spent eight years
doing scouting, national recruiting, I've recruited internationally as well. know, academic monitoring, I've learned a lot about transcript interpretation and figuring out how to help kids and families identify schools that they're actually qualified to go to, you know, are you qualified? Are you technically high academic, you know? And what's some learning support programs that we could provide for you when you're 15 or 16 that'll help you
later in your college process. you know, and this is all a basketball now is multiple languages at Lehigh and even at Perkiomen. Like these kids are Italian, they're Europeans, they're Spanish speakers. English is not their first language. There's a lot of great basketball players out there that need that ESL training. So I think, you know, you learn how complex this job is fundraising, right? Fundraising is a big part of
of coaching and whether it's in college or at prep school or high school. So I learned a lot of different, a lot of different avenues at the job. The job will take me down alumni relationships, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a complex job. It's, it's a lot of people think you're like, you just sit in the basketball gym all day and you and I both know that that's not what this job is. It's you're trying to help as many people every day as you can. So it's.
Text messages, phone calls, emails. So that's the biggest thing that I learned at Lehigh.
Cory Heitz (13:30)
Gotcha. And then now you're a Perkyomen and you got hired this summer. Give us your pitch. Like if you're talking to a family, why should they come to Perkyomen as a school and why should they play in your program?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (13:39)
It's a great place. It's a small place. So you're to get a lot of personal attention here. You know, one -on -one we have on our coaching staff, probably seven people every day that are dedicated to helping you out. have myself, John Caldera, John Williams, our sports medicine director, our strength and conditioning coach, our college counselor liaison to the athletics department. You know, you go down the list of people that care about you here. You're going to have every day.
seven to eight people that are trying to help you figure out this next stage of your life. We have training during the day. We won't train before 8 a but we will train during your off periods class -wise, right? So if you have B block off or C block off, we'll do workouts individually with the athletes here. We'll do small group workouts. We'll watch film. We'll do strength training. We'll do conditioning training during
the academic day, right? And we still will preserve your academics. We're not gonna compromise academics here. And then after school, we have the resources to run really good workouts, really good training sessions. We're gonna take you to fall showcases in the winter time. We're gonna play in the elite prep league. We're gonna get you nationally recognized in front of all the major scouts and...
We're obviously going to play against top 100 players, top 200 players, top 300 players. So we're going to try to be nationally relevant every year. So from a recruiting standpoint, for any family that's looking for this experience, I mean, we're right up there with the best in the country, I think. And that's before I got here. You know, I didn't want to take credit for that. Like Thomas Boudinet and what they built here is...
Cory Heitz (15:19)
Yeah.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (15:25)
unbelievable to me. So I'm in a lot of ways of replicating the model that they already put in place. So
Cory Heitz (15:31)
Perfect. Now walk me through not doing early morning workouts because that's something that a lot of prep school coaches do is get that workout in before class. What's your lot? Is it because every kid has a free period and you want them to get more rest or what's your reasoning?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (15:36)
Okay.
So that wouldn't be necessarily be my reasoning. That would be like a school policy. And I like it. I like it. I think, you know, I want the guys to go eat breakfast every day at 730. That's, that's a goal. Learning nutrition as a college athlete, as a professional athlete, eating, eating protein in the morning and getting enough nutrients in your body. So you can do those things. I just listed, go to class, do an individual skill session, do some agility.
Cory Heitz (15:50)
Okay.
Okay.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (16:10)
In the afternoon, you have a team training session. Maybe at night you have a shooting session, study hall, finishing a paper, you know, like, so at 7 .30, them eating is important to me. And we are going to do a lot of training like I just described. And it is school policy here. They don't, they don't want, you know, that happening that early in the morning, which I respect that. And I understand that. So.
Cory Heitz (16:35)
Gotcha. Okay. Now you've also got like a second slash developmental team coached by John Caldera. Explain to me about that because you know, a lot of families want to play in the main team with all the five -star athletes are going to play against all the big events. And then you've got kids that play in the developmental team. Give us your pitch on how that works at Perkyome.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (16:54)
So, you know, it's a great question. you know, as I'm learning about it, I love it because it's the model iron sharpens iron, right? And it's simply stated that, right? If you look at this, this is about a 20 player model, right? And, you know, we do have two or three, three or four guys that aren't going to play college basketball. So you're looking about a 16, 18 player model, right? The president of our school is on our basketball team and he's trying to get into the most elite academic schools in the country.
You know, so he's just doing basketball. He's pretty good. He's in, we need, we want them on the team, but we do have a couple of guys that just don't have aspirations to play college hoops. let's say the model is, is 18 players, right? If you look at that six division one guys, six division two guys, six division three guys, iron is sharpening iron every day. And I think that that is really the player development model that we're pursuing is that, you know, our
top 100 shooting guard that we have right now is getting closed out. The worst closeout he's going to get in a workout is from probably from a mid to high tier division three player. Other closeouts going to be from a six foot seven division two player. And then other closeouts are going to be from our other guard that's a division one player as well. So every day, every rebounding box out, every offensive progression, every defensive rotation, you're getting closed out by six, 10, six 11.
you know, you know, division two prospects, division one prospect. So it's, that's the model is that we bring in, 18, six, six and six. And then I think if we really get this thing right, it goes, you know, like six, six and six. And that bottom six is really division two players. And, it just keeps working its way up. And for the D two prospects that we have, you know, you're getting, you're practicing every day.
kind of counterbalanced against Division I and Division III players. And then we know for the D3 guys, know, guys that are, we have got guys on our team chasing MIT and Amherst and Williams and incredible institutions that are in Division III, Franklin and Marshall, Johns Hopkins, Randolph -Macon. So it's not like they're chasing some big stuff. So those guys every day are growing because they're guarding Division II and Division I players every day.
It's a great model. love it. In practice every day. It's a blast that we've been seeing these guys develop. And I'll tell you what, if you have a bad day, let's say you're a division one prospect, you have a bad day and you're closing out like a nationally relevant division three prospect, that dude's going to make six or seven threes on you that day. You can't take off because that guy can really shoot it. And you know, that that's a great gym. That's a great environment. If you're talking about those kinds of workouts every day. So
Cory Heitz (19:36)
That's right.
And to build that team, what are you looking for in a player,
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (19:50)
I look for complete players. think I love athleticism. I love like the frame, you know, the idea that you're a little bigger and stronger, but I do really like guys that can do everything. You know, maybe not. I don't love, I love high end scores. Obviously we all love guys that can just go do what CJ did and just score 30 points and you know, on any given night get 40, but
You know, those guys are hard to find and at times it can be really hard to coach because all they think about is shooting the ball. so I'm gonna look, I'm looking for really good players, guys that can play defense, play offense, you know, stuff a stat sheet. And I think college coaches are looking for that as well. They want guys that can score points, but they don't want guys that are going to just be so self self -absorbed that they only think about their stat sheet. So.
Cory Heitz (20:24)
That's right.
Yeah, makes sense. All right. This is your first year at Perkiomen and it's tough question maybe to answer, but you have been on the other end of the spectrum. But what's your placement strategy going to be? Like, how are you going to get your guys seen and then recruited? it utilizing your assistance? Is it you utilizing your connections? Walk me through your thoughts on that.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (21:05)
I mean, that's, think, I think that's why I got this job, right? I'm not naive to that is that I spent eight, nine, 10 years. I've been in, in this profession for now 20 years. so I do, I'd like to think I do a great job of keeping a role, my Rolodex up to date, you know, and, my contacts and networks guys that maybe have moved on to different jobs and different institutions, different levels, division one, division two, division three, high major, mid major, low major.
Cory Heitz (21:21)
Mm
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (21:32)
And, you know, it's what I do all day. don't know if you can tell I got like computer monitor, widescreen computer monitor. I'm constantly texting, messaging, and emailing, things like that. We're constantly evaluating our players. So I think placement is going to be my favorite part of my job. My favorite part of my job when at Lehigh was taking our guys and helping them get professional contracts, go to law school, go get an MBA.
you know, and then you really dig into the basketball piece. It's like, all right, what level pro are you? Should you get invited to the Portsmouth Invitational? Should you sign an agent? Should you, you know, go to some FIBA camps? What part of Europe are you going to play in? How much money are you going to make? Well, here it's the same thing. It's like, you know, trying to place guys is like, all right, are you, are you a partial scholarship division two player? Are you a three quarter scholarship division two player? Are you a high academic mid major division one player? I love it. It's.
Placement's gonna be a blast. It's hard, you know, cuz you believe in your guys. You get so connected to these guys, you believe in them so much. But I'm looking forward to helping all the guys that wanna do it, which this year is gonna be about 18 guys trying to get them into Division I, Division II, and Division III. So, yeah.
Cory Heitz (22:33)
Yeah.
Okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. So one of the things is when you're going to start recruiting players, they're to be looking at New England prep schools and looking at you in Pennsylvania. And New England obviously is going to say, hey, we got the advantage. We got way more schools up here that are closer together. So coaches can come see them easier. What's going to be your response to the New England prep school cluster up there and why families should come to Perkiomen and the exposure they'll get at Perkiomen versus a standard New England prep school.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (23:19)
We're nestled into the most densely populated part of the country, right? Like we're talking New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC. So, you know, from a standpoint of logistical travel, right? Like the way, if we're talking from a division one coach's perspective, you know, for them logistically to be to Perkiomen School, flight into Newark airport or Philadelphia airport is super simple. We're also...
You can fact check me on this, but Boston is the hub, right, of the New England circle of things. But if you were to do like a breakdown of colleges, private schools, prep schools, we have to be second in the country. know, like when you think about Ivy League, Patriot League, Blair Academy, Westtown, Phelps Hill, like we have to be right there with them. You know, they're probably number one, but.
We're number two and you know, like that's Philadelphia and Boston. remember when I was considering going to grad school, like those two cities are identical to each other in terms of numbers of colleges, numbers of private institutions. So we're right there. I'm not, I wouldn't worry about that too much, you know, especially with the concentration that we have of the Maple League and the other private school leagues that are right here.
Cory Heitz (24:37)
Love it. I mean, that's just, I ask you that because I know, you know, my clients will be asking you that if you're in the mix with some of these schools. So it's good you got that answer down. That's a great answer. So thanks for sharing that.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (24:44)
Yeah. But it's, you know, the other piece is as well, is that like it is New England's New England, right? So it's, you know, you get you get a chance to go up there. There's some incredible institutions. So got to respect that as well. So.
Cory Heitz (24:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, geographic, you're close to West town Phelps Hill. yeah, Blair. So you've got plenty in DC just down the road. So yeah, you're a cluster right there as well.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (25:01)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah. And I think, I think from, you know, just to, you know, there is something about being second when you look at that density of all the schools that Boston has, like within an hour or two, you go up to Brewster, you know, you're out in another side of Massachusetts, you're down in the Connecticut a little bit. Let's say that's more concentrated than this area with just opportunities to go evaluate players. You know, the other side is that, you know, you can, if you come here and stand out, you're going to, if,
a coach is coming to Philadelphia, I go to Perkiomen because they got a six foot six kid that can really play and there's no competition or there's less competition. So it's exciting. We'll see how that goes. Like you said, we'll see in a year or two what I'm saying, you know, but right now I'm optimistic about it.
Cory Heitz (25:54)
When you're on the Lehigh staff, did you care if a kid went to public school, private school, international juco or prep school? Did you care at all or did you more focus on the player?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (26:05)
Absolutely. I mean, it's a variable, right? You know, we had, we had luck with public school players. But you knew you also knew that, that there was just, there was going to be some work that you had to do to help them understand what the rigor was going to be like in terms of basketball training, academic, you know, responsibilities, making good social decisions, you know, keeping yourself mentally healthy.
Cory Heitz (26:08)
Okay.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (26:30)
private boarding schools, just the experience, learning how to eat healthy. Like a public school student just wouldn't understand that. A private boarding school, just like in college, you have to wake up, you have to eat your breakfast. You can go eat waffles with syrup and get nothing out of it, or you can go eat eggs and maybe some fruit and some dairy and give yourself the energy you need for the rest of the day. So there's a lot of training with public school kids about
those smaller things, strength and conditioning, right? You they probably have a strength coach at their high school, but he's probably not as dialed in as a private boarding school, right? The assistant coaches in a public school, they're probably good guys. Maybe they're a history teacher. They like basketball, but you know, John Caldera is at Perkioma School, he loves basketball. Like, you know, so you're just getting a little bit of an upgrade.
all the factors. at Lehigh, yes, answer your question, private boarding schools was, was usually the kids could acclimate to college a lot better. So.
Cory Heitz (27:36)
Interesting. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. That's good. It's a good pitch for YouTube. You know, let's say that. Question here I ask every coach and you're very qualified to answer this. What does it take for a guard today to play at the D1 level?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (27:48)
So the framework I come out of with that is, know, demographically speaking, let's just say we're talking about nationally, right? To get to Division I basketball, right? Is that, that's, am I interpreting your question right? Okay. So the, the, the way to really do it is, it's a marketing perspective, right? And the way to do it is that you look within an hour radius of where you live and you have to be the best guard.
Cory Heitz (28:00)
Yeah, yeah.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (28:17)
And then you go, generally speaking, most people within two hours live in a closer to a major city. And then you probably have to, when you go, say for us, it's Philadelphia, right? Or New York city, you have to be a top 10 guard. You have to be in the conversation as, okay, he's one of the top 10 guards in this region. And to me, that's when you become a division one player. Just being the best player at your high school, we all know that
You know, what's the competition at your high school? You know, if you just look at your county or your, you know, small region, maybe your conference that you play in, like, that's not the criteria. But if you can say with confidence within, within a two hour radius of where you live, if you're a top 10 guard, then you can be confident that you're going to be in the conversation of being a division one player. So the way that I would do it is I've recruited a lot of States in the United States and in North America.
even in Canada as well, is that I would go to Toronto and I would just look at all the best guards and I would just do a rank order. And I would ask, I know that the best guard in Toronto is probably a high major NBA prospect. It's not coming to Lehigh, right? And then you go to the 10th best guard. You're like, okay, let's see how good he is. Maybe he's too good because Toronto has a huge population of people, a lot of people playing basketball and you just work your way down. If you get to a point where you're like the 50th best guard in your region,
You're not a visual player, right? Like that's simple. So that doesn't answer your question from a player development standpoint, but it does answer the question when you go to summer leagues and when you go to a you regional, a you events and your, your every AAU game or high school game you're playing and the other team is a better guard than you. You're not a visual player, you know, so you're shooting your ball handling, your passing, your defense. You have to be a better player than.
Cory Heitz (29:44)
Yeah.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (30:12)
80 to 90 % of the players that you play against. The number's probably even higher than that. So, yeah. Yeah.
Cory Heitz (30:17)
Yeah, thanks for sharing that. All right, we're going do some quick hitters, All right? Best player you ever played against.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (30:23)
JJ Reddick.
Cory Heitz (30:25)
Where was that?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (30:27)
I used to work at Duke in the summertime. So I'd go down for like three weeks and just hang out. And there's a blast and, you know, coaches from all over the country would come down and it was a guy named Doug Kraft connected me with it. And it was a blast. it was the summer going into when JJ Reddick was going to lead the country in scoring. Remember that battle him and Adam Morrison had that one year in early 2000 and they,
Cory Heitz (30:51)
yeah.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (30:56)
And it was like, JJ was scoring at an unbelievable level. Imagine playing pickup with that guy in July and August of that summer. It was incredible. So you're talking shot making that is just unbelievable and like bad shots. was taking bad shots, being honest with you, but like it was unstoppable. So there's other players I've played against, like, you know, like that was just unbelievable to me.
Cory Heitz (31:16)
Best player. Okay, I could give me me one other Give me one other
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (31:22)
in high school, let's say, let's say, let's say, Eddie Griffin would be a name. I don't, he never made it to the NBA, but like he is a guy that got kind of life, life got him. But in high school, Eddie Griffin was probably top five player in the country. played Roman Catholic when I was my senior high school, we were really good and we played Roman Catholic in a showcase. And we learned that we weren't that good basically, but yeah, he shot 14 for 15 scored 30 and didn't even look like he was sweating.
Cory Heitz (31:28)
jeez.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (31:50)
So life got him a little bit if there's a story there, but at that time he was one of the best players in the country.
Cory Heitz (31:51)
each.
All right, Lehigh, best player you coached against or guy that just lit you up.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (32:04)
You're a Patriot League guy or like just nationally? we would play. So Colgate's had this run, you know, over the Patriot League these last couple of years that has been really frustrating because they're doing a fantastic job. The guy that we couldn't do anything against with Colgate was this named Jordan Burns. He got a professional contract. He's pretty good, but like in games, like we just couldn't do anything to scout him out of the game. He was just unstoppable.
Cory Heitz (32:06)
Whatever.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (32:32)
best player, I made your player we ever played against when we play our non -conference schedule. let's say it's a good question. Nope. Nobody really like went off against us. Kyle guy at Virginia had a really was really impressed me. yeah.
Cory Heitz (32:50)
Mmm.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (32:53)
CJ is the obvious answer, right? But he was on our team. Purdue, what was the big, what about the seven, big guy that Purdue had before Zach Eadie and, yeah, and then Caleb Swanigan. Caleb Swanigan was, that was a nightmare. Imagine telling your players you got to box that guy out. He had like eight offensive rebounds. So, yeah.
Cory Heitz (32:56)
Right. Those are pretty good ones.
Matt Harms.
Hmm.
Okay, what's your favorite movie?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (33:20)
Forest Go.
Cory Heitz (33:21)
Great choice. And then what are your hobbies when you're not coaching and doing basketball?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (33:28)
I have a dog, like I kind of alluded my wife, what she does. So we have this really like, it's like a Ferrari of a dog. have a purebred English pointer. And one of my hobbies, I spend a solid hour a day throwing a frisbee to this Olympic caliber athlete of a dog and he can make the most incredible catches with a frisbee. So that's one hobby, but I train, I exercise as much as can. I like to run. I like to bike. I like to lift weights.
training for the Murph Challenge, stuff like that. yeah.
Cory Heitz (33:57)
Nice, nice. And then is there anything we didn't touch on the day that you want to mention, Harry?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (34:03)
no, nothing that I could think of, you know, there's a million things, but no, in particular. would say, you know, this last, I got one nugget, you know, like this last iteration phase of my career, the most eye opening piece for me is faith in God. Is that how beneficial that is to keeping you grounded and, just making you a better person.
a better athlete, a better family member. And I would say that, you know, for young teenagers, you know, people 20 to 25, 15 to 25, that window your life. I would say I've come across a lot of very special athletes and I always wonder what made them great. And at like young ages, they have faith. And I think whatever your faith might be.
It's just something you can always just revert back to in the tough times because being an athlete is very tough. And it took me till I was 40 to really understand what that meant. Yep.
Cory Heitz (35:07)
Thanks for sharing that. can people find you, Harry?
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (35:11)
I'm pretty good at Twitter. Not great. You know, I'm in my 40s. I'm not as good as I assume you are. Instagram, I'm on there, but I'm not doing great with that. Twitter, I'm doing a pretty good job. At Harry Morra. And obviously email, my email address is on the Per Kilman website. Easy to get there. And cell phone number is on the website as well. Contact me there as well. So, yeah.
Cory Heitz (35:33)
And we'll include all that in the show notes. So anyone, anyone curious in that reaching out to coach more, look down below and you'll see all those links in there. So, Hey Harry, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I know this is kind of a weird situation having you on before you've coached a single game yet, but coming with your background and such a high level program. I'm saying like, well, tell me you playing, what do mean playing? scrimmages.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (35:51)
We've been playing. Yeah, not real games. Yeah, we played some showcases this month. Yeah, we did a little bit of just fall showcases. So I'm excited about that. There's the higher level stuff. We went into some like mid tier stuff. We played some good teams. We haven't taken like our national squad yet, but we've been playing. I think that, you know, not to...
you know, keep promoting the program. But I do think that recruiting strategy, when you're asking and identifying which prep school, private school you should send your son to, you know, any sport, son or daughter is ask the coaches what their recruiting strategy is. How are you going to improve my son's profile? Right. Cause as much as we don't want to admit it, right. Rankings do mean something. Profile means something. Presence means something. So one of my ways to boost and iterate what
Cory Heitz (36:35)
Yep.
Harry Morra-Perkiomen School (36:45)
Perk Yeoman has done on basketball, Coach Bodine did on the program here, is to play a fall showcase. That's one example. And it's worked. We have a 6 '11 kid that has probably gotten 40 phone calls since we played in our first showcase, because we walked in and all the internet guys were like, who's that 6 '11 kid? Nobody knows about him. So it was effective. we've been playing. This weekend we played to math. I'm excited about that.
Cory Heitz (37:11)
nice. Well, Coach Harry Morra is first year at Perkiomen School in Pennsylvania. Thanks so much for joining us. If you guys liked the podcast, be sure to subscribe on YouTube, go to prepathletics .com and make sure you sign up for the newsletter so you get the latest in the prep school world every month. And we're on all the socials as well. Coach Harry Morra, Perkiomen School. Thank you for joining us and we'll see you guys next time.