How Courtney Morgan Became The Most Valuable Person In College Football
Lincoln Riley's USC tried to poach Kalen DeBoer's right hand man. Alabama gave him a huge raise instead.
Just days after Nick Saban ended his legendary run as head football coach at the University of Alabama, the school announced its newest hire, Kalen DeBoer. The former University of Washington head coach was fresh off a national championship loss to Jim Harbaugh and Michigan, but that didn’t dampen excitement in Tuscaloosa.
DeBoer and his family flew from Seattle to Alabama on one of the school’s private jets. They landed at the airport in Tuscaloosa around 9 pm. Nearly 1,000 fans waited three hours in 48-degree weather for his arrival, holding banners and signs that read “Roll Tide” and “Welcome Home Coach” as the plane landed and taxied the runway.
DeBoer stepped off the plane with his wife and daughters. He greeted Alabama staffers and thanked the pilots, eventually approaching the fenced-off area where fans were chanting his name to shake a few hands and thank them for coming out.
It felt like a big moment because it was a big moment. The sadness of Saban’s retirement slowly faded into excitement for DeBoer, with fans recreating the exact same airport welcome scene that Nick Saban received upon his arrival in 2007.
However, one thing that got lost in that night's chaos was that someone else was on the plane. Only the most diehard college football fans would have seen it, but a man named Courtney Morgan was on the plane, too. He walked in the shadows of DeBoer and was hardly recognized — despite his arrival being equally important as DeBoer’s.
Courtney Morgan isn’t a coach. He doesn't help players get stronger in the weight room or track medicals to determine availability on Saturdays in the fall. But the easiest way to explain Morgan’s value is that Alabama handed him a $500,000 annual salary only to increase it to $825,000 weeks later when USC tried to poach him away.