[Manuscript] 1954 A CINDERELLA STORY of a Basketball Championship from the Hand of the Coach, Richard Morland, Stetson Hatters: March Madness - 1957 A CINDERELLA STORY from the Hand of the Coach

DeLand, Florida: Richard Morland, 1946. Near Fine. Very Good/No Dust Jacket As Issued. In Richard Morland's, the coach, own hand is a record of the season.

A 5.25 by 3.75 inch 6 ring note book with stiff cloth wraps; 158 lined handwritten pages with occasional newspaper box-score pasted in.
Includes:
*** Beginning with the preseason practices outlined and complete with a chart of physical test the players recorded during the preseason
*** Notes or the pre-season scrimmage with a handwritten box score
*** Details of each game played with Coach Morland's personal comments and reflections.
*** ..."Worst game of my coaching career..." p60
***  " A game to remember.....almost blew the lead..." p175
*** Pasted in newspaper box scores
*** Coach Morland's thoughts and strategies prior to games
*** Sketches of opponents plays
*** The last 20 pages are diagrams of the Stetson offensive plays. In 1956 - 57 the Stetson Hatters of DeLand, Florida has a tremendous year with an invitation to the 1957 NAIA National Tournament.  During the season they also had regular season wins over Florida State and the University of Miami.

An interesting game occurred in mid-January against a team in Tampa. With Stetson having a commanding lead the game was stopped after the first half.  Due to a slippery floor.  [As much as that may sound as an excuse it was a common winter occurrence in high schools in South Florida when a hot day followed a cold front.] p168

Background Information:
Stetson University
Founded in 1883, Stetson University is a nationally ranked private university with four colleges and schools located across the I-4 corridor in Central Florida in the city of DeLand

NAIA: The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Men's Basketball National Championship has been held annually since 1937 (with the exception of 1944 and 2020). The tournament was established by James Naismith to crown a national champion for smaller colleges and universities.

Brief Biography:
Richard Morland was the kind of basketball coach whose lessons were useful on the court and off.

Morland never had a losing campaign while coaching the Hatters. Twice they were chosen the top college team in Florida by a state poll of sports writers.

"Coach always taught, 'You're going to have ups and downs, you're going to have successes and failures,'" said Richard Layer, who played for Morland at Stetson University in the 1950s. "That's part of being on a team and that's part of life as well."

He was president of his high-school class and a basketball star at Birmingham Southern College, where he lettered in both that sport and track and field. After college, Morland joined the U.S. Navy. He served four years and earned 11 battle stars.

After World War II, Morland coached at Springfield College in Massachusetts, where he also earned a master's degree. From 1947 to 1950, he coached at Florida Southern College, where he met his wife, who worked in the publicity department. The two had been married 61 years at the time of his death.

From 1950 to 1952, Morland completed his doctorate in education while studying at New York University. By 1952, he was at Stetson, where he took a job as head basketball coach and chairman of the department of physical education.

He was named to the university's Sports Hall of Fame and also received an award for excellence in teaching. A bust of him is in Stetson's DuPont-Ball Library.

Ref Orlando Sentinel October 3, 2010