C-10 Mentoring & Leadership Podcast

Ken Morrow, 1980 "Miracle on Ice" defenseman, on the term COACH and what he took from the Olympics

February 26, 2022 Matt Fulks/Ken Morrow Season 1 Episode 78
C-10 Mentoring & Leadership Podcast
Ken Morrow, 1980 "Miracle on Ice" defenseman, on the term COACH and what he took from the Olympics
Show Notes

This year’s Winter Olympics may be over, but the lasting impact of something that happened in the Games 42 years ago this week is still fresh in the mind of this week’s guest. In fact, it’s still vivid for many of us.

Ken Morrow has heard the stories. Countless people could tell him today what they were doing 42 years ago this week. In fact, he gets letters and cards nearly every day.

That’s likely how it is for most anyone born in the United States before the mid-1970s or so.

To the players this was a seemingly simple hockey game between a bunch of kids, true amateurs, from the United States, beating an invincible team from the Soviet Union, a team that had won all but one Olympic hockey gold medal since 1960. In local terms, and no knock to my KU friends, but this would be like the Jayhawks beating the Kansas City Chiefs. To the rest of Americans, it meant so much more. See, this hockey game between the United States and the Soviet Union just happened to come during the Cold War, along with Russia invading Afghanistan and rising gas prices.

The oldest player on that 1980 “Miracle on Ice” team was 23 years old. And since the 1990s, he has called Kansas City home. He is Ken Morrow. 

Morrow became the Director of Pro Scouting for the NHL’s New York Islanders in 1992.

The Islanders drafted Morrow in the fourth round (68th overall) of the 1976 NHL Draft, and he played defense for the team from 1979-1989, collecting 105 points (17 goals, 88 assists) in 550 career NHL games. He was an important member of the Islander teams that won four consecutive Stanley Cups.

The first of those came just a few months after Morrow helped the United States win gold as part of the “Miracle on Ice” team, making him the first player in NHL history to capture an Olympic Gold Medal and the Stanley Cup in the same year.

Morrow visited our C-10 Mentoring & Leadership group on Wednesday, Feb. 23. That's when we recorded this episode. This episode, however, is a little different from most of our others that we do with our group. Whereas you typically hear Matt Fulks' interview with the guest and then we delete the questions from our students, this time we’re flipping that.

To honor our students and the donors who make this program possible, we're using the Q&A part of the program as this episode. 

That said, a few notes:

  • If you'd like to read two Q&As with Ken that we’ve posted previously on our C You In The Major Leagues blog, links are below.
  • Joining Ken at our session was his son Evan, whom you’ll hear from a couple of times.
  • Finally, here are the students and mentors asking questions: students Topher, Dawson, Avary, John, Alejandra, and Jameson, plus mentors Lenny and Stann. Keep in mind that that list of students includes a freshman, two sophomores, two juniors and a senior.

LINKS:

To read Part 1 of the Q&A with Ken Morrow talking about 1980 and coach Herb Brooks, click here.

To read Part 2 of the Q&A with Morrow, click here

For more information about the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program for high school students, visit our website.

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