By Dave Johnson
Tribe Scribe
If you were a regular at William & Mary men's soccer matches last fall, it might have seemed that midfielder Aidan Morrison never left the pitch. Except for halftime and when the game ended.

And that was how it was. The Tribe played 16 games last season, each lasting 90 minutes. Doing the math, that's 1,440 minutes. Aidan Morrison was on the field for every one of them.

"That's very uncommon," W&M coach Chris Norris said. "First of all, you have to be consistent game in and game out. The soccer season is very condensed, and on average we're playing every three or four days.

"To be healthy that consistently, to be playing at a high enough level where we as a staff don't want to take him off the field, that's a pretty significant standard to reach. He's extremely fit and he's also pretty dynamic."

For Morrison, a junior from Denver, N.C., it takes a lot of hard work and dedication.

"I play on a summer team, so I'm not getting much rest," he said. "So when I come into the season, I'm already fit and I'm not having to start fresh.

"The recovery, the preparation and eating right, I take those pretty seriously. That allows me to be able to stay healthy and finish all the games. It helps me be able to play at a high level."

Before every game, Morrison drinks a shot of beet juice, which is known to enhance exercise performance.

"It's terrible," he said, "but it helps."

Morrison, who had two goals and four assists last season, first started playing soccer as a 4-year-old. He also was running track until middle school, when he came to the realization that "I hated running."

He played club soccer with the Charlotte Independence and signed a USL Academy contract with the USL's League Two team. The summer before his senior year at East Lincoln High, he played in an ECNL selection game.

That's where William & Mary first saw him. And one thing led to another.

"I didn't know too much about them, but when they reached out, I did my research," Morrison said. "I realized how academically good the school was. That was also a big part of my decision, too."

Morrison committed to W&M in July of 2022, a month before his senior year at East Lincoln began. That fall, he had 23 goals and 10 assists (56 points) in 12 games
Morrison values discipline, on and off the pitch. He's majoring in business and also is interested in psychology.

"Especially the sports side of it," he said. "I'm interested in learning how the mind works and how mentality affects performance."

Morrison also has started training younger players, which he said has "given me an entrepreneurial mindset and another way to stay connected to the game."

The Tribe is coming off a tough season in which it finished 5-10-1 but was only outscored 25-23. Six of its losses were by a goal.

"I think our main focus this season is to control what we can control," Morrison said. "Knowing we can compete with any team on any given day, we just have to go out there and give it our best. I think we'll have a good season if we do that."