Morehouse College junior track & field captain Sidney Morris (who also uses his full name Sidney Morris Dorsey) grew up in a family that regularly checked in with one another in multiple aspects of well-being. With that foundation and after a series of personal losses, Morris has brought that platform to Morehouse and beyond. “My father (Johnny Dorsey) was mentored by a lot of people when he was young. Because he received guidance, he wanted to provide guidance. He was one of the founding fathers of the Chicago B.A.M. (Becoming a Man, a youth guidance program that supports at-risk youth through mentorship, life skills, and positive development to reduce violence and improve young men’s lives). He mentors in the house and outside the house,” Morris explained.
Dorsey has also served as an After School Matters instructor overseeing the Urban Prep Peacemaker program that empowers young Black Men in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago to learn about the peace-building process to help curb violence and positively contribute to their community. “We think that it takes big stuff to impact communities, but one person caring about you can make a huge difference,” stated Morris.
Getting to Morehouse
He admits he didn’t know a lot about Morehouse other than his cousin Brandon Brown, who he attended Kenwood Academy with, went there for college. “He was a real goofy guy, and I loved them because I got to play around with him and other friends. Once he came back from Morehouse, I saw a new level of responsibility and maturity in him and the kind of brothers he was surrounding himself with,” Morris described. “His maturity level set a tone, and I saw that he and his friends were positively impacting the community.” Morris excelled in track and field in high school, earning second- and third-place finishes at the Illinois state championship meet. “I was getting a plethora of offers with some pretty nice full rides. I wanted to see how high I could go, but at the same time, the recruitment season was winding down,” he recollected. “I had the chance to go to the 100 Black Men of Chicago’s Annual Scholarship Fair at UIC (University of Illinois-Chicago) and Morehouse was set up in the forefront of the fair. There were a bunch of Black guys in suits and once we started talking, we realized they graduated with Brandon, and so they embraced me immediately.”
He began looking into Morehouse and was attracted to its strong reputation and the brotherhood that it embodies. His parents were able to visit the school before he was and meet with the head track & field coach Willie Hill. They were confident that their son would love the campus and the track program. “Once I got down there, it was everything I imagined and more. From the first step, the school stresses that it is time for the parents to leave and for you to start growing up. They have a parent leaving ceremony. My parents went back to Chicago and I was heartbroken. I said, ‘Wow, it’s just me. Now what?”
Becoming a Leader
In the early days of his time at Morehouse, Morris did what so many first-years do. “I said, ‘I’m just going to pretend I am strong and that everything is okay although I am actually a scared young man inside,” he acknowledged. “The fact that I did that made other people follow me because they felt the same way. They were looking for somewhere to feel like everything was going to be all right. Brothers were looking at me to tell them the ways I was okay even though I wasn’t.” With people thinking Morris had it all together, they let him lead. “I got into a leadership position in the first two days I was there, and extended that to the track & field team even though I was a freshman. It was a small transition because I was used to the leadership role,” he communicated.
Shortly thereafter, he introduced what has now become a main component of his leadership on and off campus. “I said, ‘Hey y’all, I have this thing at home,’ and introduced them to something my father began in our home. We have regular family check-ins about how we are doing in four areas of our lives,” he recounted. This was the beginning of what would eventually become P.I.E.S. at Morehouse. “I told them that the acronym stood for the four areas of checking in: physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Soon, we had about 10 guys checking in regularly, being vulnerable with one another. We may be up at 1 a.m. playing video games and ordering pizza when someone would say, ‘Hey Sid, let’s do a check-in!’” The men were regularly checking in with each other through the first two weeks of classes. “It helped them manage their stress and it helped me manage mine. I was just orchestrating this, asking difficult questions and having important conversations. We built bonds and I am tight with those guys to this day,” Morris commented.
Cross Country
After the quick start with P.I.E.S. on campus, Morris had to put it on the back burner for a while as he acclimated to being a year-round athlete with cross country and track in addition to his academic schedule. He was blossoming into a 400-meter runner in track, which balanced his speed and conditioning, something he believed he built up by playing basketball. He was confident he could succeed in cross country, but others doubted he could be a factor with his track background. “I love when people tell me I can’t do something because it makes me try even harder. I said in the back of my head, ‘You have no idea who you’re talking to.’ At the same time, I didn’t know about running for five miles, I thought it was just a jog,” he laughed.
His first race, he finished 20 seconds behind most of his teammates, who assured him that was decent for a sprinter. Morris was not satisfied and ran a time of 30 minutes over the five miles in his next race, besting his most vocal teammates. “I didn’t look at them during the race; I just kept moving. I was competing straight from my mentality rather than endurance since I didn’t do any mileage over the summer,” commented Morris, who ran under 29 minutes in his next race. “I was thinking I might not be a sprinter. I am just an athlete willing to overcome the next obstacle.” He credits having played multiple sports when he was younger for his overall athletic ability, having competed in wrestling, gymnastics, soccer, and football in addition to track and basketball. As he was continuing to improve his times, he heard about a friend he knew from a previous Bible study who got into a car crash. “As the race was approaching, I said, ‘I have to do this for her. This is bigger than me.” He finished the race in his best time, 27:15.”
Dealing with Death
In a short period of time, Morris was forced to deal with the deaths of several people, friends and family, he valued. One of those was longtime Morehouse assistant cross country and track & field coach Thomas “T.J.” Wells, who passed away in June 2025 after serving Morehouse athletics for nearly four decades. “He was an important mentor to me. When I first got down here, I had never been away from home for more than two weeks. Coach Wells was a huge help in getting me acclimated within the community, introducing me to alumni. Everyone just took me in and guided me from there,” he recounted. “In the conference cross country championship, I was in the top six for the whole race when my body completed collapsed on me in the last 150 meters. I somehow crossed the finish line and Coach Wells was right there telling me he had never seen anything like how I willed myself to finish. I told him how much I appreciated his support; he was such a joy.”
It was the second loss in a short period for the Morehouse track & field family after head coach Hill’s son, Willie Hill, Jr., passed away in late May. “I had helped his family move to Clark in Atlanta, just around the corner. I had grown close to the family,” he noted. One week after that, Morris’ aunt passed away, followed by the death of his girlfriend’s father. The final passing in such a short period was that of a peer. “I met Chase (Stegall) at the Black Student-Athlete Summit in May. We connected right away with me being from Chicago and going to school in Georgia and him being from Georgia going to school in Chicago (Stegall was finishing up his sophomore year at DePaul),” Morris recounted. Sadly, Stegall passed away in his dorm room less than a week later June 2 from “sudden unexpected death in epilepsy.” He had been hospitalized in February from an epileptic seizure. “(Deaths) just kept happening and losing Chase really hit me hard.”
Morris was struggling and realized how important the P.I.E.S. check-ins were for him, not only as a leader but as an individual. “I didn’t know what depression was until then because I never like to claim things, but I was just in such a constant state of sadness. It was just so much death, and I didn’t know where to go,” he acknowledged. “I was praying a lot, but I was just in a season where I felt like it was hard to connect with God and hard to talk to God because I was dealing with a lot.” “My father was paying close attention to all I was dealing with. He was there for me, my whole family was with me through the mourning, and I needed that. We were having family meetings consistently, which was common for us going back to quarantine,” Morris continued. “Certain times require increased communication. We prayed first, as we always do, and then we did check-ins. Being the youngest, I always start off, and I like to set the tone for everybody. During those dark days, the check-ins were a lot. I was just pouring out my heart to my family and I needed that support. After a month, I wouldn’t say I was 100 percent back, but I finally felt joy and that I had found my purpose even in a time of death.”
P.I.E.S. at Morehouse and Beyond
Morris admits that before acknowledging the hurt and depression, he was acting out of emotion. “Before that, I was a hurt person hurting people. I didn’t know how to take my emotions out, and I was hurting people who were my friends,” he conceded. “I was isolating myself and didn’t want people to see that I was hurting, so I put on a hardened exterior and smile, telling people I was good when I wasn’t. The check-ins made me do the uncomfortable part because I had to stop lying and pretending that I was okay. I lost some friends during that time and had to do a lot of apologizing. I was dealing with thoughts in the back of my mind like, ‘What’s the point of everybody being here if they are just going to go?’”
Things began to turn around for Morris as he took the difficult steps toward healing. “I really had to pray for forgiveness. It is never my intention to hurt anybody, especially during a time when I am also hurting. By expressing that and bringing it out, I was able to move forward. I didn’t like it at first, but it did help when I started letting people know what I was dealing with,” he explained. “I still had the impulse to say ‘I’m good’ when asked, but then I followed with, ‘You know what? I’m not good. Thank you. Let’s go for a walk and talk.’”
As he reflected on his journey, Morris recognized it was time to officially get P.I.E.S. going at Morehouse. “I love helping people because I know how it feels to be helped. I realized that I can’t do it alone and want to support others. I have so much information because I grew up with P.I.E.S. in my own house so I was thinking how I could connect that with the work I wanted to do at Morehouse,” he explained. “I talked to my dad about it. He is part of another mentoring program that helps young men. There is a YouTube video that breaks it down and there are young men who mentored me talking about how P.I.E.S. has impacted their lives. I am not only a product of my father, but an extension of him. He told me to go ahead and bring P.I.E.S. to Morehouse, that people needed it.”
He started by focusing on his own mental health. “I started journaling to build a foundation. I keep a journal in my bag with months of journaling every single day. I journaled using the P.I.E.S. formula, checking in on how I was doing physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually,” he described. After being inspired by multiple people at the BSA Summit, he officially launched P.I.E.S. at Morehouse, developing an executive board and team members who hold important positions in the organization. The group hosted a movie event in late October with more than 30 attendees and followed with other events like a fundraiser with team members getting pied and a trail hike. Morris has also expanded the concept beyond Morehouse. In the first Bible study and breakout rooms session of the newly formed Student Athletes of Faith group in September, he spoke to the group about P.I.E.S. and became part of the platform’s leadership team.
“The Bible says in Ecclesiastes that there is a time and season for everything. There is a time to speak and a time to be quiet. God has been with me in every situation. I have been through some tough times and we are living in a very difficult time, but I am not backing down,” Morris stated.