By Thomas Sellers Jr.
On Dec. 16, those associated with Brighton High School Football laid out the welcome mat for new Head Coach Morgan Cruce.
Despite the rainy and gray conditions outside, the bright smile of Cruce provided enough light in the Brighton Gymnasium. An enthusiastic Cruce greeted players and introduced himself to others once the announcement was made official.
“I am a West Tennessee guy,” Cruce said. “This is a perfect melting-pot opportunity for me. The kids that are here, the community, just meeting the people involved in the interview process, I feel like everything is right here for something special.
“Just my experiences, the guys I can lean on from my past have definitely given me the ability to have a chance to do great things here,” he added. “And us as a program can do phenomenal things here.”
Cruce replaces Mike David as the leader of the Cardinal Football program. Brighton has reached the postseason the past two seasons under David, but suffered early exits.
David was the offensive coordinator when Brighton had it’s best finish in school history back in 2017 reaching the Class 5A State Semifinals.
Cruce said his job is to reach that level and surpass it.
“The first thing is we’re going to be a mentally and physically tough team,” he noted. “That’s one of my top core values for my program — to be tough. We’re going to develop that toughness in the offseason through the weight room, leadership council. Everything we do is going to be geared toward breeding toughness. That will allow us to compete with the West Tennessee teams you know are physical — physical by nature.”
Cruce, 36, is familiar with the standards of West Tennessee football. He played high school ball at Obion County Central before heading to Lambuth University for a four-year stent on the gridiron.
Cruce’s coaching career began at Union City as the running backs coach and later the defensive coordinator. While there, Union City captured its first State championship.
The next milestone in Cruce’s career was becoming a head coach at Gibson County. His next promotion took the Cruce family over the Mississippi River to Little Rock, Ark. Cruce was the head coach / director of football operations at Baptist Preparatory School.
Cruce’s football resume bloomed taking a job on the staff of Bethel University. Before coming to Brighton, Cruce was a coach at Henry County.
With all those stops, Cruce said the common key to success was sound defense. He noted with Brighton located between the fast-pace Memphis teams and brute-force of the rural area squads, the Cardinals will have to master all physical attributes of the game.
“The second side of it, there is another talent close to this area through Memphis,” he noted. “There is a lot of talent in this area. For us to be able to develop and cultivate that talent, we’re going to take Porsches and fine-tune them into those elite cars.
“That will allow us to compete with those Memphis style teams, Ferrari,” Cruce continued. “Our hope is our physical brand will allow us to have a mental edge so we can take a Mack Truck mentality to those Ferrari. Then we can take our Ferrari and run around those Mack Truck teams outside of our area.”
But before winning football games, Cruce said his main job will be to shape the young men entrusted to him for the challenges of life.
“If we can cultivate that into the program from all around aspects academically, athletically, socially and spiritually we’ll probably be able to turn some heads around in this area,” he concluded.
