Student Experience

A Tragedy Slowed Her Down. But Then This Hoo Got Faster

Just as quickly as it started, the commotion suddenly stopped. A voice yelled for everyone to get off the bus.

Marlee Morgan was near the rear of the charter bus that had returned a group of University of Virginia students to Grounds from a field trip to Washington, where they’d seen a play.

“It felt like my leg kept getting caught in something,” she said. “It just wasn’t moving normally. And I looked down and saw that I was shot.”

Two and a half years later, on senior day, Morgan wedged her spiked track shoes into the starting blocks of lane 5 as a member of the Cavalier track and field team’s Class of 2025. On the outside of her right leg, a quarter-sized scar was visible just beneath the hem of her sleek tracksuit.

But this isn’t a story about a track athlete’s remarkable comeback from a devastating injury, because before the shooting on Nov. 13, 2022, Morgan wasn’t on the team. She had never been fast enough.

‘It Was Probably Worth It’

At Westbury High School in Houston, Morgan ran and leaped through a half-dozen track and field events each meet. Sprinting was her specialty. When it was time to look at colleges, a school counselor suggested Virginia.

She didn’t know anything about the school beyond watching the 2019 men’s basketball team win the national championship.

She looked a little closer. Morgan had always been interested in business, so the McIntire School of Commerce intrigued her. A counselor connected Morgan with a Westbury alumna at UVA who, in turn, directed Morgan to McIntire School student Jennifer Bobowski. Morgan thought they’d chat on the phone, but Bobowski prepared a full-blown presentation on the school.

“It sold me,” Morgan said. “It sounded cool, and it offered all the right things for me. And I was just convinced that if someone, in the middle of summer, would do a whole presentation on McIntire for me, it was probably worth it.”

But when the Posse Foundation matched Morgan with a full-ride college scholarship, it wasn’t to Virginia. She turned it down. She had her sights set on Charlottesville, with the goals of joining the track team and being accepted into the McIntire School.

‘Looking Like a Track Star’

As a first-generation student and an aspiring student-athlete, she had no idea about the process to join the team. She wasn’t recruited, so her only avenue was to join as a walk-on. She sent the team’s Instagram account a direct message.

Marlee Morgan standing in front of the McIntire School of Commerce

Morgan stands in front of Rouss and Robertson Halls, home of the McIntire School of Commerce. She came to UVA with her sights set on being accepted into the McIntire School and earning a spot on the track team. She accomplished both. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)

“It’s so silly to hear me say it now because, you know, people email the coaches,” she said. “That was just my first gen showing. I just DM’d them and I’m like, ‘Hey, I would really like to speak to the head track coach.’ I didn’t get a reply back.”

At Wahoo Welcome, an older UVA student noticed Morgan’s track backpack and struck up a conversation, telling Morgan she was “looking like a track star.”

“Oh, actually, I do want to run track here,” Morgan replied.

Soon, Morgan met with another UVA student, Dejon Mayo, who’d walked onto the team, and he linked her to the coaches. But the team was full. Morgan asked if she could be a student manager.

For the next year, Morgan fulfilled her managing duties and then, in the evenings, mimicked the workouts on her own. The following summer and fall, she followed the team’s training plans and joined every optional workout.

But by track season her second year, she still wasn’t fast enough. A coach said he would understand if she wanted to step away.

“I told him, ‘No. It will work out,’” she said. “I still had two more years, and I really liked the team.”

Morgan agreed to stay on as a manager. That was the position she held when she limped off the bus.

‘It Was Agonizing’

That night was one of the worst tragedies ever to befall UVA. A gunman on the bus shot and killed football student-athletes Devin Chandler, D’Sean Perry and Lavel Davis Jr.

Another wounded passenger was Mike Hollins. Hollins recovered and returned to lead the Virginia football team the following year, and he’s talked to reporters about the shooting and his recovery. He earned his master’s degree last year.

But Morgan has not spoken publicly about her journey, until now.

The wound would take several months to heal. She thought her track team dreams might be over.

Morgan recovered in Houston through the Thanksgiving and winter breaks in 2022. Her mother, Kimbley Johnson, thought Morgan should transfer to a Texas school. “That was my wish,” Johnson said.

In reality, Johnson couldn’t see a way for her daughter to return. At home in Houston, Morgan had stopped eating and drinking and, inexplicably, talking. They’d ended up in a Houston hospital three times. Morgan couldn’t be left alone, so Johnson resigned from her job.

But day by day, Morgan started coming around. She began speaking again, eating again, and was willing to leave the house. On one outing, Morgan announced she was returning to Charlottesville.

“And that’s how I found out she was going back to school,” Johnson said. “I thought it wasn’t even an option.

“It was agonizing.”

The way Morgan remembers it now, everything hinged on McIntire. If she wasn’t accepted, she would stay home.

“I heard back from McIntire, and I got in,” she said. “I knew I didn’t want something else that I had worked for to be taken away.”

‘I Am Just Going To Give it my All’

In the summer before her third year, Morgan had healed enough to start jogging. She began thinking about the track team again. “I just knew that it was still possible,” she said. “I don’t know, crazy faith maybe.”

Morgan surges ahead of competitors on the track. In her first two tries, Morgan failed to make the Cavalier track team and instead served as a student manager. The shooting led to a monthslong recovery that should have ended her track team dream. But by her third year, she’d turned the setback into a remarkable comeback. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)

Morgan, a deeply religious person, believed it was God’s promise to her that she’d join both the McIntire School and the track team. One of those, he’d delivered. “And I didn’t think God had told me to give up on (track) yet. So, I just had this faith that I would be able to do it.”

She started running with more purpose, including longer distances, adhering to the team’s training plan. Morgan felt like she was getting faster. She told her coaches she was going to try out again.

In spring of her third year, she found herself on the track again running 100-meter workouts.

“I just said to myself, ‘I’m going to run and have a good day. It’s going to hurt, but I am just going to give it my all.”

The 100-meter race is just a little longer than a football field. It’s over in seconds. For the workouts, the coaches put down cones along the track, and athletes are expected to pass the cones at set times.

“I hit my marks, and I was just so excited,” she said. “I could tell my teammates were kind of taken aback.”

Morgan was running faster than she ever had before. She made the team.

In class, she was hitting her marks, too. She earned the prestigious T. Rodney Crowley Scholarship for demonstrating “leadership, sportsmanship, character and integrity.” The scholarship covered her fourth-year tuition.

UVA’s Athletics Department created the “Marlee Morgan Service Award” to honor team managers who demonstrate “perseverance, commitment and work ethic.” She was the first recipient.

‘Never in a Million Years’

On track and field’s senior day, and just weeks away from graduating from the McIntire School, Morgan coiled like a spring against the starting blocks for the 200-meter race.

Marlee Morgan with her family at Lannigan Field

After running the fastest 200-meter race of her life, Morgan smiles with mother Kimbley Johnson, brother Ethan and father Yoseph Morgan. The family traveled from Houston to share the day with Marlee, who wears a T-shirt honoring the three student-athletes on the bus who were not as fortunate as she. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)

“Get set,” the starter barked through the public-address system.

Then, a gunshot blasted from her left.

Each time she hears the starter’s pistol, for the briefest instant she’s taken back to that moment on the bus. But just as quickly, she knows it’s time to run. On this day, her senior day, she bolted around the track’s south curve and flashed by the grandstands, where her parents cheered.

As her daughter blazed by, Johnson could scarcely believe it.

“I never dreamed that any of this was going to be possible for Marlee,” Johnson said. “She has inspired me so much with her journey and has taught me a lot about determination and tenacity. I’m just so amazed.

“Never in a million years,” she continued, “would I have thought I would have been there on Saturday watching my child compete.”

Morgan hurtled herself across the finish line as the digital clock read 24.56 seconds.

It was the fastest she had ever run in her life.