By: Ben Riela

Three years ago, Scott Morin burst on the Westborough High School Recreation Basketball (Rec Ball) scene by winning the championship in his first season coaching. Remaining a dominant force in the league, Morin has become one of the most recognizable and talked about coaches in the league. With a career coaching record of 32-5, it’s clear he knows how to win and he’s not afraid to tell everyone about it in the process.

Morin was born in Marlboro, MA and attended Algonquin Regional High School where he played varsity baseball and basketball. After high school, Morin attended Bryant University and majored in Computer Information Systems. In his professional career, he switched from programming to sales, and currently works in sales in the shoe business today. He has lived in Westborough since 1997 and has always loved the town and the community. He has three children, and he has coached teams for all of his children at one point or another.

As far as his previous coaching experience, Morin is loaded with an extensive resume. He began coaching in youth sports 16 years ago for his oldest child (currently in college) and has been coaching ever since. Over the years, he has been involved in numerous seasons of soccer, T-Ball baseball, Little League baseball, football, and basketball.

Three years ago, Morin saw an opportunity to contribute to the high school sports scene at Westborough High. “I thought I could bring something new to Rec Ball,” says Morin. When he first became a Rec Ball head coach, Morin was impressed by the sheer size of the program, as approximately 140-160 high school students are involved in the program every season. He found his biggest challenge starting off was to come up with plays and practices for everyone to be involved in, as it was important to motivate all members of the team to try their best no matter what their role on the team was.

Obviously he was doing something right, because in his first season he cruised to a championship victory with a dominant 13-2 record. In his sophomore season, the team lost in the playoffs with an impressive overall record of 9-2. This past season his team was undefeated heading into the playoffs, where they shockingly lost in the semi-finals. However, a career coaching record of 32-5 shows that Morin definitely knows what he’s doing.

This success doesn’t happen overnight, as Morin’s competitiveness is key to his success in the league. At the start of each season, he takes into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of each player, and he then designs plays and defensive schemes to exploit the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of the team. However, during practice the goal is to turn weaknesses of his players into strengths, as a cornerstone of his coaching style is to have individual improvements of every player on the team by the end of the season, no matter how good the player was at the beginning.

A hardworking and detail-oriented coach, Morin’s competitiveness has greatly contributed to his team’s success. “Everybody has more fun when we win, so I’m going to do everything I can to make sure we have fun and win every season,” Morin remarks. When asked about his coaching role models, he mentioned his junior varsity basketball coach from his Algonquin High School playing days and, of course, the great Bill Belichick. Talking about Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick, “He pays so much attention to the little details…he has the attitude of ‘if you’re gonna do it, do it right’, which is how I view my decision to coach Rec Ball”.

When asked what his favorite part of the league is, he states, “the quality of play, the excitement, the effort kids put into it…they really look forward to playing every year, and that’s what makes it so fun.” He also loves the attention of being the most recognizable and talked about coach in the league, as having a constant target on his back in the league makes it that much more sweeter when they win. There’s a reason why at the beginning of each season teams league-wide circle their games on the schedule against Team Morin, and Coach Morin loves every bit of it.  

When asked why he loves Rec Ball so much, he said that when he’s coaching he has so much fun that “I just feel like a big kid.” Having taken the league by storm and remaining a dominant force ever since, don’t ever sleep on coach Scott Morin, as all indications show that he will remain a top coach in the league for years to come.