A boring, rainy Friday turned into one of the most iconic days in St. George’s history with a special appearance at a recent pep rally.
On Friday, September 27, the day of the annual homecoming football game, Slatery Gym was buzzing, as if the student body knew something monumental was about to happen.
Soon enough, Coach Jeff Ruffin Court went from being full of faculty dancing to “All I Do is Win” to Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant walking out to hundreds of screaming St. George’s students.
You may be wondering how this was pulled off.
Student Body President Molly Gorham conceptualized the idea of the appearance.
“I went to Mr. [Luke] Pruett and I was like, ‘I think we try to get Ja here,’ and he was like, ‘Whatever you want to do, we can make it happen,’” Gorham recalled of her conversation with the St. George’s head of school.
Gorham went on to reach out to recently hired basketball coach Dee Wilkes to try to set up an appearance since Wilkes had a connection to Morant: Jonathan Stark, a former player of Wilkes’ at FACS, played with Morant at Murray State, which ultimately brought the three of them together when Morant and Stark needed a gym for workouts. Stark reached out to Wilkes for a gym, and was given access to the ones at St. George’s.
“From that moment on, he’s just been working out at the gym everyday,” said Wilkes.
When asked why Morant decided to appear at the pep rally, Wilkes said, “He does a lot of stuff around the community for the kids, and any time he had a chance to help out, he would do it. Like I said, he worked out here all summer, so anytime he can return the favor he’ll do it.”
When someone of the caliber of Ja Morant is in the building, it is crucial to ensure the safety of him and everyone else involved. With that being said, St. George’s has a trusted security team with the operations of safety and security director Mr. Rodney Bright leading the way.
“We maintain a pretty tight secure perimeter, so there’s some coordination that had to happen amongst our security team that we have here on campus,” Bright said when asked what the process was like for setting up protocols. “But he really stepped into a secure environment…everybody was very respectful, and I think he felt at home, and I would call that a big win for the school.”
This monumental moment almost didn’t even happen.
“It was really kind of up in the air for the entire month of September. . . I met with Mr. Pruett that day, and he told me it wasn’t happening…I was devastated,” Gorham said. “[Pruett] texted Coach Wilkes, and he was like, ‘Molly is devastated…throw out a hail mary,’ and he called him, and [Morant] was like, ‘Okay, I’ll be there.’”
It was only found out a few minutes before the pep rally that Morant would, in fact, attend.
“There’s a big misconception going on around school and also online, because it blew up so much, that we paid him or gave him something to come here. We didn’t give him anything. He does this out of the goodness of his heart. He’s a good guy,” Gorham added.
There has been a lot of talk that this year will be the best year in school history.
“I feel like you have to set the tone high at the beginning of the year to get the people excited for what’s to come,” Gorham said.
