Jesse Morgan

Jesse and his brother “Jackie” were two of the best and most famous interior linesmen ever to wear the Albertville Aggie red and black.

The Henry Jack Morgan family of Georgia came to Sand Mountain in a covered wagon well before the turn of the century. After a few moves, the family moved to Albertville in 1914 and bought a cotton gin and sawmill.

The Morgan boys knew about hard work, which helped to develop them into great interior linesmen. They just slug it out in man-to-man combat. They just grunt and groan and take the beating and pounding, foot in the face and finger in the eye. They just bleed and go on. All of these aspects of the game were even more so in the late 1920s and early 1930s than today.

Jesse played the football season of 1929, 1930, 1931 and 1932. In a game with Guntersville, Albertville received the ball on the opening kickoff. Coming out of the huddle for the second down from scrimmage, Jackie said to left guard Charlie Stone, “Change places with Jesse on this play.” He did. With Jackie at left tackle and Jesse Morgan at left guard, they took on Guntersville’s best lineman and perhaps their best player. At the end of the play, the Guntersville man left the game with an injury and did not return.

The Aggie coach Hoyt Levie once took Jesse on in blocking practice. The coach landed on his backside. He later told Jesse that was the hardest he had ever been hit. Jesse received a scholarship to Georgia and played tackle four years.