The words “free” and “time” don’t meet very often for Morgan Causey.
Monday through Sunday her schedule was always crammed, but especially this past spring, with track and field and school and theatre and travel volleyball and extra weekend college prep courses.
You’d be hard pressed to find a high schooler who accomplished more in a given year as a result.
Wetumpka’s 2021 class valedictorian, lone state champion in track and field, county player of the year in volleyball and Homecoming Queen proved to be one of Alabama’s most well-rounded and accomplished prep students over the course of her senior year.
She parlayed that motivation into a full ride to LSU through a combination of scholarships, where she’ll study criminology on a pre-law track.
“It’s just all about balance, really,” Causey said. “Just knowing that you do have stuff you have to do, stuff you have to take care of.”
As with the overwhelming majority of students across the United States, COVID-19 had a massive impact on the start of Causey’s year.
Everything closed down starting March 13, 2020. Classes went virtual. Students had to rely on themselves to learn subject matter where teachers and counselors could have helped before.
With a slate of AP courses, it turned into an overload for Causey.
“That was the most challenging three months of our lives,” Rashawn Renee Blassingame, Causey’s mother, said. “I couldn’t get her motivated, nor could I help her. I was a CP student, she gets her AP level from her dad, that’s his trait. She hated everything about school [those months]. She looked at me one day and said, ‘I didn’t sign up for this. I am not certified to teach myself AP Chem and I shouldn’t have to do this.”
Causey described herself as apathetic in that time.
The only thing keeping her going was structure, a routine to keep her marks high in her toughest courses.
“I really tried to stay close to my schedule,” Causey said. “I tried to get up around the same time every day. Go to my kitchen table where I know I’m not gonna have any distractions, get on my computer and just really stay on schedule, stay focused. Just treat it like a regular school day as much as I could.”
Summer is when the accolades started coming through, a flow that didn’t stop at any point in the school year.
Causey first took second runner-up and won multiple categories in the Distinguished Young Women of Elmore County scholarship program, a contest Blassingame encouraged her to enter.
“I remember my mom telling me that she signed me up for it — just instant dread, really, hearing that I was signed up for it,” Causey said, laughing. “DYW is basically like a pageant-style competition, so when I heard it, I was like, ‘Oh my goodness mom, what have you done? I do not want to do a pageant. I told you I didn’t really want to do a pageant. But nonetheless, I’m extremely grateful that she put me in it.”
Volleyball season followed in fall.
Causey dominated opponents from her middle blocker position, racking up 206 kills and 84 blocks to help the Indians capture their fourth consecutive area title.
She was named The Herald’s Elmore County Player of the Year for her play.
“Skills are only one component of it, but I think that Morgan, she’s a natural-born leader,” Wetumpka volleyball head coach DeAnna Smith said. “She also has an infectious personality. So people look to her. Even when she doesn’t feel her best, she’s not gonna let the other players see that.”
Jake Arthur / For The Herald Morgan Causey may have accomplished more than any other Elmore County high schooler in the 2020-21 school year.
The whirlwind of achievement kept spinning. The Indians defeated St. James at home Oct.16 to advance to the next round of playoff competition, but Causey could only celebrate for five minutes before changing clothes and leaving the gym.
Why? She was on the school’s homecoming court and had to go to the football team’s homecoming game that evening. There she was crowned Homecoming Queen.
Smith was also Causey’s AP Government teacher and the person the multi-sport star referred to as her biggest mentor throughout the year, outside her parents. She witnessed Causey’s success in both athletics and academics first-hand.
Her ability to balance the two disciplines astonished the Wetumpka instructor.
“I don’t think people really understand the kind of determination and dedication and time management skills it takes for a high school student to not only be a three-sport successful athlete, but also a champion in the classroom,” Smith said. “She’s valedictorian of her class, taking a heavy load of AP courses and dual-enrollment courses, while also being involved in athletics year-round. That’s pretty phenomenal.”
Causey’s spring slate got even busier.
She led the Wetumpka girls basketball team in rebounds with 10.7 per game and closed out another area title there before the team fell in the state Sweet 16. Once hoops ended Causey still had travel volleyball, track and field and theatre to tend to. And a second-level American Sign Language course that took up her one day off, Sunday.
Causey starred in her role as Babette in the school’s production of Beauty and the Beast, but she shined much brighter throwing javelin for the Indians.
After qualifying for the finals at the state meet by one inch, Causey recorded a personal record on her last throw, winning a state championship in the final act of her decorated high school athletic career.
It’s the first individual state track and field title for Wetumpka since at least the 1980s, and potentially ever, according to Blassingame.
“You couldn’t have asked for a better start for our state championship weekend,” Wetumpka track and field head coach Warren Brown said afterward. “She’s the first one up, she comes back with a gold medal, putting the pressure on the rest of her teammates. You gotta love it. We love it, we’re proud of it.”
That leaves only one unsolved dilemma in Causey’s senior year — what school comes next.
With an application any school would love to accept, especially after Causey was confirmed as the valedictorian of her class in May, Georgia emerged as the student’s top choice early on. When they offered no scholarship money, she dug deeper into her second choice, LSU.
She took a visit. The campus and criminology program piqued her interest.
“It was just terrible weather,” Causey said. “If you went that day and you weren’t from there, you’d be like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is horrendous.’ But I fell in love with the campus. Even through the rain, everything was super pretty, super gorgeous.
“They were talking about all the majors you could take and they said, ‘criminology.’ I raised my hand to ask a question and asked, ‘What exactly is that?’ And it’s the exact area of study that I wanted to go into. If I were to go to Georgia, I was gonna do psychology and law, I was gonna have to double major.”
The University also offers what it calls the 3+3 program to pre-law students, where they can enroll in law school during their final year of undergraduate studies.
LSU offered a scholarship package that covered all but $6,400 of Causey’s expenses for undergrad at the University.
Then Causey won a Bryant-Jordan scholarship, given out to one athlete from each class in Alabama. She was the top standout from Class 6A.
The amount on that scholarship? $6,500.
“It was like it was written in the stars,” Causey said.
Causey also received the Joe Sewell Memorial Award, Elmore County’s prestigious award for high school seniors.
A different plan is in place for Causey’s freshman year of college.
She said she’ll spend a couple semesters focusing solely on academics, outside of some intramural sports, and enjoy a less jam-packed schedule.
Jake Arthur / For The Herald Wetumpka volleyball player of the year, javelin state champion, Homecoming Queen, top basketball rebounder and valedictorian Morgan Causey.
“I think at some point, it’s that she’s still a young person,” Smith said. “She’s still a child. And she feels that maybe she missed out on some of the social aspects of high school because she was so involved in so many things.”
Still, it’s incredible to think back on all she accomplished in her senior year of high school.
“A dear friend and sister La’Tresia Robinson asked me the other day, ‘What all has Morgan done/won just in her senior year?’ While I was responding to her text, the tears couldn’t stop flowing,” Blassingame said. “Thinking back over all her accomplishments — words can’t even explain my emotions.”
