Stanford men’s soccer star and U.S. Men’s National Team forward Jordan Morris announced Tuesday that he will forgo his senior season at Stanford to pursue a professional career.
Morris will kick off his quest by traveling to Turkey next week to train with German club Werder Bremen. Aside from likely joining the national team for training camp in a few weeks, Morris also figures to play a large role in the U-23’s Olympic qualifying campaign, which picks back up in March in a playoff against Colombia.
Afterwards, Morris could decide to join the MLS with the Seattle Sounders in time for the 2016 season. The Mercer Island, Washington native has previously expressed his desire to play in Seattle, while the Sounders have been working on signing him for a year now, offering him a contract after his sophomore season before later putting on the table the largest Homegrown Player contract in MLS history. Morris, who played for the Seattle Sounders FC Academy, is also connected to the club through his father, Michael Morris, who is the Chief Medical Director for the Sounders.
In September 2014, Morris became the first current collegian to join the senior team in 15 years. Two months later, he became the first active collegian to earn a cap since 1995, when he entered the team’s friendly against Ireland in the 76th minute. He would break into the national limelight in April 2015, when he scored his first international goal in the U.S.’ friendly against Mexico. In later appearances with the senior team, Morris assisted Bobby Woody’s game-winner against the Netherlands and executed a dummy that led to one of the U.S.’ two goals in the 2-1 victory over Germany, the most recent World Cup champions.
Earier this fall, Morris left The Farm temporarily to compete in the 2015 CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying Championship with the U-23 team and in November was called by the senior team for its matches in its 2018 World Cup Qualifying campaign against St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.
Despite missing five games this season due to national team duties, Morris, one of the three finalists for the MAC Hermann Trophy, led the Stanford team in scoring with 13 goals in 18 games. In his final 14 games with his collegiate team, he scored 12 goals, with his most impressive performance coming on the biggest stage the team would face — and in what would be his final game for Stanford — in the national title game against Clemson, when he scored the game’s first two goals, including one within the first 90 seconds.
Stanford would go on to rout Clemson in a 4-0 victory that earned the program its first-ever national title. Morris will end his collegiate career with 23 goals and 16 assists.
As a Type 1 diabetic, he has also advocated for diabetes research and awareness, participating in “T1D Looks Like Me Campaign” for National Diabetes Awareness Month in November.
Contact Alexa Philippou at aphil723 ‘at’ stanford.edu.