A day with the Charlotte Sports Foundation’s Danny Morrison: ‘Hope you brought your walking shoes’

Danny Morrison strides down South Mint Street in Charlotte with the speed of a man half his age, clutching a Big Gulp-sized Styrofoam cup of unsweetened tea with a splash of sweet.

Morrison, 69, is a walker by nature. He’s an avid tennis player — athleticism that dates to his days playing basketball at Wofford in the early 1970s. He walks five miles daily when at his beach house near Charleston. As briskly as he paces down the pavement, you’d think he could still score a few buckets.

Now in his fourth year as the executive director of the Charlotte Sports Foundation, Morrison is chipper considering it’s 7:53 a.m. on a Saturday. ESPN’s “College GameDay” set already teems with fans awaiting the night’s contest between No. 21 North Carolina and South Carolina at Bank of America Stadium. Music blares from the speakers scattered around Romare Bearden Park. Smatterings of garnet, baby blue and varying shades of college colors can be seen from the mass of patrons.

“I’ve got colors for both teams,” Morrison quips of the red and blue that forms a checkered pattern across the collar of his primarily white dress shirt, largely hidden by a white Presidents Cup quarter zip.

Morrison and his team spent months preparing for the early September game. Meetings with sponsors. Coordinating with city and Carolina Panthers officials. All of it led up to the prime-time Week 1 matchup between Mack Brown’s and Shane Beamer’s squads.

This in and of itself is a modern movement. The past 15 years of college football have seen an increase in neutral-site contests pitting prime nonconference opponents against one another to add to what had long been a largely slow early-season slate.

Sports Business Journal spent Saturday, Sept. 2, behind the scenes with Morrison to get a better feel for what game day actually looks like for the man charged with orchestrating one of the more prominent Week 1 matchups this fall.

As the clock neared 8 a.m., the one-time TCU athletic director clicked his “Dear Mike” Jordan Series .01 sneakers together and set off for the crowd bubbling around the “College GameDay” set.

With a wry smile, he advises: “Hope you brought your walking shoes.”

■ ■ ■ ■

Morrison and Miller Yoho, the CSF’s director of communications and marketing, nestle into a spot just beyond the growing crowd of fans in and around Romare Bearden Park just after 8 a.m. With each passing minute, virtually one of every 20 people that spill into the area stop to say hello.

ESPN execs. Local marketing teams. Corporate sponsors. All of them know Morrison — and Morrison knows them.

“There’s no egos,” Morrison says later of organizing Saturday’s game. “We’re just trying to put on a great event for Charlotte so that people come to this wonderful city.”

Among the distinguished crew that greet Morrison is Duke’s Mayo President Joe Tuza. The pair have worked closely in recent years after Duke’s Mayo took over as the primary sponsor of what was the Belk Bowl, operated by the CSF, in 2020. Whether by luck or design, the partnership has become one of the most recognizable in college sports.

During the first iteration of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, then-Wisconsin quarterback Graham Mertz dropped the trophy while celebrating in the locker room, shattering the glass football on the locker room floor.

That viral moment became the first in a litany of fun that’s come from the partnership. Beamer himself was doused in mayonnaise following South Carolina’s 2021 bowl win over UNC.

“Sometimes viral moments happen without planning, and you’ve just got to feed the fire and watch it grow,” Tuza tells SBJ. “And it’s amazing a brand like Duke’s Mayonnaise can have that much momentum behind it when it comes to social media.”

“College GameDay” begins at 9 a.m. Morrison and Yoho are pleased. The crowd has added 15-20 rows of people in spots compared to when they first arrived, and continues to swell throughout the show’s first hour.

Hosting the weekly pregame show at a neutral site versus an on-campus location can be a crapshoot. Charlotte hosted “GameDay” two years ago when Clemson and Georgia met in this same Week 1 event. Throughout the morning, there’s talk comparing the two. Most concur this crowd is bigger.

“The environment is insane,” ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit says as the broadcast opened.

“You hear that?” Yoho queries. “The environment is insane.”

“Kirk said that?” Morrison asks.

“Mhmmm,” Yoho says, nodding.

Morrison smiles and glances back toward the stage. Consider game day off to a smooth start.

■ ■ ■ ■

Morrison rounds the bend of Lot 4 outside Bank of America Stadium at 10:06 a.m.

Greeted by CSF Chief Operating Officer Will Pitts and Will Lawson, director of sponsorship sales, the trio gathers outside of a pair of coach buses reserved for the country rockers Darius Rucker and Eric Church — honorary captains for the day’s game.

“You’re always playing a little whack-a-mole,” Morrison quips of the varying logistical challenges that arise on the given day of an event.

The first round comes when a rep for Rucker, the celebrity guest-picker on “GameDay,” steps out of the trailer to ask if there’s a way to get the satellite feed for the televisions on board. The trees shrouding the lot seem to be blocking the TV signal and, thus, Rucker’s ability to watch the early slate of games.

“You picking [South Carolina] to win the national title?” Morrison jokes, shaking Rucker’s hand as the latter prepares to head to the “College GameDay” set.

“I always do,” Rucker promptly retorts.

Accompanied by Tuza and Pitts, Morrison guides the group through a tunnel and onto the field. The stands sit empty.

Morrison takes solace in these brief moments. During his athletic director tenure at TCU nearly 20 years ago, he’d arrive three-plus hours ahead of the game to walk the parking lots and shake hands with fans and boosters on football Saturdays.

There’s a similar feel to this exercise. Morrison relishes watching the stadium come together in pregame, staffers running the sidelines, fans spilling into the seats.

“I just enjoy seeing it all come together,” he says.

■ ■ ■ ■

The streets around Bank of America Stadium flood with fans as morning flips to afternoon and afternoon turns to early evening. The overwhelmingly garnet cohort has invaded the streets in and around the Panthers’ home stadium. Beer has flowed for hours — and it’s still flowing.

Morrison stands on the corner of South Mint Street and West Brooklyn Village Avenue. He’s changed from his morning getup — flipping to a white dress shirt and black blazer along with a new set of gray Jordans.

“I’m not going to let anyone say I’m not neutral today,” jokes Morrison, who holds degrees from both schools.

Morrison meanders through the stadium once more. He pokes his head into the suites on the 400-level of the stadium to ensure each seat has a set of beads, a commemorative hat and Koozie. A quick pit stop through the press box calls for a brief pause at the soda machine — that same Styrofoam cup he’s had since 7:30 a.m. needs a refill.

Pregame festivities commence on the field at 5:33 p.m. Morrison continues to bebop around the sidelines. Ex-Panthers Greg Olsen and Captain Munnerlyn stop by to see the team’s former president. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips bend Morrison’s ear for a few minutes.

With a revolving door of power brokers and celebrities gravitating toward Morrison through kickoff, he Tuza and others head out to midfield for the coin toss. A quick glance at South Carolina’s opening three-and-out and Morrison heads to the tunnel once more, heading up to the suite level.

Time for football.

■ ■ ■ ■

It’s 10:10 p.m. and for the first time in nearly 14 hours, Morrison sits down, sliding into a bar stool inside his South End Zone suite. That lasts all of about three minutes. Nicole Tepper, the wife of Panthers owner David Tepper, pops into the box to speak with a handful of those gathered.

On the field, North Carolina has started to pull away. Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback Drake Maye and the Tar Heels’ offense has stretched its lead to 14. The UNC defensive line has spent the bulk of the night chasing South Carolina signal-caller Spencer Rattler around seemingly every inch of the playing surface at Bank of America Stadium en route to nine sacks.

“I only get to watch the games in passing,” Morrison explains later. That checks out. The handshakes and hugs sent Morrison’s way rarely abate throughout the night.

As the clock inches toward zero, Morrison and his team begin coordinating one final meeting. He heads down to the field after the teams have departed as local TV reporters begin recording their segments along the back of the north end zone. 

Morrison has spent the past four years teaching graduate level courses in South Carolina’s College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management. As part of his class, students work game days as volunteers with the CSF — Saturday’s game included.

Sharing a few words of wisdom and a reminder students need to write about their experiences at the game, Morrison breaks the huddle and turns to his final meeting of the night. Senior leadership from the CSF gathers on the 25-yard line for a similar discussion. He lauds his team’s work, but reminds them there are more events coming down the pipe. The CSF will help put on the Jumpman Invitational, Ally Tipoff, ACC Championship Game and Duke’s Mayo Bowl between now and the new year.

Slipping his hand into the pocket of his khaki dress pants, Morrison flips open his iPhone’s fitness app. He’s recorded more than 15,000 steps. He equates that to about eight miles, or 2,000 steps per mile.

“You’ve got me beat,” he jokes to the reporter who’s spent the bulk of this day by his side.

At 11:22 p.m. the CSF group disperses. Most head home for a well-earned slumber. Morrison and Pitts head for the tunnel leading to the underbelly of the stadium. There, naturally, Morrison runs into an old sportswriter friend who he can’t help but stop and chat with for a few minutes.

Fifteen hours and over 15,000 steps later, game day concludes. Morrison is still standing.