John C. Morris (born December 16, 1978; nicknamed "Johnny Mo") is a Canadian curler, and two-time Olympic gold medallist from Canmore, Alberta. Morris played third for the Kevin Martin team until April 24, 2013. Morris, author of the book Fit to Curl, is the son of Maureen and Earle Morris, inventor of the "Stabilizer" curling broom. Morris grew up in Gloucester, Ontario (now part of Ottawa) and at the age of five began curling at the Navy Curling Club.
Career
Junior career
As a junior curler, Morris skipped his Ottawa Curling Club rink to three-straight Ontario provincial junior Men's titles from 1997 to 1999, and won the 1998 and 1999 Canadian and World Junior Championships, setting records for most wins by a skip along the way.
Morris and his rink of Craig Savill, Matt St. Louis and Mark Homan would represent Ontario at the 1997 Canadian Junior Curling Championships. His team would finish the round robin with a 7–5 record, in a five-way tie for third place. He would go on to beat British Columbia's T. J. Perepolkin, New Brunswick's Tommy Sullivan in tiebreakers, the Northwest Territories' Jamie Koe in the semifinal before losing to Alberta's Ryan Keane in the final.
The following season, Morris brought in a new front end for his junior team, adding Andy Ormsby and Brent Laing to replace St. Louis and Homan. At the 1998 Canadian Junior Curling Championships, he led his Ontario Team to a 9–3 round robin record in a 4-way tie for first place. The team beat New Brunswick's Rob Heffernan in a tiebreaker before beating Manitoba's Mike McEwen in the semifinal and then Alberta's Carter Rycroft in the final. Their win qualified the team to represent Canada at the 1998 World Junior Curling Championships. There, the team would go 9–0 in the round robin before defeating Switzerland's Ralph Stöckli in the semifinal and Garry MacKay of Scotland in the final to win the gold medal.
For their third championship run, Team Morris replaced Ormsby with Jason Young at second. At the 1999 Canadian Junior Curling Championships, Morris led the team to an 8–4 round robin record in a three-way tie for second. He again had to fight through a tiebreaker to win the championship, downing Alberta's Jeff Erickson before defeating Newfoundland's Brad Gushue in the semifinal and British Columbia's Jeff Richard in the final. At the 1999 World Junior Curling Championships, he led Canada to an 8–1 round robin record (first place) and beat Sweden's Patric Håkansson in the semifinal and Christian Haller of Switzerland in the final to win the gold medal.
In addition to his provincial junior titles, Morris won a provincial junior mixed title in 1999 with Jacqueline Smith, Brent Laing and Chrissy Cadorin.
Early men's career in Ontario (1999–2003) After living in Ottawa, Morris moved to Southwestern Ontario to attend Wilfrid Laurier University and curled out of the Stayner Granite Club in Stayner, Ontario. Despite the move, his team remained nearly intact, with Young being replaced by Andy Ormsby. In their first season after juniors, the team entered the playdowns for the 2000 Ontario Nokia Cup, the provincial men's championship, but lost in regionals.
In 2000 Ormsby left the team and was replaced by Joe Frans, who would become the team's third, moving Savill to play second. The team won a couple of tour events and made it to their first provincial championship, the 2001 Ontario Nokia Cup. After finishing the round robin with a 6–3 record, Morris defeated Team Glenn Howard in the semifinal before losing to Team Wayne Middaugh in the final.
The team qualified for the 2001 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, where Morris garnered national attention after a difficult loss to Russ Howard. His team would finish the event with a 5–4 record, missing the playoffs. With many of the province's top teams ignoring the Brier playdowns in 2002 to focus on the new Grand Slam of Curling, Morris and his team had an easy path at the 2002 Ontario provincial championships. The team went 8–1 after the round robin and beat Team Phil Daniel twice to win his first provincial title, qualifying him for the 2002 Nokia Brier. At the diluted Brier, Morris led his rink to an 8–3 round robin record, in second place. In the playoffs, they lost to Alberta's Randy Ferbey in the 1 vs. 2 game but rebounded to defeat New Brunswick's Russ Howard in the semifinal. In the final, the team lost to Alberta in a rematch.