SALEM, Wis. — Complaints about Westosha Central High School head baseball coach and physical education teacher Jacob “Jake” Morman stretch back nearly seven years, according to hundreds of pages of school records obtained by the Kenosha County Eye. The records show parents repeatedly went to administrators with concerns about Morman, while some of the district's own student-athlete surveys contain blistering assessments from players who accused him of favoritism, excessive negativity, targeting players and refusing to accept responsibility for his own actions.
One varsity player told the district, “Morman made me not want to play the sport,” while another wrote, “Under coach Morman I have lost all love for the game,” adding, “I have never felt so disrespected and targeted in any other sport and under any other coach.” A third player wrote that Morman “holds lots of grudges against teenagers” and concluded, “Overall I feel like he is a cancer to the team instead of a positive influence.” Yet another accused Morman of seeking power, writing, “He is always looking for a spot in power because when he feels in power, he abuses it.”
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50 Responses
Kids are so soft today and there parents are to blame.
This guy has been there on the field for 15 years !!
That’s a lot of Baseball players. Over 200.
Me thinks that times have changed and that sure, kids are “softer” than they used to be, but …..
… the parents that want him gone they should first, look in the mirror and ask, “Am I raising a strong student ?”
Second, seek out as many past players as possible and see if you can substantiate these accusations by the numbers going back into those 15 years. Both AD Jon Lindh and Administrator John Gendron have been around a long time. They both are well versed in how times have changed and students demeanor and overall psyche is not what is was 20 years ago or even ten years ago for that matter.
Talk with other schools coaches in the conference.
Do they agree ?
There is a lot more “investigation” that needs to be done before this guy is shown the door.
Seasons over. Winter is almost here. Someone needs to follow up and justify this story or turn it back on the parents and their “softball” students players. Either way, if you want change you better be right ! Otherwise you might get exactly what you’re asking for.
*their
and if that’s what you got out of this you’re a cancer on society as well.
These kids aren’t scared of hard work, they don’t care for a coach that isn’t looking out for the interest of the TEAM. This isn’t a tough coach pushing them to their potential. This is a failure trying to relive his past glory days and it’s triggered all you old folks that also are trying to relive their “good ol days”
All you Al Bundy’s can go sniff feet
HAHA triggered the boomers
I think they’re the ones that need to grow a pair.
What a dick.
As if there were no other qualified in the area to be head coach. Such a shame
This sounds like my little league coach and he made me a better adult. Maybe those kids just aren’t meant to play competitive sports.
It’s 2026. These kids need to be fucking coddled or else they cry abuse or mental abuse. No doubt a lot comes from their parents….
Don’t fall off your bar stool Bubba. Tell everyone there how you didn’t make any teams in high school, then hide your crocodile tears.
Crocodile tears, LMFAO. We get it, was this coach the reason your son wanted to become a girl? Fucking clown…..
Huh? That makes no sense in relation to his comment
This is high school sports. A bully for a coach will teach them nothing good.
This is redundant in the area, ego driven and money related bullshit fundraiser shit like this has ruined SE wisconsin sports.
Happened at wilmot with my oldest and watching it now with my middle kid at WCHS.
If you’re not going to bars and shit or living in an affluent HOA with these groups.
your kid will hate the sport they love because of this shit. Now they charge money to watch them get their asses handed to them in almost every sport.
Huge donations, paychecks and Al Bundys kids are starters always regardless of talent, just the outfit and no one else’s gets a option to showcase because heaven forbid their kid doesn’t play for 60 min Of the game for social media and likes.
A coach would be ousted of the beer garden clique for that type of nonsense.
They portray this bullshit on these kids and grown adults are showing them just how out ass out and hypocritical they are.
Just like Covid and that Graduating class.
Simple, don’t support that shit ass behavior and teach your kids how to have character, and recognize when you deserve better treatment. Real world shit.
Cause they ain’t doing it in this area.
Not everyone is a champ because of who you know. That’s what builds these coaches who try and parents re live their glory days with money, not character.
Um, this is sports in America….not just here.
These players join these “elite” travel teams and told how great they are. Then they have to really compete instead of mom and dad paying for a spot on that elite team. Blame the coach who has to introduce reality. The true crime is the money their parents paid to these scam youth baseball organizations.
And what you don’t know, is that these kids have to try out for the travel teams. They don’t just automatically make the team!! These days, if your kid isn’t playing travel ball, they won’t make the high school teams because all the kids on the travel teams are better than the kid that just plays ball locally!!
Travel teams have destroyed sports. Now instead of the most talented, you get the kids whose parents have spent the most and forced hours of playing time onto their kid.
Spoken like someone who is getting scammed
This guy sounds like my 80’s high school coach, molding boys into men. Toughen up kids.
This was my thought exactly – sounds just like when i was in high school in the 80’s……..
Listen to all you pansies that never actually played sports talking trash about “toughing them up”. It’s a frickin team sport which should involve practicing, team work and fun. No one needs a coach to belittle or bitch at them. It’s just high school. 99% of these kids will not play college sports. It shouldn’t be equivalent to a boot camp or beat down session. And a coach with insecurity problems and power trip issues isn’t cut out to teach anything.
well said
Unfortunately public high school sports aren’t what they used to mean.If you want a guarantee to make the team and get your picture in the paper pay for St.Joes.Otherwise join the glee club and stfu.
This isn’t a coach that wants to knock kids down and build them back up. Based on what I’m reading, this is a power hungry egotistical man that shouldn’t be in a place of power.
A couple years ago I witnessed him get ejected from a 6 year old girls basketball game he was coaching. It was at the Boys and Girls club in kenosha. He acted so beyond disgusting in front of those little kids and my daughter. Kids were litterally crying and confused as to what was happening. You see that stuff online but never think you will witness it in person. Terrible person
😮
That’s wild
Wish I would have known this years back. What year was it?
A coach needs to teach about life and the sport.
💯
If the “problem” exists more than 7 years it’s not going away….
Boys need to play a different sport if their feelings are 😢
He is very mean.
Always makes us run during practice.
Every time we’re done, we’re all tired and sweaty.
He also made me put away my iPhone & prevented me from going on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook during practice.
He also made fun of the pop music I listen to. He said it’s not manly enough and that my testosterone levels must be depleted.
That I need to go to GNC for some testosterone boosting pills or something
He is on a power trip.
so believable you troll 🙄
you must be Jake’s butt buddy
Mr Lindh?
He’s mean? No wonder Kenosha and Racine are full of cowards.
Not surprised. Exactly how I remember the douchbag being like.
Same here
Seven years of the same complaints isn’t nothing. It’s an obvious pattern that deserves attention and intervention. Imagine doing your job and receiving repeated complaints about the same behavior year after year. You’d change or get fired. Tired of horrible school employees that feel they’re immune to losing their job. Obviously union related.
I knew Jake and his brother Justin when they were really little. Played a lot of pickle and baseball with them. Makes me really sad to hear that Jake turned into a egotistical jerk. I hope if he sees this that he’ll reflect and try to be better.
The disheartening thing for me is seeing the comments call out how this is “related to playing time” or not wanting to work hard enough. Sports family here, love tough strong coaches and completely agree that playing time is earned not given. That is not what this story is about. This story is about many athletes, over many years it seems, experiencing similar situations. Could you have had a wonderful experience with this coach? Yes, 100% but if you were one of the impacted students, could it have been miserable, traumatic and take a toll on your mental health? yes 100% both things can be true and if you’re a parent of the latter, you know how spot on this article is. There is a difference between coaching and supporting students versus belittling, breaking them down, making them feel less lesser than & unwanted just because your personalities don’t align and that’s what this article is about and it’s not right. At some point there should be accountability for the behavior instead of dismissing it off as whiny parents or lazy students. .
Everything Kevin wrote about this guy is true. For years, it has been known throughout the baseball community that this guy is a terrible coach and has a reputation for treating players poorly. His reputation precedes him.
You hear these stories and initially assume they are just the complaints of whining or overly involved parents. Then you witness it firsthand, and you realize there is a pattern. Many of the players who have had problems with Morman were highly talented kids who came through elite-level club programs. A few years ago, for example, two D1-committed players left the program in the same year. Many of the kids who have had issues with Morman have gone on to play college baseball.
Morman’s reputation as a poor coach is not limited to Central parents. Umpires, parents from other schools, and coaches within elite-level baseball programs are aware of his behavior. They have witnessed the temper tantrums and the way he treats players. In fact, I know of elite-level coaches who have encouraged their players to keep their heads up while playing under Morman.
Westosha Central has had more talented baseball players come through its doors than just about any other high school in the state. The Southeastern Wisconsin baseball corridor is extremely competitive. From a talent standpoint, Central should be competing at the state tournament on a regular basis. In my opinion, the problem isn’t a lack of talent. It is a coaching problem that has been enabled by the athletic director and administration.
We had a problem with Morman as well. My son was cut from the team despite being a legitimate college-level player. He trained and played with the Hitters program, which is well known in the community. Morman cut him during his junior year, while several of Morman’s friends’ kids—children of families he was connected with through his daughter’s basketball program—made the team as outfielders.
I was told that those players’ parents had been instructed by Morman to try out specifically as outfielders in order to make the team. The other players knew about it because those kids themselves talked about how they had been told to try out as outfielders. The result was particularly frustrating because, from what I witnessed, some of the varsity outfielders struggled to make routine plays while my son had been recognized as one of the best outfielders in the conference.
We eventually had a meeting with Morman, Athletic Director Lindh, who is also his golfing buddy, and Administrator Gendron to discuss why my son had been cut. Morman blamed the decision on my son’s swing. I found that explanation completely unconvincing.
Anyone familiar with what it takes to participate in the Hitters program knows the level of training, instruction, and commitment involved. Hitting lessons and weekly training are mandatory. My son had put in that work and had demonstrated his ability at a high level. In my opinion, the real issue was simply that Morman didn’t like my son, despite barely knowing him.
Shortly after that meeting, we began receiving calls from the school claiming that our son was absent from Falcon Time, a study hall supervised by Morman. Our son was present every time. Morman was marking him absent.
The principal had to review the school’s security cameras on multiple occasions to correct the attendance record. This happened approximately ten times before we finally requested that our son be placed somewhere else during Falcon Time so Morman could no longer target him in this petty way. I have documentation to support this.
One of Morman’s assistant coaches eventually had the courage to approach my son at another sporting event and tell him that he should have been on the baseball team. He told my son that the decision wasn’t his and encouraged him to try out again in the spring.
My son loved baseball. He had put in the work, had the talent, and wanted to continue playing. Unfortunately, the actions of one coach took much of that enjoyment away from him.
I have also spoken off the record with board members Bill Lois and Bill Watson. From those conversations, they appeared to be unaware of complaints about Morman that I know were made over the years by parents and people involved with Southeastern Wisconsin travel baseball programs. Those complaints, as I understand it, were brought to Gendron and/or the school board.
That is what makes this situation so frustrating. This isn’t about one parent being upset because his kid didn’t make a team. There is a long history of complaints, multiple players who have gone on to play college baseball, parents and coaches throughout the baseball community who know the reputation, and firsthand experiences that point to a much larger problem.
At some point, the question needs to be asked: how many players have to be affected before the administration takes a serious look at the coach and the culture surrounding the program?
This article caught my attention, and after reading it and some of the comments that followed, I figured I would chime in.
I’ve been around sports in this area for a long time, and it’s a shame when things get to this point and somehow there needs to be a publication. From the outside looking in, this appears to be another situation where specific individuals didn’t like decisions that were made or didn’t get the outcome they wanted, found someone willing to write about it, and suddenly everyone who had an issue, disagreement, or hurt feelings at some point over the last decade has been given a microphone.
That doesn’t mean legitimate complaints shouldn’t be taken seriously. They absolutely should.
But there are always two sides to a story, and very few situations involving coaches, players, parents, playing time, roster cuts and discipline are as perfectly cut and dry as this article makes everything appear. What I get a kick out of is how quickly these conversations turn into the “EVERYTHING WAS SOOOO BAD” bandwagon.
Come on. Really?
If you didn’t like the coach, then you didn’t like the coach. That’s fine. If you thought he was an ass sometimes, you’re entitled to that opinion too. Maybe he was. Maybe he was demanding. Maybe he lost his temper at times. Maybe he made some bad decisions. Maybe he cut players who deserved to make the team. Maybe he started somebody who shouldn’t have started.
Welcome to sports.
But disagreement, disappointment, and hurt feelings are not automatically evidence of some decade long scandal. And frankly, I think we’ve become so afraid of allowing young people to experience disappointment that we’re doing them a disservice.
Life is eventually going to hit every one of these kids in the face. You’re not always getting the job. You’re not always getting the promotion. You’re not always making the team. You’re not always starting. Your boss won’t always recognize how talented you think you are. People aren’t always going to like you.
And sometimes somebody in authority is going to make a decision about you that you believe is completely wrong. Learning how to deal with that, get back to work, improve yourself, and move forward might actually make you a better human being. That’s supposed to be one of the lessons sports teaches. Instead, somewhere along the way we started teaching kids that every disappointing outcome requires an investigation into who wronged them.
I need to touch on this as well because it drives me nuts to see how sports has become, or what it’s done to players’ and parents’ thinking. There’s the “elite travel baseball” argument, or any other travel program. Please. Playing for an “elite” travel organization does not give someone a natural right to a varsity roster spot, a starting position, or a particular place in the batting order.
Parents now spend thousands upon thousands of dollars putting their kids into programs labeled “elite,” “select,” “premier,” “national,” or whatever the latest terminology happens to be. Those organizations didn’t exist at anything close to today’s scale a generation ago. And here’s an uncomfortable reality, paying thousands of dollars for elite baseball doesn’t purchase a varsity position at your local high school. Your travel coach can think you’re great. Your private hitting instructor can think you’re great. Your parents can think you’re great. You can have the nicest uniform, play 70 games a summer, travel across five states, and have a social media account full of exit velocities and highlight videos. The high school coach is still allowed to evaluate you and come to a different conclusion. That’s sports.
And let’s be realistic about the business model involved. When parents are paying significant money for private instruction and elite programs, those organizations have every incentive to develop players, encourage them, and keep families invested in the process. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Many of those programs provide outstanding instruction.
But participation itself isn’t proof that a player is automatically better than someone who didn’t participate. At some point, everybody needs to come back to reality.
I was curious about this coach’s record or what he’s done for the program because, from my experience, it’s never “ALL BAD,” and of course there’s another part of this story that seems strangely inconvenient for the narrative being pushed. For someone supposedly known throughout the baseball community as such a terrible coach, he sure seemed to win a lot of baseball games. Don’t take my word for it, just Google it.
It appears that his teams produced winning seasons consistently. He coached a 21-win team that reached the WIAA Division 1 State Tournament in 2022, ending roughly a 20-year state tournament drought. Two years later, Central went 26–6, won a sectional championship and went back to the Division 1 State Tournament. That doesn’t seem like it’s been “all bad”. He also received Coach of the Year recognition along the way. That’s a pretty interesting résumé for someone we’re now being told was universally understood to be a terrible baseball coach. Does a winning record mean he handled every player perfectly? No. Does it mean every roster decision he ever made was correct? Of course not.
But we’re apparently being asked to believe that this coach was incompetent, couldn’t develop players, mistreated talented athletes, held the program back, and was widely known throughout baseball as a terrible coach… while simultaneously producing winning teams, making deep postseason runs, ending a 20-year state tournament drought, returning to state two years later and receiving coaching recognition. Again, don’t kill the messenger, it’s on the internet.
At some point, common sense has to enter the conversation. There’s another contradiction here too. We’re repeatedly told that players who supposedly had problems with the coach later played college baseball. Okay. Couldn’t somebody just as easily ask whether playing in a successful high school program under the coach contributed something to their development?
You can’t use every positive outcome as evidence against the coach while simultaneously assigning every negative experience to him. That’s not an objective evaluation. That’s starting with the conclusion that the coach was terrible and then working backward to make every fact support it. The same goes for a parent whose son was cut. That parent absolutely has a right to be disappointed. He has a right to believe his son was better than the players who made the team. He even has the right to believe the coach didn’t like his son. But his son playing for Hitters doesn’t prove he should have made the high school team. I’m a parent; my kids are much older now. I wanted what was best for them as well, but it didn’t always work out that way in every sporting situation, and those lessons made them better humans.
And frankly, when your own child being cut is part of the story, that context matters when you’re now publicly evaluating the coach who made the decision. It doesn’t mean the parent’s concerns are automatically wrong. It does mean the reader should understand there is a personal history behind the criticism. Every kid and/or parent, before they go on the attack, should probably take a good look in the mirror and realize that part of how they thought they were “wronged” played a small role in why decisions were made.
“I heard…” “Everyone knows…”A coach told me…Parents have said…People in baseball know…”
Those statements might justify asking questions. They don’t automatically establish facts. And this is where I think we’ve completely lost perspective.
But if the complaint is ultimately that he was demanding, hurt people’s feelings, cut players whose parents believed they were college level athletes, didn’t start somebody, yelled occasionally, or didn’t recognize someone’s “elite” travel baseball pedigree…
Get over yourself.
Seriously. Sports aren’t supposed to guarantee your child success. They’re supposed to help prepare your child for a world that absolutely does not guarantee it, and maybe they got that answer. Sometimes getting cut might teach you more than making the team. Sometimes sitting on the bench might teach you something. Sometimes dealing with a coach you don’t particularly like might prepare you for dealing with a boss you don’t particularly like ten years from now.
And sometimes being told “you’re not good enough right now” becomes the motivation that makes you better. Those aren’t necessarily failures of youth sports. Those can be some of its greatest lessons. Maybe instead of teaching kids that every uncomfortable experience means somebody failed them, we should start teaching them how to handle uncomfortable experiences.
Because eventually Mom and Dad won’t be able to call a meeting when your boss one day is upset with you. They won’t be able to demand an explanation from the athletic director. They won’t be able to point to how much money they spent on an elite program. And they won’t be able to find a website to make everything “fair”.
So criticize the coach if you want. Question his decisions. Hold him accountable where facts warrant it. But spare everyone the idea that what appears to be a lot of years of winning baseball, state tournament appearances, postseason success, and coaching recognition somehow don’t count because some people didn’t like him. It looks like he’s done a lot of things correctly. Just my two cents….
This is definitely him
💯
Yep, definitely him. Trying his best to spin this on every one else but himself. And therein lies the problem. Can’t keep himself accountable.
Down deep he knows. When you walk by the guy, he puts his head down in shame- rightfully so.
read the comment above you and you’ll see you are incorrect with your assumptions
I played for him about 4-6 years ago (I’ll let you guess). Was he a great coach? No. Did I enjoy my 3 years playing varsity under him? Not really. Did I play every game and receive all conference honors? Yes.
I’ll be honest, in the moment I hated playing for him. I think it’s hard when I went from playing travel ball year round with ex MLB, high collegiate, and other professional baseball players as my everyday coaches, to a gym teacher that has only played/coached at the high school level.
Little did I know college ball was going to have an even bigger loser as a coach, I’m sure if the Kenosha county eye wanted to talk about what real terrible treatment is, for 9 months of the year, for 3 years, we could arrange it!
I want more info on the comment about him getting ejected from a little girls basketball game 🤣🤣🤣
Morman was my varsity baseball and football coach a few years ago and he is a complete douchebag. He would hit line drives and ground balls as hard as he possibly can at my teammates he wasn’t in favor of during fielding practice because they made a mistake on or off the field, or even reasons like a student athlete having a C- or F in one of their classes they are struggling in. He does not deserve the glory of winning a state championship.