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- Team:
- Basketball
Bio
For 25 years, one of the constants around the Athletic Department at American River College was Coach Hub Morphew. What wasn’t as constant was the title on the door. Hub coached Men’s Basketball at ARC for 15 years, Women’s Softball for 6 years, Golf for 16 years, and spent 6 years as the Assistant Athletic Director.
It was on the basketball court that Hub was best known, as his ARC teams made the playoffs in 14 of his 15 seasons. He won 4 conference championships, won 6 conference coach of the year awards, and made a trip to the State Final 4. He also won the Sacramento Area Coaches Association Coach of the Year Award, which was presented to him by Kareem Abdul-Jabaar. In his 6 years on the softball diamond the Beavers made the playoffs twice and he also twice won conference coach of the year honors as well. As the Golf, coach his teams won 4 conference championships, had 8 Regional qualifying appearances, and 6 State Qualifying Appearances.
Before coming to ARC Hub was just as successful, and diverse at the high school level as he was at American River. For 7 years he coached basketball and football at Sutter High School, and for another 7 years he led the Cordova Lancers to four league championships and a section championship. It was at Cordova that he caught the attention of Athletic Director and ARC Hall of Famer Bruce Werner, who hired him to lead the Beavers. Hub even spent a year coaching baseball at Yuba College in 1974.
Hub grew up in Fall River California, from where he graduated high school in 1965. He was the All-American boy at Fall River High, being a varsity letterman for 3 years in football, basketball, and for 4 years in baseball. He went on to play quarterback for 2 years at Shasta College where he led the Knights to a Bay Valley Conference Championship in 1965. He was a two-time All-Conference third baseman for the Knights as well and signed a professional baseball contract with the Baltimore Orioles in 1967. In 1993 he was inducted into the Shasta College Hall of Fame.
Hub retired from ARC in 2009, he and his wife Kristine, who have been married for 57 years, moved from their home in El Dorado Hills last May to Caldwell Idaho to be closer to their kids and grandkids. Their daughter Shelly, who played softball for Hub at AR, and her husband Jeff have two sons. Their son Brant, who played basketball for Hub at ARC, and his wife Julie have three daughters. Hub says that he loves being back in the country just like where he grew up and that today, here at ARC, “this is his last game”.