Jamie Morgan, third from right, and his family - Submitted

By Susan Shinn Turner

For the Salisbury Post

Technically, Jamie Morgan has been on the YMCA payroll since he was 13.

Early on, Morgan realized if he was to make his way out of poverty, it was up to him.

Jack Thomas, the executive director who helped start the South Y, took Morgan under his wing. Morgan started keeping score at industrial leagues basketball games at the China Grove Junior High gym. Three years later, Morgan started work as a Y camp counselor. That same year, Thomas hung a whistle around Morgan’s neck, and his protégée started refereering Y games — mostly basketball, but football and soccer, too.

Morgan is a 1984 graduate of South Rowan High School, where he lettered in football, basketball and baseball. He gra

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