Morgan Stroman (standing far left) and the rest of the Lower Richland Diamond Hornets celebrate their fourth consecutive state championship.
About a month has passed since Morgan Stroman was announced as the new Lower Richland girls basketball coach.
For the former Lower Richland star, returning to the program is a full circle moment for the legendary player to become the head coach at her alma mater.
She also continues a basketball journey she began as a child.
“I think I discovered a passion for basketball pretty young,” Stroman said. “I always remember being around basketball. My mom (Debbie Stroman) and dad kept me around basketball. Of course my mom being a coach for as long as she did, I was around the volleyball and basketball teams.”
Stroman played basketball at Caughman Road Park and Hopkins Park. As she grew up, she took her skills to the AAU circuit as a member of the South Carolina 76ers.
While she was developing her skills with those teams, going against her mom’s Lower Richland teams is where her passion grew.
“When I was older I started to realize that I was pretty good and started playing against older kids at a younger age,” Stroman said. “My mom made me play against her team. I started to build confidence when I would do well against them. This was something I wanted to do. No one had to wake me up to do it. It was always fun for me.
Lower Richland’s Morgan Stroman makes an open layup in the 2009 3A state championship game.
“I would go to the open gym nights or the ladies nights where the high school kids were at. I would be the only, or one of the only, middle schoolers there. I would get my shot blocked sometimes, but it was okay. I learned from it. What other way to learn from it than playing against better competition? I didn’t stray away from that competition. It helped me in the long run.”
As the younger Stroman joined the varsity as a seventh grader, Coach Stroman set up a clear boundary between coach and mom.
“I didn’t get any special treatment,” Stroman said. “She was one of those coaches/moms that was like ‘No. You don’t get to sit in my office when we are about to practice. You go in the locker room with the rest of the girls.’ I understood that early. When we were in the gym she was my coach. As soon as we left she was my mom.”
Being a seventh grader on varsity was a bit of an adjustment for Stroman.
“At first it was hard,” Stroman said. “I was on a different school schedule. I didn’t go to school with the girls. They had their own bonds. I wasn’t their age. I was seen as the little sister. It wasn’t always a bad thing. I looked up to a lot of them for guidance on the court and knowing where I was as a player.”
There wasn’t a particular moment on the court that gave Stroman a sense she belonged with the older girls. However, the biggest realization hit her when newspaper reporters and college coaches came around when she was in the eighth grade.
“I felt I must be doing something right,” Stroman said. “I started to get letters. I would see coaches talking to my mom. I started to see things like that and realized I must be doing pretty good on the court.”
By her freshman year, Stroman was finally getting an opportunity to play with her friends on varsity from her AAU team.
“I think our expectation was to win a championship,”
Stroman said. “We were always a competitive team. When you played Lower Richland it was not going to be an easy game. I remember schools like Eau Claire, Keenan, and Dutch Fork. Those were always competitive games. Once the games were closer and we won those games that’s when the lightbulb came on after my eighth grade year.”
The next four years of Stroman’s career were the stuff of legends. Each season ended with her at the Colonial Life Arena holding the state championship trophy. The first came at the end of the 2005-2006 season following a 56-53 win over the three-time defending state champion Dorman Cavaliers. Stroman had a game-high 18 points.
A year later, the Diamond Hornets defended their title with a 54-46 win in a rematch over Dorman to claim back-to-back state championships.
With two titles under her belt and two years left at Lower Richland, Stroman decided to go after new goals. Despite knowing the Diamond Hornets would get everyone’s best shot, Stroman and her teammates dared to dream about going through an entire season undefeated. Heading into the 4A State Championship game, Lower Richland had faced 25 opponents and defeated each one. The Diamond Hornets quest for a 26th win came against a familiar opponent, Dorman. Just like the previous two, Lower Richland came out on top, finishing the season with a perfect 26-0 record and claiming their third straight state championship.
By the time Stroman’s senior year arrived, she had a lot on her plate. She was leading a team on the verge of a fourth-straight state championship. There was recruiting to handle, and she also wanted to be a McDonald’s All-American.
“Having all those personal goals and wanting to win a state championship at the end, I think that’s where the pressure started to pile on me,” Stroman said. “It was good pressure. Pressure either busts pipes or it makes diamonds and for us it made diamonds. It was fun in the midst of it. I really enjoyed my high school career.”
She dealt with recruiting first. Stroman wanted to sign her National Letter of Intent prior to her final year on the court. Throughout the process one school stood out among the others—the University of Miami.
“It felt like it was one of those schools that had a lot of potential and I wanted to be a part of that growth and potential,” Stroman said. “I wanted to go somewhere I could help build a program. I felt like I did that. I knew prior to me, they had one McDonald’s All-American. That was one of my goals. It helped me want to go there more.”
While she took instate visits to Clemson and to meet with Dawn Staley at the University of South Carolina, Stroman ultimately signed with the Hurricanes.
With that complete, Stroman could focus on the court. For her senior season, Stroman would guide her Diamond Hornets through 3A, as Lower Richland moved down following reclassification. Despite the new classification, Stroman and the Diamond Hornets rolled through the schedule and faced the Darlington Falcons for the state championship. Stroman capped off her career with a 17-point performance as Lower Richland won 66-42 to capture the fourth consecutive title.
Stroman later earned that McDonald’s All-American honor. She also went on to a four-year career at the University of Miami. During her playing career as a Hurricane, Stroman got to play against teams like Duke and the University of North Carolina. One of her career highs was a 29-point performance against the Tar Heels.
During Stroman’s first season in Coral Gables, Miami earned its first 20-win season under head coach Katie Meier and made it to the WNIT championship game.
The next year, the Hurricanes won a share of the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season championship, along with Duke.
“Playing in the ACC was great,” Stroman said. “Playing against North Carolina, Duke, N.C. State, Clemson, and Wake Forest, every game was gritty. We had a gritty team. We didn’t hold anything back. I developed a lot of my talent through college.”
Following her time at Miami, Stroman went on to play overseas for six years. Then a new career emerged.
“I didn’t want to coach,” Stroman said. “My mom told me I should coach at Lower Richland. I disagreed. I wanted to play ball. I wanted to play until I couldn’t. I didn’t have an interest in coaching at first.”
That changed one day when she was at a recreation center and a gentleman approached her about teaching his son to play basketball. He had never played and was interested in learning. Stroman agreed, and as she taught the boy, she enjoyed it.
“It was gratifying watching him develop during my time working with him,” Stroman said. “He went from not being able to dribble to dribbling two basketballs at one time. It felt like I was good at it. I noticed more people were asking me to do things like that.”
Then she got an opportunity to go back to Miami. After joking with Meier about helping her out if she needed it, the Hurricanes coach told Stroman she had a position for her. Stroman accepted it and came aboard as an assistant of player development. She worked her way to being a stand in assistant coach a couple of times for Meier.
From there, Stroman coached a year at Bellarmine University in Kentucky before spending the last two seasons at Kennesaw State University.
Now she’s back where it all began—Lower Richland. Not only will she return to the arena where she became a star, but she takes over one of the premier girls basketball programs that happened to be built by her mom Debbie Stroman won 482 games and seven state championships.
“I don’t really see it as pressure,” Stroman said. “My mom is my mom. We talk hoops sometimes. She’s always going to help guide me through life. I don’t really see any pressure behind it, but of course the legacy is there, and one thing I wanted to do was follow in her footsteps. If anything, it’s just me being grateful to have the opportunity to coach and follow in her footsteps to have the greatness at Lower Richland and embody that legacy.”
Stroman already has her own legacy at Lower Richland as a player. She will now try to build another as its coach.
“I think the stars just kind of aligned that way,” Stroman said of returning to Lower Richland. “I’ve been in college athletics for the past couple of years. I just took that leap into being a head coach, and it lined up at the right time.”
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