by Katy Beem
Yankton’s Matthew Mors is an extremely good basketball player. But he may be an even better person. Currently a 6’7” senior on the Yankton Bucks boys basketball team, Matthew Mors recalls first surveying the championship banners hung in the Yankton gym as a fourth grader with his father, Ryan. Ryan had recently taken the helm as Yankton’s athletic director, moving the family from Freeman where he had coached golf and girls basketball. Father and son noted that 1978 marked the last state championship win for the Bucks boys basketball team. “My dad turned to me and asked, ‘Think you can help us get one?” says Mors. “I said, ‘Yeah. I think so.’” Mors helped hoist the championship banner as a varsity freshman when 11th-placed Yankton beat No. 4 Harrisburg 39-37 in 2018. This fall, he heads to Madison, Wisconsin to play for the Badgers men’s basketball program. The Big 10 school started recruiting Mors as an eighth grader, as did Colorado, Creighton, Iowa, and Iowa State. Like Matthew, the providential banner anecdote is making the national media as the sports press shares the story of our local boy making good. And as with many high-achieving student-athletes, it’s a family affair. Matthew, and his younger brother Michael, also a student-athlete, grew up in gyms. Dad (Ryan) played football for Northern State University, 4
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where Mom (Aimee) played soccer. Aimee teaches middle school physical education. For vacations, the family attends major sporting events: Christmas in Denver to see the Broncos, as well as the Nuggets vs. LeBron and the Miami Heat; San Antonio for the Final Four; weekends watching the Twins in Minneapolis. “Sports has been part of our family,” says Aimee. “I played traveling soccer, traveling basketball, and I did all that as a young child too. We kind of revolve all of our vacations around sports. In the summer, we’re playing baseball.” In addition to playing baseball, Matthew plays football and runs track. “Since I was a kid, I was just playing everything with a ball, a bat, anything.” Signs of his passion and discipline emerged early. “In fifth grade, I had to cut 10 pounds so I could play quarterback,” he says. “I know it’s probably not what most people do, have a fifth grader try and cut weight to play quarterback, but that’s what I wanted to do. So, my family said all right. I ate one Lunchable® a day, for a week, which was torture, but I remember afterwards I got a steak with bacon wrapped around it. After the weigh-in, we went to Pizza Ranch and I just ate as much as I could.” Yankton head boys basketball coach Chris Haynes has coached Mors for six years.
