Clinton Errol Morris, Sr.

Clinton Errol Morris, 98, of Smiths Station, Alabama, passed away on February 5, 2025, at Columbus Hospice after a brief illness. A visitation will be at 10:00 am EST on Saturday, February 8, 2025, at Vance Brooks Funeral Home, 3738 Hwy 431 N., Phenix City, AL 36867, followed by a funeral service at 11:00 am. A private burial will take place on a later date at Ft. Mitchell National Cemetery. 

Errol was born April 27, 1926, in West Palm Beach, Florida, to Solon Samuel Morris and Mary Edna (Jackson) Morris. He was the third of eight siblings. 

His first wife was Betty Ruth Croft of Dellwood, Florida. His second wife was Atsuko Amasaki of Nagasaki, Japan, who predeceased him in 2018. 

Growing up in Phenix City and Smiths Station, Errol worked on the family farm and at a grocery store in Columbus until he joined the Navy at age 17 during World War II. He was a mechanic on an airplane in the Navy. Years later, he became a pilot.

After the war, he went to college at Auburn University, Livingston State, and Peabody at Vanderbilt earning an undergraduate degree in history and a master’s degree in education. Coming out of college, he taught school and coached in Columbus, Georgia, and in Florida at Carabelle, Greenwood, Tallahassee, Hollywood and finally in Fort Lauderdale at Broward Community College where he coached basketball and taught tennis, bowling, swimming, horseback riding, and more. 

In the early 1970’s, Mister Morris went to Spain as head coach of a professional basketball team - Club Juventud de Badalona, in the European League. While coaching in Spain, he attended the Olympics in Munich, and visited Russia, Yugoslavia, Romania, and most of the countries in Europe.

When he retired, he returned to the family farm in Smiths Station where he lived for 40 years. In retirement he and Atsuko travelled and camped extensively in the western United States, climbed Mount Fuji in Japan, and visited Canada, Hawaii, and Australia. He also enjoyed going to college basketball’s Final Four tournament every year with his buddies.

Clinton read extensively about World War II and enjoyed volunteering at the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning where he would give a short history lesson to patrons as they passed through the WWII exhibit.

He was a great storyteller and at the age of seventy-five he wrote a book about growing up in Alabama during the Great Depression and World War II, and about his exciting life thereafter, titled, Five Cent Cotton and Ten Cent Meat.

Clinton Errol Morris lived a long, exciting, full life, teaching, coaching, and touching the hearts of everyone he met. He will be truly missed by all.

He is survived by his two sons, Clinton Morris Jr., wife Marie, and David Morris, wife Heidi; grandchildren, Lindsay Morris Morgan, husband John Morgan, Christine Morris, husband Dean Reimer, Stephanie Morris, and Samantha Morris; great-grandchildren, Ryan Lee Morgan and Quinn Marie Morgan; his widow Atsuko Morris’s son Johnny Wetzstein, wife Pam, Jake Wetzstein and Kelsey Wetzstein, Hideko Amasaki and Jael DiLeonardis; as well as sister-in-law Francis Earline Morris, many nieces, nephews, extended family and many friends.