A local academic scholar and four-sport athlete will be headed to the North-South All-Star Game in December in Myrtle Beach.

Marcus McMorris hoped he would make an all-star game at the start of the football season, and he says being named to the team makes him feel good.

The Newberry High senior has loved the game of football since he started playing flag football as a child.

He adds his father, Keith McMorris, who also played for Newberry High, has been his hero and role model.

McMorris ended his senior year at Newberry rushing the ball 77 times for 584 yards and six touchdowns. He had eight receptions for another 106 yards and a touchdown. McMorris also had a fumble recovery for another touchdown and three interceptions, which also led to a touchdown. He had two kickoff returns for another 35 yards.

After ending the season, McMorris is looking forward to his college career and says Wofford is a likely candidate. The Spartanburg college has already offered McMorris a full scholarship.

But in the meantime, McMorris still has a lot of playing time left at NHS by playing basketball after the all-star game, baseball and track.

McMorris will not be able to hit the basketball court until after playing in the all-star game on Dec. 12, but says he plans to use the next few down weeks to chill.

The young athlete maintains a 4.48 grade point average and to keep the high scores he says he puts in several hours of study after getting home from practice after 8 p.m. He adds that due to his taking honors classes that he also must write a lot of essays.

“Playing sports takes more time out of my day,“ says McMorris.

The standout athlete and student adds his advice to youngsters is to get good grades because he is seeing a lot of his peers “getting in trouble getting in to colleges“ because of their grades.

McMorris plans to major in engineering in college, and to again take after his dad, who works for Newberry Electric Co-op, and become an electrical engineer.

And on the side, when McMorris is not playing ball, studying and hoping to become an engineer, he can be found hanging with friends and cutting hair.

The hair cutting hobby began when McMorris didn’t want to get up early to get haircuts and began trimming his own hair. Soon friends and neighbors were also calling the athlete for trims.

McMorris is the first Bulldog named to the North-South game since Eric Davis in 2007.