W hen he looks across the landscape of his profession, some of its harsh realities are obvious to Warren Central assistant football coach Rob Morgan.

Coaches fired after just a few seasons. Families thrown into upheaval by moves as coaches move up and down the ladder. Dream jobs that turn into nightmares with one bad year.

And then he looks at what he has, soaks it in, and appreciates it even more.

“I got to watch my 2-year-old son in his church program. If I was in college, I wouldn’t see that,” Morgan said. “Even a lot of high school coaches are trying to turn it into that. We have chosen a different route and style of coaching here.”

Unlike many programs that change coaches on a regular basis, Warren Central’s is more like a family business. The Morgans — offensive coordinator Rob, his brother and head coach Josh, and their father and former head coach Robert — are its CEOs, but everyone has a stake in it.

Twelve of the 15 coaches on the staff are either Warren Central alums, Vicksburg natives, or have been on the staff for five years or more. Most of the ones that haven’t been there that long are younger assistants who have only been in the job for a couple of years.

Josh Morgan has been on WC’s staff since 2006, and its head coach since 2010. Rob Morgan came on the staff in 2011.

It’s a legacy business at this point, one that’s successfully been handed down from one generation to the next, and it’s a business model that works.

Warren Central has a record of 46 wins and 17 losses over the past five seasons and has won nine or more games each of the past four years. That’s the longest current streak in Class 6A, the largest in the Mississippi High School Activities Association.

“Our coaches have a stake in our program, like a stakeholder in a corporation. It’s theirs and ours, and that’s the way we approach it as a staff,” Josh Morgan said. “It’s good to be able to work with people with the same amount of interest, and it’s not a job when you work with people that are as passionate about it as you are.”

There is one family in the organization that’s a little more prominent than the others, however, and that’s the Morgans.

The legacy starts with Robert, who arrived at Warren Central as an assistant coach in 1968 and has been there ever since. He served in almost every role within the program for 17 years until becoming head coach in 1985, then stayed in that job until 2003. He won 168 games and two state championships in a career that led to induction in the Mississippi Association of Coaches Hall of Fame.

Robert Morgan retired as head coach in 2003, but has remained around the program ever since. His day-to-day role has gradually declined over the years. These days the 73-year-old is more of a coach emeritus and jack-of-all-trades, offering advice when asked but just as likely to be filling up water buckets or taping ankles before practice.

“He’s not the same cat today as he was back then,” Rob Morgan said with a laugh. “He was a different person after the season than during the season. You didn’t talk to him at breakfast on Friday. But he had to be hard.”

Hard, but also an excellent role model, Josh added.

“Family wise, we’re an extremely close family. If we could, we’d all live around one lake. That’s just how we are. Our dad is our biggest idol,” Josh Morgan said.

Josh and Rob played for their dad, as did younger brother Brett who is now the offensive coordinator for reigning Class 5A champion West Point. The faces were different a couple of decades ago, but the model was the same — a mix of longtime assistant coaches like Curtis Brewer and Larry Tyrone, as well as younger alumni — but it was one the younger Morgans saw worked.

Having the same people around year after year, some of whom actually are related to current players, fostered an atmosphere of accountability from both players and coaches that helped make the program successful. Oftentimes, Josh Morgan said, the assistants were more like uncles than coaches.

“We needed that. It was almost a good cop, bad cop situation,” Josh said. “We would get it, and most of the time it was deserved. I have tried to emulate a staff that was so close our kids are able to grow up in the fieldhouse with a bunch of people who are looking out for them.”

The lessons learned growing up have followed the Morgan brothers to this day, on a personal level as well as a professional one. Their father had plenty of chances to leave in the decade and a half he spent toiling as a top assistant in the 1970s and 80s. He chose not to.

“I had some offers. Some colleges and junior colleges that interviewed me. But this was a good job,” Robert Morgan said. “My boys were coming along and we enjoyed them coming along. Then it got to be about it becoming home.”

All three of Robert’s sons played football at Mississippi State and have coached elsewhere, either in high school or as graduate assistants in college. All have had chances to lay down roots there, yet most of them have gravitated back toward their hometown of Vicksburg.

Like their father, Josh and Rob have also turned down other coaching opportunities to stay.

“I remember Dad getting job opportunities and turning it down because of us. Being a coach myself, you see it first-hand now. It’s good to have him as a springboard to bounce those questions off of,” Rob Morgan said. “Just because head coaching jobs come open doesn’t mean you have to take them. Vicksburg is home and it’s always been good to us.”

At the root of those decisions is an appreciation for what their family, extended family and friends have spent decades building at Warren Central. In a profession where people rarely spend more than a couple of years in a single job, the Morgans and the WC staff have created something rare — a chain that can be handed down through the years and generations, and just might be.

Josh Morgan has six children, five of them boys, and there are 13 grandchildren spread across the Morgan clan. Josh chuckled at the thought of following his father’s path and spending 50 years at Warren Central while potentially providing its next set of leaders.

“It’s like football, one game at a time,” he said. “I’m just enjoying being the all-time backyard quarterback, the point guard and the pitcher. I’m soaking it in and being a proud daddy. Pretty soon, I’ll be a cheerleader spotter too.”

Whatever the future holds, the Morgan brothers agree that they’re not eager to leave the present behind.

“I know it’s special and I’m trying to hang onto it and cherish every moment,” Josh Morgan said.

Rob went a step further.

“This is the best time in my life, working with Josh and Dad,” he said. “So why would I leave it?”