Morris twins reunite

When twin siblings Gracie and Graydon Morris graduated from Aledo in 2020, nobody could have predicted the road they would travel. 

The twins had legendary cross country and track careers in high school. Gracie won the state title in the 800-meter run in 2017 as a freshman.

In the fall of 2017, Graydon won the first of three consecutive state titles in cross country. He followed it up in the spring of 2018 with state titles in the 1600-meter and the 3200-meter races. Graydon added another title to his resume in 2019 by getting the gold in the 800-meter.

“A lot of it was just me and my brother,” Gracie recalled. “There wasn’t so much of a running culture at Aledo when we were in high school. But I think a lot of it has changed since we graduated. We’ve been running together since Day One. We really bonded over it, and we have a really close relationship because of it.”

Unfortunately, the brother-sister duo lost their senior track season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the future was bright as they both decided to sign their letters-of-intent to run at the University of Texas in Austin.

Gracie ran the full cross country season, but injured her foot during track season and her freshman year was cut short. Graydon suffered a similar fate after coaches put him in an event he had never run before.

“The coaches tried to put me in the steeplechase,” Graydon recalled. “I just had very little preparation and I landed wrong on one hurdle and hurt my heel. A couple weeks later I had an MRI and it revealed a stress fracture.”

After the injuries, it seemed like things were not working out in Austin. So Gracie made the decision to transfer to TCU and move back to Fort Worth, and for the first time in their lives, the two were separated from each other.

“I wasn’t really enjoying the coaching that I was getting,” Gracie explained. “The training just wasn’t working and they were pretty stuck in their ways. So I just decided, in order for me to put myself in the best situation for my future, that I needed to leave.”

“I’m not going to lie,” Graydon said. “It was strange. I got two roommates that were both on the team so that made it a little easier. I don’t think living alone would have been fun.”

Gracie had a successful sophomore season at TCU, breaking three school records and qualifying for the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

At the national meet, Gracie ran the semifinal race in the 1500-meter but unfortunately did not qualify for the finals. However after the injury a year prior, it was just a relief for her to be there.

“It was amazing,” Gracie reminisced. “My coach and I were both just shocked because I didn’t start training until mid-December. So it was supposed to be ‘how far can I make it?’ The biggest thing was just getting one national meet under my belt and coming back stronger next year.”

After seeing how well his sister was doing both on and off the track, Graydon decided that TCU is where he should be as well.

“I saw her go through that process,” Graydon remembered. “It didn’t seem as scary as everyone makes it out to be. I kind of had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to transfer. I gave it one more semester and nothing really changed so I knew I had to leave.”

Graydon has moved back to Fort Worth and will start running for TCU after not running for more than a year. Finally, the legendary track twins from Aledo will reunite and compete alongside each other again.