Family, friends, and community members deeply mourn the untimely loss of their much beloved Steven Michael Morrison, who passed away on October 20, 2019. Steven was well-known and loved for being a gentle, caring, and authentic person. He was survived by his three boys, his partner of 30+ years Eliza Noh, his father Michael Robert Morrison, and his brother Alan Morrison. Services were held on November 9, 2019, at Sunset View Cemetery in El Cerrito, CA, with over 145 guests in attendance.

Born in Ormskirk, England, on June 1, 1969, Steven immigrated to the United States and settled in Berkeley, CA, in 1997. Prior to making a home in the Bay Area, Steven enjoyed traveling and experiencing new places. Since the age of 16, he traveled throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, the Pacific Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and Western Europe. He would often bring along his friends from his hometown of Preston on his journeys, encouraging them also to expand their experiences and worldviews. Notwithstanding his world travels and settling in the US, Steven remained proud of his British roots as a working-class Lancashire lad and an ardent Liverpool Football Club supporter.

Throughout his life, Steven strove to excel in all forms of athletics, from his main passion of football (soccer) to basketball, swimming, water safety and lifesaving, tennis, badminton, cross-country running, hiking, and field hockey. He earned numerous awards and certifications in coaching, refereeing, physical and sports education, sports leadership, and youth mentoring and counseling. Wherever he went, he organized soccer games and teams, including for Lancashire County Council and Preston Borough Council in England, Camp Chen A Wanda, University of Wyoming, Soccer Basics Summer Camp, Cal Intramural Sports, Cal Strawberry Canyon Recreation Area, Albany Berkeley Soccer Club, ACC Mavericks, Mersey Soccer Club, Berkeley High School, Cal Women’s Club Soccer, and Alameda Contra Costa Youth Soccer League. As well as being on the field as a captain, coach, or referee, Steven served in a wide range of management and administrative roles overseeing individual clubs, registration, match schedules, fields, referees, and finances. As an ACCYSL board member since 2000, Steven affected up to 3000 players at a given time and numerous affiliated clubs, including Mersey, Mavericks, Richmond, San Pablo, Albany-Berkeley, and El Cerrito. With 20+ years of working with this reach, perhaps no other single person has influenced East Bay youth soccer more than Steven. More than a coach, Steven was a leader and a community builder.

Steven earned advanced levels in sociology, psychology, sports studies, communications, and film studies at WR Tuson College in Preston, England, and throughout, persevered through the challenges of having a reading disability. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree with honors in education and a minor in American studies at the University of Central Lancashire, England. During that time, Steven also studied abroad at the University of Wyoming where he earned a 4.0 grade point average, placing him on the President’s List for academic honors. Influenced by his own experiences within the education system, Steven became committed to bringing to light the effects of schooling on working-class kids. This led him to pursue and earn a master’s degree in education at San Francisco State University where he wrote his thesis on the disciplinary functions of assessment methods.

While his family are proud of Steven for his many personal and professional accomplishments, they are most proud of Steven for being the loving and nurturing father that he was for his three boys. Steven was a stay-at-home dad who devoted his energy to the health and happiness of his children. Health often meant integrating flax seed oil, chia seeds, and especially turmeric into almost everything the kids ate. Happiness was always Christmas, Steven’s favorite holiday, for which he planned year round. He loved Christmas because it reminded him fondly of his own childhood holidays, and he always made an effort to create the same feeling for his kids.

Steven built a strong and loving foundation for his family, which will help them to carry on and, with effort together, to thrive. Above all, his family and friends are grateful that he loved them, and he knew they loved him. In everlasting loving memory of our dearest Steven Morrison: You’ll Never Walk Alone.

Friends of Steven have set up a fundraiser to support his family through their time of grief: https://www.gofundme.com/f/eliza-noh-family-support.