Jason Morris, is an Olympic silver medalist, and USA national Judo team coach for the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing.

He was Ronda Rousey’s personal coach for eight months and he let her sleep on his couch in New York. It was 2005, and Rousey was one of several Olympic hopefuls living and training under the supervision of Morris.

In her book, My Fight/Your Fight, she was critical of her time spent training under him:

“I was training under a coach I couldn’t stand and who was taking my money. I was starving. I was not improving. ‘What the (expletive) am I doing here?’ I asked myself out loud.”

 

Ronda Rousey, left, is shown with Jason Morris, second from left, as well as Valerie Gotay, second from right, and Sayaka Matsumoto. All were part of the U.S. Olympic women’s judo team in 2008.

Morris told the the Times Union:

“I was happy to be mentioned. She acknowledges that we were part of her rise, and anybody with a brain can say, ‘These people must have something going for them.'”

“I’m a judo coach. I do the best I can, and (Rousey) came to me. I didn’t seek her out. She wanted expert training, and I did the best I could at that time.”

‘There was nothing remarkable about her. She was an average teenage kid, kind of sloppy.’

“She was already an exceptional competitor, which she still is today,” “But she was raw, and there was a lot of room for technical advances. And that’s basically where I filled in a lot of things that she does today, among other coaches. I’m just a small blip in her existence.”

For Morris, she wouldn’t be where she is today if it weren’t for her Judo coaches:

“The reality is she owes her entire existence to our sport. Not to me or any one person. … The judo community raised her, and this is why she’s so successful.”