TAMPA – Just over a decade ago, from the outside looking in, Mikese Morse appeared destined for success.
A high school honor student, he set a University of South Florida school record in the long jump and became the school’s first champion in that Big East Conference category. He became an All-American in 2008 and made the Olympic Trials finals.
Morse transferred to the University of Miami, where he again earned All-American honors. In 2016, he became an Olympic Trials long-jump finalist once more, and he graduated from USF with a business degree in marketing.
Morse continued to train even as things began falling apart, slowly, incrementally, until what he and his parents could no longer contain exploded into horrific headlines on June 24, 2018. That’s when Morse turned his car into a weapon, aimed for a family on a Sunday morning outing along a bicycle path, and left one man dead and his two children injured.