Larry Gelwix had seen this kid before.

In January, watching from a laptop in Bangkok, Thailand, he sat through all 48 minutes, 30 seconds of Morgan Scalley’s introductory press conference as Utah’s new head coach — the tears, the gumption, the Scalley-esque humor.

Then he texted him.

“Morgan, here’s my suggestion,” Gelwix texted. “You take your introduction speech, edit it down to about three minutes and send that not only to your target recruits, but more importantly to their parents.”

It’s the type of coaching note that Gelwix had been sending Scalley for years. Gelwix had an early look at Scalley as a leader. Scalley was one of Gelwix’s star rugby players for the famed Highland High program, playing for the Rams from 1994 to 1998 and leading them to the World Schools Rugby Championship in Harare, Zimbabwe, his senior year.

Scalley looked a little different then. He had longer hair, which would stick up as the wind blew through it, and he wore knee-high socks with rugby stripes.

But, in many ways, he was like the coach he is now, passionately barking at his teammates with his high-pitched scowl. Gelwix vividly remembers him screaming “hands! hands! hands!” during games.

“I just remember always being really pumped after he talked to us,” said Jameson Rice, one of Scalley’s teammates at Highland High. “He’s someone you’d go to war with.”

Three decades later — after rising through the ranks at Utah to become head coach — Scalley is still the same personality, the same leader.

“I’m not throwing love at Morgan when I say this, but I don’t see a lot that’s new. I see it expanded in practical ways on a larger stage,” Gelwix said.

‘Had a little swagger’

Following Highland practices, Gelwix would often host drop-kick challenges — friendly competitions to see who could make more kicks from 30 yards out. As a ninth grader, the 14-year-old Scalley challenged Gelwix directly.

That taught Gelwix something about the young player.

“He had a little swagger in every positive way,” Gelwix said. “It was a competitive confidence, not a conceit.”

Scalley’s swagger, though, didn’t stop him from getting hustled. See, there were no hashmarks on the field. So whenever Scalley missed from the 30-yard spot and went to retrieve the ball, Gelwix secretly moved up 10 yards and easily made what looked like the same kick.

“While he’s trotting down, I’d move back up to the 20 and make it,” Gelwix recalled with a laugh. “He wouldn’t notice that he kicked from the 30, and I’m back at the 20 now.

“With every miss, I kept saying, ‘Morgan, you suck.’”

Scalley left practice thinking he just couldn’t beat his head coach. Four years later, at Scalley’s senior year end-of-season banquet, Gelwix finally revealed that he’d cheated.

Scalley smacked the table and yelled, “I knew it! You cheated! I knew it!”

Scalley got his start in rugby because it was played in the spring, a dead period for football. It also helped that his brother, Taylor Scalley, played under Gelwix with the Rams, too.

But what really hooked him on the sport was the competition itself.

“I remember thinking that we couldn’t lose,” Scalley said.

They didn’t lose often. Highland won 20 national championships under Gelwix, with Scalley helping win four of those.

Good thing, too, because Scalley sure hated to lose.

“He probably is one of the most, if not the most, competitive players that I’ve ever been around,” former Highland High associate rugby coach Larry Wilson said. “It’s in everything that he does.”

And he does mean everything.

Scalley’s former Utah football and Highland High teammate Blake Burdette remembers Scalley famously winning every “Sizzler run,” a pre- or post-practice sprint to and from the now-closed Sizzler restaurant in Sugar House.

“Morgan, he loved tradition,” Burdette said. “That’s his MO.”

Tradition and winning. The latter made for some tough moments at the World Schools Rugby Championship in Zimbabwe his senior season — like when Highland was crushed by the team from New Zealand.

“Man, did we get humbled,” Scalley said. “I’ve never chased so many people in my life, and they just played at a different level. I learned more about the game of rugby in maybe those two weeks in Zimbabwe than I had in my four years of [rugby] life.”

The Zimbabwe trip, though, revealed some things about him that still show up as a coach at Utah.

The trip to Zimbabwe

Yes, Jameson Rice recalls Scalley’s intense pregame speeches and pure speed on the wing (highlighted by a 40-yard run that clinched a win against Tonga in Zimbabwe), but he’d rather talk about their three weeks as bunkmates.

Rice, Scalley, and teammates roomed with a Latter-day Saint host family during the trip. Scalley, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his teammates joined several Latter-day Saint missionaries for teaching opportunities and devotionals in the week before competition began.

“I remember having to speak, and Morgan spoke, too,” Rice said. “We learned some songs and even sang them for these devotionals.”

That felt like old hat for Scalley, ever the motivator. But bungee jumping into a 300-foot ravine at Victoria Falls over the Zambezi River? That was a hard pass.

“I was trying to knock Morgan into it,” Rice said. “I don’t remember him doing that, to be honest.”

Rice had his own fears, though — like beating Scalley in a card game. Yes, you read that right, a card game.

“We were almost afraid to beat him in the card game because we wanted him to talk to us,” Rice said. “Morgan was right there, kind of leading us that whole trip.”

On days off from training, Scalley served as the team’s tour guide, leading them through national parks and on safaris.

“He’d come and wake us up and say ‘Hey, we’re in Africa. When are we going to come back down here again? Let’s go explore. Let’s go do these things,’” Burdette recalled.

Those who watched Scalley in Zimbabwe say the same leadership shows up in him now as head coach.

“Morgan is a great leader because he shows it by example,” Burdette said. “He wasn’t ever going to ask you to do something if he didn’t do it first.”

‘The impact … will be felt’

Before leaving for a two-year mission to Germany, Scalley met with Gelwix to reflect on his high school rugby career and discuss his future goals.

“Your heart just swells because you love your players so much,” Gelwix said, recalling Scalley’s appreciation and persistent excitement about eventually playing football for Utah.

Gelwix thought back to that talk when he texted Scalley following his introductory press conference in January. He kept thinking of the kid, so young and wide-eyed, with his whole life in front of him.

Scalley replied a few days later: “Love you, coach. The impact you’ve had on me will be felt by my players.”

“What more could you ask for as a coach?” Gelwix said of the reply.

He’d seen this kid before. Now the whole state of Utah will, too.