From football to the fast lane: Jarius Morehead

As a child, Jarius Morehead dreamt of playing professional sports. Today, he suits up on Sundays to go out and compete with his team. Instead of wearing a jersey and football pads, it's a fire resistant suit. Now, Morehead works as a tire carrier on a NASCAR pit crew at Hendrick Motorsports, one of the most successful teams in the sport’s history.  

Life can be a story with twists and turns. It’s cliche but so true. You just never know what is around the corner for you. Morehead went from chasing dreams of football to now being a pit crew member in professional racing. 

In college, Morehead attended North Carolina State University and was a safety on their football team. Outside of academics, Morehead has served on the Craftsman Truck Series No. 71 Rajah Caruth team, Xfinity Series No. 9 JR Motorsports team, and the Cup Series No. 77 Spire Motorsports driven by Carson Hocevar.

The ability to adapt he has is something that just stood out to his peers, and it has landed him those chances of serving on those teams.

“He had confidence and swagger to him,” said Evan Kureczka, strength and conditioning coach for HMS, recounting his first impressions of Morehead. “He picked up quickly and seeked extra time working on his craft. You could tell he had leadership capabilities. We are looking for leaders to be on our pit crews. He just was a great fit.” 

How did he get here though? Well a pit stop in Morehead’s life and for the rest of the world, is what led to him having these opportunities. 

In 2020, COVID-19 put the world on pause. The outbreak changed the way of life for many individuals and has put those in new places they never thought they would be.

“On my birthday, March 13, the world shut down,” Morehead recounted.

N.C. State’s Pro Day that was supposed to take place March 25, 2020. It took away the chance to boost his draft stock before the NFL Draft that was set to take place April 23, 2020.

As he sat with family watching the NFL pass him up, questions began to spring up about his future. 

“What is my next option,” Morehead said. “[I was] talking to my agent and people start getting picked up as undrafted free agents. So in my mind I’m like dang, I guess I have to go the CFL route.”

Due to COVID-19, the NFL was not holding typical camps to give chances to players to make it on the roster. After he had put everything into football his whole life, that chapter came to end for him.

“I’m thinking to myself, 'I did everything I’m supposed to do',” Morehead thought. “I was just questioning God. 'Why me, why me?'” 

Morehead began driving trucks and working night shifts to make a living. His mindset was shaken by the fact his dream of being a professional athlete seemed to be closed. That was until Keith Flynn, MHS developmental pit crew director, reached out. 

“I was just playing Call of Duty when the phone rang and it was Hendrick,” Morehead said. “They are like 'Hey we want you to come tryout for our pit crew.'”

The recruitment process for the pit crew is bringing in a hundred or more candidates and then narrowing it down to just a handful to sign. 

“We start each year and build a prospect list,” Flynn said. “About 125 to 150 and we narrow it down to 30, then to 15, and finally we usually sign six to eight guys every year.”

Football players becoming NASCAR pit crew members is nothing new in today’s age. It's been happening since the '90s. Yet, to some it's still something not widely known. Morehead’s friends and family were definitely those people.

“I’m not going to lie, I thought he was playing with me,” his childhood friend Kiran Morrison said about him getting a job with Hendrick. “Especially as a Black man in the NASCAR game, you are like stop playing. I thought it was dope though and saw how it changed his life.”  

When he was coming into the sport, NASCAR had made a change to their Cup Series tire setup. They switched from a single lug nut for the seventh generation car. It put Morehead on an even playing field with the rest of the pit crew who had been in the sport for years. 

Morehead pushed himself to improve his craft and get to where he is at with HMS. Because of willingness to push himself to learn something new, he gained trust from his coworkers.

In Morehead's short time in the sport, he has found himself being a part of history. NASCAR and Hendrick came together in 2023 to work on showcasing the capabilities of the seventh generation Cup Series car.

The project was called Garage 56. It was to enter the car as a special entry in the 2023 24 Hours of LeMans, an annual endurance race that has taken place since 1923. 

Through all his hard work at Hendrick, Morehead had the honor of serving on the Garage 56 pit crew. A project which cemented the team in NASCAR history, as the brake rotors from the car are on display at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. 

This journey all comes as a surprise to a kid who grew up in a single mother home in Whitsett, North Carolina, a town of barely 500. 

Though not reaching the goal he set out for as a kid, he did achieve the goal his mother dreamed of, which was his college graduation. Morehead graduated from N.C. State in the spring of 2019.

Life isn’t exactly how Morehead dreamt of, but through grit and determination he found a path like no other. Things will work out in the end, it's just it may be a whole different route than one could ever imagine for themselves. That is the beauty of a story like Morehead’s. 

You’ll find Morehead always with a smile, as he works along with his teammates on the weekends. He is ready for whatever is next from working in photography to getting back into football as a coach. The Swiss army knife that is Jarius Morehead will be prepared.