NC article on Jerry Moore

[No Cal Pony]

Tar Heel of the Week Published: Jan 29, 2006 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 29, 2006 03:00 AM


Coach's winning ways are rooted in solid values

Gerald Hundley 'Jerry' Moore BORN: July 18, 1939, Bonham, Texas

EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in finance and economics, Baylor University (1961)

OCCUPATION: Head football coach, Appalachian State University, since March 4, 1989

RECORD: 140 wins, 67 losses in 17 seasons at Appalachian State; 167-115-2 in 24 seasons as a college head coach

CAREER MILESTONES: 1965-1972, assistant coach, Southern Methodist; after 1972 season, joined Nebraska as receivers coach; 1978, offensive coordinator at Nebraska; 1979, named head coach at North Texas; 1981, named head coach at Texas Tech, where he spent five seasons; after two years away from football, joined staff at Arkansas where he remained for five seasons.

NOTABLE: Winningest football coach in Southern Conference history; AFCA National Coach of the Year, 2005; four-time Southern Conference Coach of the Year

FAMILY: Wife, Margaret Starnes Moore; children, Chris, Scott, Elizabeth Kavanaugh; six grandchildren.

GREAT NIGHTS OUT: Long Mexican dinners with Margaret

LATEST READ: "Good to Great" by Jim Collins

HERO: "My mother, Ruth, who taught me the importance of doing things the right way, even if it was just mowing the grass. She's 82 and still teaching me lessons."

IF NOT A COACH, HE'D BE: "An architect," his wife says. "There's no doubt about that. He loves to draw house plans more than anybody in the world."

BEST DAY EVER: "May 28, 1960. She actually married me! How lucky can you get?"




Caulton Tudor, Staff Writer
They didn't win a game, those 1953 Purple Warriors of Bonham High School in Texas.
Back then, Jerry Moore, the coach who on Dec. 16 led Appalachian State University to the 2005 NCAA Division 1-AA football title, was a promising 14-year-old freshman end and linebacker.

"We had more talent on that team than we did when I was a junior and senior, when our teams didn't lose to anybody during the regular season," Moore recalls.

"The difference between not winning a game and not losing a game was only one thing: effort. The team with more talent didn't win a game. The team with great effort didn't lose."

More than a half-century later, Moore clings to that lesson and can't resist recounting that slice of Bonham High history to his players.

"I try my best to keep that talk to once every other year or so," says Moore, the Appalachian State coach since 1989. "If you come up with the same message every season, season after season, you reach a point where it just loses impact."

Appalachian pride

At age 66, Moore hasn't lost his impact, either as a football historian or as a game-day motivator and strategist.

Although Division I-AA teams don't have as many scholarship players and aren't on television nearly as much as their counterparts in Division I-A -- the highest level of NCAA football competition -- winning the 16-team I-AA playoff tournament is difficult. The champ has to win four games in less than a month against strong opponents.

Weeks after Appalachian State defeated Northern Iowa 21-16 in Chattanooga, Tenn., to claim the first national title in school history, the thrill lingers in Boone and beyond.

"Oh, yes, the students and the alumni are still buying national championship items," says Lorraine Childers, merchandise manager for the ASU student bookstore. "They're keeping us busy -- busy and happy. There's so much pride in what Coach Moore and that team accomplished for the school that it's hard to explain."

When Moore attended college at Baylor, he didn't plan a coaching career. He was captain of the 1960 Gator Bowl team that ended the year as the nation's 11th-ranked squad, but the degree he received was in finance and economics.

That didn't deter legendary Texas high school coach Jim Acree, who asked Moore to join the staff at Corsicana High.

"We didn't have a dime, but we were as happy as larks," says Margaret Moore, the coach's wife of 45 years.

"We won a state championship, which is such a big deal in Texas that you wouldn't believe it. ... We both got hooked on coaching, I guess."

No one is happier about having Jerry Moore at Appalachian State than first-year athletics director Charlie Cobb, 37, a former assistant coach on N.C. State University's football staff.

In an era of exorbitant coaching salaries, Cobb is getting a relative bargain.

Moore, in his 17th season at Appalachian State, earns $100,000. Many assistant coaches in the Division I-A Atlantic Coast Conference earn considerably more.

"But Jerry isn't in coaching to get rich," Margaret Moore says. "He's in it because he loves it and always has. And we're still in Boone after all these years because we love it here. There's not a better place to be."

Moore has had chances to leave for bigger programs. He won't cite specific schools but says he has listened to a few offers.

"I've coached at the I-A level, and I could have gone back at least a couple of times," he says. "But since I've been here, I haven't been offered a job I want more than this one.

"If you're happy with the job you've got in this business, it means something," he said. "The older you get, the more I think you appreciate that. I'm very happy doing this job."

Unlike most head coaches at the NCAA's top levels -- Division I-A and I-AA -- Moore does not have an agent. "Wouldn't know what to do with one," he says.

So when Cobb wanted to reward the coach with a contract extension in the days after the championship game, it was done in the time required for two people to shake hands.

"There can't be many folks like Jerry in coaching," Cobb says. "I haven't known him very long. But I know without any doubt that he's working just as hard at coaching -- probably harder, if anything -- than he did when he first got started. You've never seen anyone with more energy. And with Jerry, you don't have to worry about anything embarrassing on or off the field. He practices what he preaches to the players about representing the school in a positive manner.

Marques Murrell of Fayetteville, a junior defensive end for the Mountaineers, says his coach is "big on emphasizing responsibility -- your responsibility to the rest of your team and to the school and to yourself, plus your responsibility for what you're supposed to do during the game."

Cherishing the effort

Moore has no trouble keeping the recent plaudits he has received in perspective. He points out that the national title and 140-67 record at ASU are part of a resume that includes a 16-37-2 mark in five seasons at Texas Tech.

"The biggest thing I think I've learned, gradually, is the importance of cherishing -- I mean really embracing -- a good, strong, honest effort," Moore says.

"If the effort is right, I'm just as proud of our players after a loss as after a win, and I make sure I let them know that. ... When it reaches a point where a coach can only be proud of his team when they win, something's just way out of kilter somewhere."

The Moores have a daughter and two sons, one of whom, Chris, is an assistant coach on the Mountaineers staff.

Their other son, Scott, 39, a graduate of East Carolina University medical school, is an emergency room physician in Antigo, Wis.

Asked whether he had ever considered getting into coaching, Scott Moore says, "Oh, good heavens no, not for one minute. I couldn't stand that kind of stress. I'll never know how Dad does it and stays sane. But he loves it. He honestly loves it. That has to be why he's so good at it."

Staff writer Caulton Tudor can be reached at 829-8946 or [email protected].

© Copyright 2006, The News & Observer Publishing Company
A subsidiary of The McClatchy Company

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[mrydel]

A wonderful man and better person.

Love the thought from the son who is an emergency room physician saying he would not go into coaching because of the stress.