Some people just seem to have a calling, and you can?t imagine them doing anything else.
But there was a time when G.A. Moore wasn?t sure coaching was his.
In fact, Gary Autry ?G.A.? Moore, whose 430 wins are the most all-time in the legendary history of Texas high school football, left the business for a year when he felt a higher calling.
Moore decided he was going to go into seminary and become a preacher. While he was out of coaching for 1971 and became an ordained minister, he decided once and for all the football field was the place for him.
Four decades and eight state championships later ? two with his hometown Pilot Point and six at nearby Celina, the two towns he?s spent 39 of his 45 years in coaching ? he?s still going strong, every win putting his incredible total further out of reach.
But for everything he?s accomplished, his latest accolade came unexpectedly. Moore will be one of nine new members inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame on Wednesday.
?I was pleasantly surprised,? Moore said. ?I don?t feel like I deserve to be in there with those other people.?
That he?s taking the honor with modesty is no surprise. To hear him tell it, his success comes more from being given great opportunities than anything he?s done. He considers Gordon Wood, who won 395 games and a record nine state championships at Brownwood and Stamford to be the king of Texas high school football coaches.
?Gordon Wood held the (wins) record for so long, and he helped me so much,? Moore said. ?The wins he got, everything wasn?t exactly the same. We won state championships in years we were second place in district. There was a time when you had to be first and you only played 14 games. Gordon Wood and Tom Landry were my coaching heroes, and I was fortunate enough to get to spend a lot of time with both of them.?
It?s true that success was right on his doorstep, as his coaching career has rarely taken him far from home.
Moore grew up and still lives on a farm in that has been in his family for 100 years southeast of Pilot Point. He?s a family-oriented man who has been married to ?the perfect coach?s wife? Lois Ann for 50 years and has four children, and they all live close to home.
It?s that set of values he?s tried to instill in his teams.
?I think he puts everyone else first,? said Collinsville coach Danny David, who played for Moore on two state championship teams at Pilot Point in the early 1980s and coached with him for 15 years. ?It was never about winning and losing, it was about turning out good young men. He?s such a genuine man with the way he carries himself. He?s like a second father to me.?
True sports fanatic
When he wasn?t helping in the cotton patch or running cattle as a child, Moore was playing sports. He earned 16 letters in high school at Pilot Point playing football, baseball, basketball and running track before graduating in 1957.
?I just grew up with a bunch of great guys who loved sports,? Moore said. ?That?s just something I did. I had a couple of uncles who were football players. They encouraged me, and I just loved sports from the time I was really small.?
But it was football that was his first love and where he really excelled.
Moore took a scholarship to play for North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas), but his playing career came to a halt because of a broken wrist his sophomore year. That injury kept him out 13 months, and he tried to come back but broke it again as a junior.
Luckily for him, his playing career had taken him far enough where he could pursue his next goal of becoming a coach.
?I woke up about two years through (college) and realized I really wanted to get an education, and I was in that position because of sports,? Moore said. ?If it weren?t for football, I never would?ve been in a position to go to college.?
Moore graduated from North Texas State in 1962 and took the head coaching job in Bryson, where he took a team that was on a 21-game losing streak to a 5-5 record in his only season there.
He returned to Pilot Point and stayed there until his momentary hiatus from coaching in 1971.
While he never pursued a the ministry full-time, he believes the time spent away from the field helped him get his priorities straight.
?I?ve always believed there are four, five, six, seven times in life that you make a decision that affects the rest of your life,? Moore said. ?I think when I got to the point that I put God first in my life and family second, then football or whatever else, that?s when it all turned around. The rest of my career has been unbelievable.?
Moore began his first of three stints at Celina in 1972 and two years later won his first state crown, a co-championship after a 0-0 tie against Big Sandy and star linebacker Lovie Smith, also a member of this year?s Texas Sports Hall of Fame class.
He returned to Pilot Point in 1977 and brought the Bearcats a co-championship after a 0-0 tie in the title game against Tidehaven in 1980. Pilot Point left no doubt the next season, blowing out Garrison, 32-0, in the championship game to cap a 15-0 season.
Getting most out of athletes
?Coach Moore could take average kids and get them to do things they never thought they could do,? David said. ?He got average kids to play way above average. I played for him on two championship teams and was a coach with him for five. We never had the best athletes, but we won because of what he was able to get out of kids.?
A big part of Moore?s success was the 10-1 defense he developed in the 1960s as a way to simplify the game by allowing his players to think less and attack more.
David, who was also the starting quarterback on the 1981 team, enjoyed playing in the scheme because it?s predicated on the middle linebacker getting to make a ton of tackles.
?I loved it so much,? David said. ?You didn?t have to be the biggest, fastest or strongest. If you had desire and the will to penetrate that gap, you could play in that defense. You could take an average defense and convince them to sell out.?
Butch Ford played for Moore in the late-1960s and coached with him for another 25 years. They?ve won 277 games and seven state titles together, as a ball in both men?s offices commemorates.
?Basically it was my job to run that (defense),? Ford said. ?It?s a unique idea, and you can?t run it exactly like we used to anymore with all the one-back offenses and all that. But we still use a similar philosophy and do similar things. Basically it involves man pressure coverage. It?s nothing but pressure. We?re not going to let you do what you want to do.?
Moore left Pilot Point again after the 1985 season and headed to Class 5A Sherman for two years, posting 6-4 records in both. But home and the small-school atmosphere called him back to Celina in 1988, and that?s when he began one of the most successful stints in high school football history.
The Bearcats brought home a state crown in 1995, edging Alto, 32-28, in the final, but it was in the late-90s that the Bobcats turned into a dynasty.
They became just the second team in state history to win four straight titles from 1998-2001, a run that included a 57-game winning streak to eclipse the record that Abilene set in the 1950s.
The 1995 team will always mean a little more to Moore, since his son Gary Don, who went on to play at the University of Oklahoma and is now a coach, was the quarterback.
?That?s one of the truly special moments,? Moore said. ?People don?t understand how great that really is. We got to play in Texas Stadium, we won the state title, and he was picked as the 2A player of the year. That?s something nobody can take away from you. There aren?t too many moments like that.?
All told, Moore won championships in four straight decades, and Celina (2007) added another with Ford still using principles of the 10-1 defense, a testament to its ability to stand the test of time.
Moore left Celina after the fourth straight title and went back to Pilot Point for three years, but a heart condition forced him to retire in 2004.
?I never would?ve retired, but I thought I was getting old, to be honest,? Moore said. ?I didn?t have the energy and was coming home feeling tired. I went to the doctor for a checkup, and they found a heart deal. But they put two stints in, and I felt like a new person. By then, Pilot Point had already hired another coach, so I stayed on the ranch and ran cattle.?
Moore can?t stay retired
Feeling fit and ready to get back to his passion, Moore emerged from retirement to coach at Aubrey in 2009 and led the Chaparrals to a school-record 11 wins. He?s still going at Aubrey and doesn?t know when he?ll call it quits.
?It?s probably a year-to-year deal,? Moore said. ?I still feel good, and I?m still excited about it and I?m still having a good time. We run 300 mother cows on the ranch, so I?ve got a lot of work to do there, too. I?m going to slow down at some point in some area.?
Those who know him best are proud to see Moore get inducted into the Hall ? and disagree with Moore?s assessment that he doesn?t deserve the honor ? especially those like David and Ford who say they would never be doing what they are if it weren?t for him.
?It?s neat to be able to say you know somebody who?s made it to the top and been a part of it a little bit,? Ford said. ?It?s just a good old country boy that?s made good. That means there?s hope for the rest of us.?
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Source: http://www.wacotrib.com/sports/140464643.html
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