I wanted to toss this out there because, while in Miami to cover Super Bowl XLIV, one of my favorite people t talk to the entire time there was Tom Moore. Here's a quick piece of a story I posted at the time about Tom Moore telling stories to the press:
Tom Moore has no regrets.
That's what he told us at a media press event a few days ago. Listening to Moore speaks about his days coaching football in the Army, his brief career in the World Football League, and his time at the University of Dayton is kind of like imagining what Hemingway would sound like if he talked about hunting in Africa. Tom Moore, with his deep, "Fargo-like" accent, is like your granddad; full of stories and funny phrases that captivate you. The man has a strong passion for football and coaching, and it is pretty cool to see someone with such passion talk about their craft.
For example, I had no idea Tom Moore was, pretty much, flat broken in and around 1974 after his job in the World Football League didn't work out. He was coaching in New York City for the New York Stars at the time.
"You know how they say that if you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere?" He told a group of us. "We didn’t make it."
Moore and his wife left NYC with only enough gas to make it back to Minneapolis. He had to borrow money after that to make ends meet until he got a job. The job he would get would be with the University of Minnesota as their offensive coordinator in 1975. That job was a homecoming, of sorts, for Moore. He'd coached at Minnesota before from 1972-1973, and he is a native of Owatonna, MN. In 1975, when Moore was getting his feet wet as the coordinator in Minnesota, he began working with his starting QB at the time. That starting QB was a young kid from Jackson, MI.
His name was Tony Dungy.