Fired McNair coach now watches games from stands

As he’s done for each of McNair’s three games, all lopsided defeats, Moore watched his former team as a fan from the 50-yard line at Hallford Stadium in DeKalb County.

“D” is Daquavious Hickson, one of 10 or 11 McNair seniors who Moore believes can get a football scholarship.

“I raised these young men,” Moore said. “Just because I’m not head coach don’t mean I can’t support them.”

Perhaps only Moore and principal James Jones know what really happened. Moore says the feud centered on the booster club having a cookout on school campus without the principal’s permission.

Jones has exercised his prerogative not to comment on a personnel matter.

Several people came to visit Moore during the game. One was Jerry Smart, Moore’s coach at Druid Hills from 25 years ago.

Moore was an overachieving lineman who walked on at Jackson State and earned a scholarship.

“How many kids are going to have that kind of tenacity,” Smart said.

Smart says the firing makes no sense and assumes there’s another side to the story.

“I don’t believe anyone can lose a job because of a cookout at a school,” Smart said. “I don’t know what it was to cause two men to have that sort of reaction.”

Several McNair fans at Friday’s game were as puzzled.

“Most people think it was a bum move,” said Mike Foster, the father of a McNair cheerleader. “I could see if he was using school funds, but a cookout?”

If Moore is bitter, he doesn’t show it while rooting on his former players. He watched Friday’s 39-0 loss with six friends, including two former assistants. Anthony Heard and Antonio Moore were among 10 McNair coaches who walked out after Moore’s firing, leaving interim coach John April with an almost impossible challenge.

The second-guessing of the new regime was spirited — “I’m about to start cussin’, but I’m trying to hold my peace,” Moore said a couple of times. But McNair was still “we” to the ex-coaches.

On the other sideline, M.L. King coach Corey Jarvis paid tribute to Moore by wearing football gloves and having a towel hanging from his back pocket, Moore’s trademark look.

Jarvis got the head coaching job at M.L. King in 2005, the same year that Moore was hired by McNair.

“God gave me a reason to be off, to reflect on the past and the future,” said Moore, who will travel to Tuskegee today to watch one of 20 former players who are in college ball.

“It’s the only sport I know where you get knocked down and have to get back up. It’s important for me to let the kids know that no matter what issues I had with the school, that don’t mean I’m going to bury my head in the stand.

“I’m part of this community, part of this team, and they’re going to see me.”

Produced by Georgia High School Football Daily