Coach Moore takes a promotion...

   

  Excuse me for not posting an article about our last basketball game.  A great man, Mal Moore, has moved on from this world to the next. I’m sure as much as we will grieve his passing, old friends at his next stop will be happy to see him again.  In trying to express what Coach Moore meant to my family simply cannot be done. I knew him as an AD, a confidant at times, and a friend.

 

The last time we spoke was at the formal opening of the Mal and Charlotte Moore Caring Days Center in Tuscaloosa. My wife’s family is but one of very many whose lives have been affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Her father, A.E. spends time every week at the Center.  

Coach Moore’s personal struggle with the disease is a story not known to many because he chose not to talk about it much. His wonderful wife, Charlotte, died in 2010 after fighting against the illness for 20 years. I find it remarkable that anyone who cared for someone suffering from this long slow death could accomplish the things he did. That’s who Mal Moore was and that is how he will be remembered. He was a true hero in every sense of the word, although he would remind us that merely doing the right thing is not courageous.

His remarks the day of the ceremony differed greatly from the remarks most of us hear. We hear him as an Athletic Director.  That day, all of us heard him as a husband, a father, and a man genuinely touched by the people who turned out to honor him and his late wife.  I’ll be honest. I don’t remember all the words he spoke that day. I was touched by the gentleness of his voice, and the melancholy of his grief. My spirits were also lifted by his belief that things will get better for Alzheimer’s patients. Here was a man who carried a heavy burden even as he helped return Alabama to greatness. Of all the things he did while he was AD,  the most profound thing he did had nothing to do with his job. No, it  was how he helped his wife for two decades while she was ill that separates him from a lot of us.

After the speech and inside the center we chatted a few minutes about what his contribution to Living Well meant to our family. He expressed what it meant to him to be involved. He pointed out his grandchildren, son in law, and daughter. Here was a man who loved his family and you could see the pride he held for each of them.

The last words Coach Moore ever said to me were so much like the words I’d heard before, “Bill, thank you for coming here today and being a part of all this.” He said it with the sincerity that is just a part of who he was. He was still the boy whose mother had “raised up right.” He was a man who was burdened by so much and yet blessed with much at the same time. He was a man whose grave stone could read, “Here lies a man who everyone loved” and it would be perfectly true.  

I remember the time we talked about Mike Price. He was catching a lot of fire from certain alums. I said Mike was a great hire. We were lucky to have him and that in my opinion he would make all of us proud. We know how all that ended. None of those problems were the fault of Coach Moore. But he felt so much of a burden it saddened everyone to see him so down and out.

A year or so after the Price firing we sat down and talked on the sideline of the basketball court while the teams warmed up. “Coach, he was a good hire, and a heck of a coach. You only hire them, you can’t raise them.” He chuckled, said thanks, shook my hand and said give me a call next week. I called him soon after, and many times after that. It was always about basketball. I wish I’d had to common sense to talk about so much more. Time is precious. The days go by so slowly but years stream by  quickly. I will miss him. He was a great Athletic Director but an even greater human being.  I think maybe our University is getting some bonus points from Heaven because of how he was and how he treated everyone he came into contact with. Anytime you talked with Coach Moore you felt better.  He listened to what you had to say. He cared. I am not sure that there are truly words to define greatness. I know that if someone asked me I’d say “be like Mal Moore”.  His greatness was measured not by the things he did for Alabama, but the character of who he was as a man.