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Princeton University Athletics
The Center Of It All
September 29, 2004 | Football
Sept. 29, 2004
PRINCETON - Try to remember that first baseball glove you wore, or that new jersey you got Christmas morning that was on Santa's list since school started. Maybe it's an outfit you've saved more than one paycheck for, and now it is finally yours.
Remember the thrill of putting it on for the first time?
Jeremy Moore put on his football pads in the spring of 2003, and he felt that thrill. Everybody around him felt that thrill.
"It was a grin from ear to ear," head coach Roger Hughes said. "Jeremy can be stoic most of the time, but when he smiled then, you could see all of those pearly whites."
It wasn't even the first time he ever wore football pads. He was an accomplished player at Stranahan High School in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Ivy League schools recruited him, and he even considered (strongly) trying to walk on to the Georgia Tech football team. Yes, he had worn those pads.
He just hadn't put them on since the night he nearly died.
• • •
It was the night of the Senior Prom at Stranahan, and Jeremy Moore was ready. He was picking up his date, who lived 30 minutes from his house, and driving her mother's Cadillac Escalade to the prom. Style did not escape the young man on what was supposed to be one of the most exciting nights of his teenage years.
After a fun night with his classmates, Moore joined several couples for some post-prom food. In this case, Denny's was the restaurant of choice, and who hasn't chosen Denny's for a good midnight destination?
It was a fun and completely sober night for Moore, who didn't have a sip of alcohol that night, or any other night of his life. He dropped his date off, picked up his car, and made his way home.
It was a prime time to be Jeremy Moore. He grew up a basketball player, but was undersized to be a collegiate forward, which was really the only position he had played in high school. In 10th grade, he joined his friends on the football team. He would have played in ninth grade, but his mother wanted him to concentrate on his academics for the first year.
Moore, a harder worker than any you will likely encounter, had little trouble with the workload and quickly found a starting position on the JV football team. By his second year of organized football, he was a starting lineman and was receiving consistent praise from his positional coaches. In his final year, he was getting recruiting letters from several schools, including many in the Ivy League.
"I thought Princeton was way too high up there for me," Moore says. "I was just a kid from Stranahan, and I had that typical stereotype of what an Ivy League school was like."
A low-key, quiet kid from Florida, Moore listened to his mother and visited three Ivy schools: Yale, Dartmouth and Princeton. His trip to Old Nassau came during winter intercession, and it would be the last trip he would need to make.
"I had great hosts, and they showed us around Princeton," Moore says. "I thought that this was for me. This was nice. I really liked it. Coach (Stan) Clayton came to the house as well, and he was just a happy, jolly, big teddy bear. My mom was pushing me towards this, telling me that this was a chance at an Ivy League education."
The Georgia Tech dreams would have to remain just that, a dream. Moore let the Princeton coaches know that he would soon be a member of the Class of 2005, a decision he would never once regret.
Yes, it was a good time to be Jeremy Moore, until he made a left turn three minutes from his date's house.
• • •
"I found out that Jeremy was in the accident when his parents called," Hughes says. "I always call our recruits around the prom and graduation about making good decisions. I called the family, and Coach Clayton visited with them. We had debated asking him to take a year off to recover, but he really wanted to come."
Moore, if nothing else, is a fighter who does not take no for an answer. It's a good thing too, because it was a heck of a fight to recover from that night.
His car was totaled, and Moore went into a coma for a week. He has no memory of the car ride, and even his details of the accident are vague. He was turning left at a green light when he was hit head-on by a driver. From what he has heard, the driver's blood-alcohol content was elevated, although not illegal. There isn't much more he knows, not the name of the driver, not the status of any potential lawsuits, not even how he was brought to the hospital or who might have called.
Those are merely parts of the past, and they had zero effect on his future. And there would be a future.
"I remember when I came out of my coma thinking that it was all just a dream," Moore says. "I had an award ceremony to attend the day after my prom, and I just kept thinking I would wake up and go to the ceremony. After a few days of going to sleep and waking up in the hospital, I realized it wasn't a dream.
"I didn't get depressed," he continues. "I started dealing with it." Though he was fortunate to have no broken bones or other major physical injuries in the neck or below, Moore was dealing with a brain injury that would take substantial rehabilitation. When he left the hospital, he started thinking about once again playing football. His good relationships with people at school helped him gain access to the weight room and the pool, where he started to work out again.
Moore knew he wouldn't be able to play immediately at Princeton, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to miss any moments with his new teammates. "He's done everything he can to help us win," Hughes says. "He doesn't miss a meeting. He doesn't miss a lift. He's filmed, he's carried water, he's just wanted to help this team win."
"It was interesting because at every practice and every meeting, he did as much as he could," says Clayton, the big teddy bear in the living room and the loudest coach on the practice field. "There were drills he could do and drills he couldn't. I use Jeremy as an example for any players who get injured now."
Clayton probably knows Moore better than any coach at Princeton. Besides being his primary recruiter, he is his positional coach. Once considered a potential defensive lineman, Moore was moved to the offensive line early in his freshman year. He had to learn Clayton's intricate schemes on the line, and he had to do it knowing he might not ever get the chance to use them in a game.
Moore, who devotes most of his time at Princeton to either his demanding courseload as a mechanical & aerospace engineering major or the football team, also had to deal with several concussion tests. Some doctors were positive, others negative. He was sent to Penn State for a test late in his freshman year, and the result was not good enough for Moore to be cleared.
"I don't know who it hurt more when I told him, him or me," Hughes says. "He has such a work ethic and had worked so hard for this, it was very difficult to tell Jeremy he wasn't going to play."
Moore worked just as hard his sophomore year, both in the classroom and on the football team. Quite frankly, it was getting to him. His time commitments were tremendous, and the thought of never getting on the field had to always be there. He would have another test at the end of the fall season in 2002 to determine whether he could play in 2003.
Truth is, he didn't know if he could keep it up if he wasn't cleared. Truth also is, it didn't matter. He was cleared. Oh, and one more thing. With All-Ivy center Roger Patterson graduating that year, Moore was immediately written in as the starting center in 2003.
"He had a full grasp of the offense because of how hard he had worked," Clayton says. "He hadn't had contact, but I felt he physically was going to be able to do it. He is gifted with flexibility, balance and quickness.
"He really exceeded my expectations," Clayton says of Moore's first spring practices. "He's so natural. For me, my most athletic person should be my center. And he's bright, which he needs to be because he has to make a lot of calls on the line."
When Sept. 20, 2003 finally rolled around, there were some serious butterflies in Moore's stomach, just as their had to be in his parents' as well. Elijah and Gwen Moore took this trip with their son, and the moment they saw him in the Orange and Black that night had to be a memory to last a lifetime.
Prayer helped get Moore through that day, as it probably has many days. "I thank God that I'm alive," he says, and he lives his life that way. He doesn't just live, he lives well.
And he plays well too. Despite a disappointing 2003 season, Moore was a leader on a vastly improved offensive line that returned three starters this season. The 2004 Princeton football team has started 2-0 for the first time since the Ivy League championship season of 1995. Though two games, the Tigers have scored four rushing touchdowns and quarterback Matt Verbit has yet to get sacked.
"We have the talent, speed and athleticism on this line to succeed," Moore said. "We should be thinking about winning this season."
A championship season would be the proper climax for this young man. He doesn't complain about the time taken from him. He works from dusk until dawn and savors every positive he has experienced.
Jeremy Moore is happy. He has a girlfriend, Adriana Bedney, and has enough close bonds with his teammates for a social life, even if he has to cram that social life into the few, scattered hours that the rest of his life allows.
"His work ethic is unbelievable, on and off the field," Clayton says. "He is tireless, tough and durable. It is a pleasure to coach him."
Thank God he was given the chance.