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Vietnam vet, 61, hopes to play college football

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alan Moore swears he’s not crazy. Although, there is some evidence to the contrary — most of which centers on his decision at the age of 61 to attempt to play college football.

The rest of which is the fact that he’s actually doing it.

Moore, a Vietnam veteran who played on a national title winning junior college team in 1968, is the newest/oldest member of the Faulkner (Ala.) University football team, earning a spot on the Eagles roster as a place-kicker.

“I’ve heard that a few times about being crazy,” Moore joked Thursday afternoon. “I’ve had a few people laugh at me and tell me I’m crazy. But that’s OK. For some reason or another, I think this was just meant to be.”

The reason Moore feels that way is because playing college football again was never something he considered until recently. After he gave it up the first time, he never held regrets about not getting a college degree and never secretly longed to kick through a college extra point or field goal one last time.

However, Moore is a guy who hates to quit. And for the better part of four decades, he’s had this nagging feeling that he walked away from something that he needed to finish.

“I can’t really explain it right, but it’s never been a lifelong dream to be a kicker,” Moore said. “That’s not what this is about. What I told these coaches and the people here at Faulkner was I wanted to be an example to these kids of how important it is to follow things through, to not give up and never quit. That’s why I think I want to do this.”

His journey to this point is something that makes Hollywood screenwriters salivate. (And it just happens a screenwriter has already contacted school officials about turning Moore’s story into a movie.)

Four decades before he showed up at Faulkner this summer, Moore was a pretty good kicker in his hometown of Taylorsville, Miss. So good, in fact, that he earned a scholarship to Jones County Junior College and was a member of the Bobcats’ 1968 national title team.

But then came a different calling.

In the summer of 1969, with the U.S. mired in a “military conflict” in Vietnam, Moore decided to join the Army. A month later, he was in Vietnam — a naive and scared 19-year-old trying to stay alive.

“I spent 11 months living in a bunker,” Moore said. “One of the things we had to do was go out from our camp and scout the enemy, find out where they were, draw fire. The first time, we marched in a straight line, six of us, into the jungle. I was fifth in line and we got separated from the front four. When you got quiet, you could hear people talking and it wasn’t your people. Scared me to death. I never got lost again after that.”

After his discharge from the Army, Moore said he never really considered finishing college or competing in college football. Instead, he went to work construction and started raising a family.

Three decades, three daughters and five grandkids later, the feeling finally hit him.

“I was visiting one of my daughters and grandkids in Mississippi and went to see a Jones game,” Moore said. “Their kicker wasn’t doing too good and I started talking to the head coach’s wife. I told her that I was going to do this. I don’t think anyone believed me.”

But Moore was dead serious.

He and one of his son-in-laws constructed goal posts in the backyard at his daughter’s house and Moore started practicing. And slowly, he got better and better. When he hit 28 of 30 extra points one afternoon, he decided he was ready.

He got in touch with the head coach and the administration at Jones and worked his way into a tryout. Moore, an old school, straight-on kicker, said he knocked through every extra point in the tryout and hit field goals from 30 and 35 yards and bounced a 40-yarder off the crossbar.

But the folks at Jones never really took him seriously.

“I couldn’t even get an email returned,” Moore said.

However, the coaches at Holmes Community College were much more interested. Head coach Danny Robertson gave Moore a tryout and it went well. A few weeks later, Moore was on the team.

“It was different, playing the game after being gone so long,” Moore said. “The biggest thing is the kids. They’re so much bigger and faster. And they have iPods. And they have cellphones.”

The game itself, aside from a much heavier helmet and “sophisticated” shoulder pads, wasn’t wholly different, Moore found.

“The goals are still the same, you just go about achieving them a little different now,” he said. “The helmet was the biggest thing — the thing weighs a hundred pounds now. But I didn’t have much trouble getting in there with the players.”

Ah, yes, the players.

Just how does a 61-year-old blend in with a group of teens and early-20-somethings? And how do they take him?

For his part, Moore said he tries to earn his teammates’ respect.

“The coaches at Holmes had the players calling me ‘Mr. Moore,’ and I had to put a stop to that,” Moore said. “I’m one of them. I have to earn their respect. They have to see me as one of them.”

At Faulkner, the players aren’t exactly sure what to think just yet.

“It’s interesting,” said sophomore quarterback Casey Carpenter. “He’s been real positive, but so far, the biggest thing is still people asking about him. And then them not believing you when you tell them we have a 61-year-old dude on our team.”

Moore wound up with the Eagles after learning that NAIA rules, unlike NCAA rules, would allow him to play. He visited a couple of schools, but said when he toured the Faulkner campus, he felt like he had been “living in Montgomery for 10 years.”

“The staff here was just so straightforward with me about everything,” Moore said. “They didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear.”

Instead, Gregg Baker and the other Faulkner coaches talked to Moore about why he was attempting this off-the-wall dream, and they explained to him where he fit in on the Eagles’ depth chart.

“Look, he’s 61, so we know right away that he’s not going to be knocking home 55-yarders, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t bring something to the table for this team,” Baker said. “He brings a very positive message about fighting for what you want to do and never quitting on anything. And he can play. He can make kicks for us.”

Baker admits that Moore will likely be down the playing rotation and might not ever see the field. But he also said he’d love to give Moore a shot at a field goal or extra point this season.

That’s all Moore’s looking for.

“I know there’s a lot at stake in this for the team and the university,” he said. “They’ve stuck their necks out for me. I’ll do whatever they ask. I’d love to get a shot, though.”

The only thing Moore asks of the coaching staff is if they do give him that shot, please, make it early in the game.

“Us old guys get stiff walking around the sidelines,” he said with a smile.