The numbers on Eric Moore’s coaching résumé, impressive as they are, don’t include the ones regarding his health.
Numbers such as a skyrocketing blood pressure reading, the number of pounds on Moore’s 6-foot-4 frame and however may days and nights the Center Grove football coach would’ve given anything just to feel mediocre.
Moore, who turned 60 last week, has stubbornly straight-armed a sore right knee that will eventually be replaced, a worldwide pandemic, near uselessness of one of his kidneys, prostate surgery and more since March of last year.
Think 18 months of road games as a potential underdog. Only instead of Carmel, Ben Davis or Warren Central, it’s doctor’s offices, hospitals and time resting at home during stretches when Moore had little to no energy or appetite.
One medical domino falling into another would be enough to force some coaches into an early retirement. Moore’s thirst for competition as the school’s football and boys track and field coach and the devotion he feels to the athletes, coaches, school and community prevent him from doing so.
The loyalty Moore learned as a player at Indiana University under coach Bill Mallory and later at coaching camps run by late Florida State coach Bobby Bowden is his greatest attribute.
And, perhaps, his most frustrating shortcoming.
“Eric takes a lot of pride in what’s been built here, and is at the point of his career where he wants to see it continue,” said Aaron Hohlt, president of the Center Grove Gridiron Club since 2012 and a close friend of Moore’s.
“His greatness is that I’ve never seen someone more for the kids than Eric Moore.”
The past year and a half, he’s had to fight for himself.
The coach’s initial recent health scare took place in the spring of 2020, the same time COVID-19 began tightening its grip on the United States, causing schools and businesses across the country to shut down.
Moore, who felt fatigued, wasn’t certain of the severity of his situation.
“During spring break, I did the ‘In the driveway’ series (on social media), riding my stationary bike. I got to Thursday, and after I got off my ride I really felt terrible,” Moore said. “My shoulders were sore. My back was sore. One of my coaches, Matt Adams, came by the house with some extra barbecue, and I couldn’t eat.”
Moore excused himself to lay down and was horizontal until the following Tuesday. For a time, his diet consisted of nothing but crackers and bottled water.
The coach still wasn’t feeling his normal self at the outset of last football season. He feels the combination of stress, poor eating habits and not enough exercise started ganging up on him around 2017, with his overall health gradually deteriorating.
With businesses shut down or operating at limited capacity, Moore wasn’t able to get his knee replaced prior to last football season.
The pain caused him to remain seated on the sideline during times the Center Grove defense was on the field (he stood when the Trojans were on offense in order to call plays).
“I go through the season. My leg is hurting. I’m having to go home and just sit down immediately because I just felt terrible,” said Moore, who despite the countless physical issues led Center Grove to a 14-0 record and a Class 6A state championship.
“The season ends. A great season, and all that, and I start trying to find times to see the doctors for this, and the next thing I know it’s January.”
Moore finally made an appointment to get his overall health tested in late February and was informed he had kidney disease. Moore asked what stage it was in, and told he was between 3 and 4, thinking the maximum was 12 or 15.
“She goes, ‘No, 5,’” Moore said.
In time, he was informed he needed prostate surgery and that only an estimated 1 or 2 percent life remained in his left kidney.
“Having COVID was strangely bad for a couple of days, but having prostate and bladder surgery (this past March 22) was terrible,” Moore said. “That put me down to where I couldn’t move much for two or three weeks.”
Since March, Moore has dropped approximately 40 pounds, but he’ll be on the sideline tonight when the 6A No. 1 Trojans open the season at Warren Central — and he plans to stand the entire time.
“I’m not trying to lose weight. All I’m trying to do now is get all the sodium out of my diet,” Moore said. “I stopped eating almost all fast food, and I used to drink a lot of diet soda. Two Diet Cokes and a Diet Mountain Dew every day. The only things I drink now are water and 16 ounces of coffee every morning.”
With a wife (Brandy), five children ranging in age from 14 to 29 and a ridiculously lengthy list of friends locally, throughout the state and beyond, Moore doesn’t lack incentive when it comes to taking better care of himself.
In time, it might even include giving up one of his coaching gigs, an almost unfathomable scenario considering Moore has led both programs to unprecedented success since being hired prior to the 1999-2000 school year.
At the moment, Moore doesn’t see himself coaching football past the age of 65.
Maybe that changes, Hohlt said, if the coach’s health holds up and he becomes better at delegating authority to those on his football and track coaching staffs.
“Eric’s been good about having his hands in every facet of football and track,” Hohlt said. “My biggest advice to him was to coach himself and focus on the right things. He took it to heart. Eric is the type of person who is so busy that he doesn’t really realize how much support he has.”
