Football Guru Tom Moore Joins Hawkeye Coaching Staff
PHOTO: Brian Ray/hawkeyesports.com
Iowa senior consultant and offensive advisor Tom Moore, left, talks with coach Kirk Ferentz during a preseason practice in August. Before returning to Iowa this season, Moore was a part of four Super Bowl-winning coaching staffs.
Tom Moore’s decision to come to the University of Iowa was sealed the moment he heard football coach Forest Evashevski speak at a banquet in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Moore’s hometown.
“He had just gotten the job here,” recalls Moore (61BA). “And he was so terrific—that’s the best word I can say. And when my father and I walked back home, I told my dad, ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be big enough, good enough, fast enough, all of those qualities. But that’s the guy I want to play for.’”
Moore became a Hawkeye letterwinner in 1959 and 1960 as a quarterback and kicker before embarking on a coaching career that started as a graduate assistant at Iowa for two seasons.
PHOTO: hawkeyesports.com
Tom Moore played on the 1960 Iowa football team that became co-Big Ten champions and was recognized by several selectors as national champions.
Now Moore is back on Iowa’s staff this fall, serving as an offensive advisor and senior consultant to head coach Kirk Ferentz. “It’s been great,” says Moore, who in preseason camp was often the first to arrive at the Hansen Football Performance Center each day. “I’ve lived a dream. And being able to come back here is a dream come true.”
Moore, 87, still remembers what it was like to be around Evashevski. “He was so commanding—when he walked in, everyone stood at attention,” says Moore. “There was just a presence about him and a sincerity about him, that that was the guy I wanted to play for.”
After leaving Iowa, Moore served two years in the U.S. Army, where he coached football. He then coached on the college level at Dayton (1965-68), Wake Forest (1969), Georgia Tech (1970-71), and Minnesota (1972-73, 1975-76), before going to the NFL. Moore was part of four Super Bowl-winning coaching staffs, winning two with the Pittsburgh Steelers, one with Indianapolis, and one with Tampa Bay.
Moore has coached Hall of Fame quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, but says working with college student-athletes isn’t much different than the NFL.
“Coaching is coaching, and it’s still winning with techniques and fundamentals,” says Moore, who spent the last seven seasons as an offensive consultant with Tampa Bay.
Helping develop student-athletes, he says, is why he came back to be a part of Ferentz’s staff.
“That’s why I have such a great, great respect for Kirk,” Moore says. “Kirk has done a marvelous job, in my opinion, as a coach, taking two-star and three-star players and all of a sudden they’re [first-round] draft picks. Dallas Clark (07BA), he came here as a walk-on, and he’s a first-rounder. All of a sudden, he’s a Pro Bowler.
“We had Tristan Wirfs in Tampa Bay. He comes down there, now all of a sudden he’s the right tackle protecting Tom Brady. So it’s a privilege to come back here and be a part of it.”
Ferentz says Moore has brought “wisdom and experience” to his staff. “You can’t put a price tag on that sometimes,” Ferentz says.