Frost alum Moore has Polar Bears back to winning tradition

By Shawn Edwards

Daily Sun

It took Clark Moore 20 years to return to his hometown in the role he says he was destined to take.

A 1987 graduate of Frost High School, Moore is now in his second year coaching at his alma mater and will be leading the Polar Bears into the area round of the Class 1A-Div. II basketball playoffs today.

His road home, however, was not a direct one.

After earning a masters in education at Baylor University, Moore spent his first year coaching at Teague. From there he spent 12 years at Crawford and one at Waco Robinson.

But it was during his time at Robinson that a tragedy turned into a blessing for the Moore family.

A week after the passing of his uncle, Carlos Moore, he became aware of the need for a boy’s basketball coach at Frost.

“It just seemed like it was the Lord’s will that we be here,” Moore said. “Frost is a good place to raise a family and it has a great school with great administrators ... that is what we were looking for.”

Moore was hired in the summer of 2007 to take over the boy’s basketball and baseball teams.

He was named the athletic director and head football coach the following year with former AD/coach Jerry Baldridge leaving for Mesquite Poteet.

Moore's wife, Holly, is a technology teacher at Frost and his daughters Jae, a fifth grader, and Jenna, a seventh grader, are both students at Frost.

For the most part not a lot has changed in the 20-plus years since Moore attended Frost. His graduating class numbered 12 students in 1987 — the 2009 senior class will graduate eight. But it is the opportunities that coaching in a small town provides that he says makes it so special.

“At most schools, if you want to play both tennis and baseball you can’t,” he said. “Here you can do that.

“And it is great getting to be around the same group of guys the entire year and see the team unity that has grown between them.”

The towering, soft-spoken Moore doesn’t give himself much of the credit for what he has accomplished in his tenure with the Polar Bears, leading them to the playoffs in basketball for consecutive seasons. A stellar athlete himself, Moore was an all-state basketball and baseball player as well as qualifying for the state tennis tournament his senior year at Frost — just another reason his players revere their coach so much.

“He is a very hard working coach,” junior Frost forward Ty Ritterbach said. “He stays up late preparing for games, so we want to do our part in the games.

“And it is easier because we know he has gone through the same experiences here that we have.”

Without question, Moore has a reserved approach in how he communicates with his athletes.

Raising his voice is a rarity, but he seems to get his point across just fine.

In the pre-game shoot around of Tuesday’s bi-district match with Aquilla in Hillsboro, Cougars’ coach Ron Copeland yelled across the court for his team to huddle up at the bench prior to tip-off. Moore simply caught the eyes of sophomore forward Philip Page, waived his hand toward the bench and the rest of the team followed.

“He doesn’t ever really have to get on to us too hard,” sophmore guard Kyle Montgomery said. “He tells us what to do and we do it.”

And there is no complaining by the players with Moore’s approach. The mutual respect and determination to win keeps everyone focus at just doing what they have to, Montgomery added.

Well aware of how unpredictable the coaching profession can be, Moore knows that you can never plan to be in one place forever. But for now there is no other place he would want to be.

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Shawn Edwards may be contacted via e-mail at edwards@corsicanadailysun.com

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