Tom Moore still beats everybody to the building.
At 87, the former Hawkeye is the first one inside Iowa’s football facility each day, getting to Hansen Football Performance Center before the coaches and players head to the weight room and practice field. Moore has spent more than six decades in football as a player and coach, and retirement never really pulled him in.
“There’s nothing about retirement that turns me on, no exception about it,” Moore said during Iowa football’s team media day Aug. 14. “This is what I want to do until they carry me off the field, boots first.”
That attitude is part of why Kirk Ferentz brought Moore back to Iowa as a senior consultant. Moore, who played quarterback and kicker for the Hawkeyes from 1959-60 and then spent two seasons as a graduate assistant at the school, has since built a coaching résumé that includes four Super Bowl titles and work with Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Terry Bradshaw.
Ferentz said Moore’s presence has already reached well beyond the head coach’s office.
“I think one of the beauties of Tom is his wisdom is extensive, but his clarity, his ability just to really cut to concise points that really matter,” Ferentz said during Big Ten Football Media Days in Chicago July 28. “He's got an innate ability to do that, and to have him with us - it's a benefit for everybody in our building, everybody in our coaching staff.
I'll start with me, but everybody has benefited from it, and our players as well. They gravitate toward him.”
Moore’s role is listed as an offensive adviser, but that undersells how visible he’s been around the program. He moves up and down the sidelines at practice, something that was easy to spot during Iowa’s Kids Day on Aug. 15, and he watches every part of the operation.
Players ask him questions. Coaches do, too.
“The amount of football he's forgot is more than probably anybody in this building knows,” Iowa football general manager Tyler Barnes said. “And it's the amazing thing is just how proud he is to be here. Like, this guy's coached multiple Super Bowl winning quarterbacks, MVPs, and he treats this like this is the best job he's ever had.”
Moore said he is back in Iowa while his wife remains in Charlotte, N.C. He joked that the couple has moved 13 times and that was enough for her, and he also said she has dealt with health issues, including recovering from a stroke.
Still, she encouraged him to take the Iowa opportunity, and he did with her blessing.
“She’s my biggest supporter,” he said. “She understood that and gave me a chance to come here and I can do it on my own time.”
For now, Moore is sticking to his routine, getting about six hours of sleep a night and showing up early to hear the pads pop long before fans fill Kinnick Stadium in a few weeks.
“He stands, to me, all that’s good in football,” Ferentz said.
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