March 23, 2004
By PAUL NEWBERRY
AP Sports Writer
ATLANTA (AP) – Clarence Moore always dreamed of playing in the NBA – and not just for the fame and glory. He kept thinking of his ailing mother. He kept believing that a few million dollars would make her life easier.
“I was just trying to get enough money,” Moore recalled, “to get my mother the right operation, the right medicine.”
After suffering for more than a decade with a rare tissue disorder and other ailments, Avis Moore died in 1998, with her son still in high school. It took a few years, but the trauma of that moment finally caught up with Moore when he was at Georgia Tech.
He wasn’t sure what he wanted out of life – or if basketball should even be a part of it. He walked away from the game, not knowing if he would ever return.
“I just started thinking,” Moore said. “What are the real reasons I’m doing this? Why am I doing this? I needed to take a step back and see where my life was headed.”
As it turned out, he was headed to the round of 16 in the NCAA tournament. Moore returned from a yearlong sabbatical to become a key player off the bench for the Yellow Jackets, who are in the midst of their best tourney run since 1996.
Georgia Tech (25-9) meets Nevada (25-8) in the semifinals of the St. Louis Regional on Friday night. Two more wins would send the Yellow Jackets to the Final Four for only the second time in school history.
“I’m just trying to give it my all,” said Moore, a 6-foot-5 senior. “You never know: This could be my last game.”
At the beginning of the season, he had to earn the respect of his teammates all over again. They felt a bit abandoned when Moore walked out after his junior year, costing a young team one of its more experienced players. It didn’t help when Georgia Tech – minus Moore – had to settle for a spot in the National Invitation Tournament.
But coach Paul Hewitt welcomed Moore back, feeling he had been honest with his feelings when he walked away.
“There was no reluctance on my part,” Hewitt said. “The thing that really made it easy was the players accepted him back so easily. They understood what he was going through with the loss to his mom and getting through some personal issues. Basketball was not paramount in his mind last year. That’s why he didn’t play.”
Moore didn’t want to slide through a season when his heart wasn’t in it. He’s always been a guy who brings to mind words such as energy, hustle and intensity.
“I’ll say this about Mo: He’s real, he’s no faker,” Hewitt said. “He could have played last year and gone through it halfhearted. But that’s not the way he is. He goes about everything with a tremendous amount of passion. He has an enthusiasm for the game whether he’s playing 17 minutes a game or 30 minutes a game. That really wears off on all the players.”
He’s also quite versatile. Moore is known first for defense (second on the team in steals, third in blocked shots), but he also can make an impact at the offensive end (a team-best 41 percent from 3-point range).
Just as important, Moore has become a leader on the team he once walked away from. Now, he goes through life with a smile, keeping his teammates loose with jokes and all sorts of antics (a favorite: standing nearby when someone is being interviewed, trying to make the player crack up).
“He had to earn our friendship back,” center Luke Schenscher said. “He did it real quick. Everyone knows Mo is a crazy guy. He’s just a lovable character. Every team needs someone like that. He gets you fired up, and he also gets you to look at the lighter side of things.”
A starter in 2002, Moore made it clear from the start that he would accept whatever role came his way. That made it easier for his teammates to accept him back – especially when they saw his dedication on the court.
“He said, ‘Look guys, I don’t care about playing time. I don’t care about coming off the bench,”‘ guard Marvin Lewis said. “And just the fact that he was so out of shape when he came back. He really had to work. We could see the sacrifice he was willing to make. That was all it took for us.”
For Moore, this long-and-winding-road of a career has taken him to a better place. He knows his mom would be proud.
“That year away put everything back into focus,” Moore said. “It made me grow up. It made me more mature. It made me become a man.”
