Oregon volleyball coach Jim Moore is known as a Christmas guy. As soon as the season is over, you can find him at home, hanging tinsel from his windows.
“Every moment that I’m not working, I spend decorating my house,” he says. “When the season is finished it’s all about Christmas and it’s all about my kids.”
The holiday is a fitting passion for the fourth-year Duck coach, because it says a lot about his personality. He is a family man who puts his two kids and his wife, assistant coach Stacey Metro, above everything else.
His caring also extends to his players, past and present. Moore is a mentor for a lot of the women who have played for him, and anytime he speaks of old teams, the coach lists off names of players who have impacted his life.
Players talk about everything from his funny sayings to how much they enjoy the spirited nature of his practices.
“He’ll say ‘run fast, jump high’ when he doesn’t really have anything to say to us,” junior Sonja Newcombe said. “It’s pretty funny.”
Coach Moore likes to emphasize it’s not about him by saying he is the same coach who, in his first year at Oregon, went 1-17 in Pac-10 Conference play.
“I’m no genius,” he says. “We are number seven in the country because we have better players.”
When Moore first started coaching at Oregon, he essentially started from scratch. That blank slate was necessary for the program to move beyond its losing past.
Moore has been successful as a college coach because he’s realized the ultimate truth: You can be the smartest, but still lose all your games if you don’t have good enough players. In essence, he has become the genius he doesn’t want to be labeled as.
Coaches know they need good players to be successful, but Moore has taken recruiting to a new level.
“My philosophy has always been about finding the best players,” he says. “No one gave me a chance for my first job because I didn’t have any recruiting experience. Finally, Northern Michigan gave me a shot.”
Northern Michigan’s faith was what jump-started Moore’s career. He’d coached for nine years in high school and won a California state championship, but his hiring in Michigan almost didn’t come to pass. Moore wanted to be a teacher.
“I wanted to be a college health teacher,” he says. “When I said I wanted to coach in college to my mentor, he told me I was crazy.”
Crazy must be a hot commodity in the coaching market, then. Since that first year, almost two decades ago, Moore has gone 403-197. In the post-season he has excelled, going 24-12, and he has a national title at Northern Michigan.
After 1994, Moore spent time at Kansas State, Texas, Chico State, and had another stint at Northern Michigan.
But, ultimately, he had is eye on the Oregon job.
“The Oregon job was my goal. This single job was my single goal,” he says. “I’d turned down the job after my third year at Texas and I regretted that since then.”
Fast forward to the present, and anyone who even remotely followed Oregon volleyball before the hiring of Moore knows what an amazing turnaround the program has made.
During his first three years, Oregon won 17 Pac-10 games. You would have to add up all the conference wins from 1992 through 2004 to equal that same total of wins. That’s 13 seasons to match the last three.
This season the Ducks are ranked No. 7, are 13-3 overall and are 2-2 in conference play. With the sweep last weekend of then-No. 5 UCLA and No. 4 USC, they catapulted four spots in the ranking. This weekend, they play No. 24 Oregon State. It’s the first time the Civil War has been played with both teams ranked.
“This team is the best team I’ve ever coached, and it is as wonderful a group of people I’ve ever been around,” he said. “When you have the combination of both it’s pretty special.”
But the most important thing to Moore is that his players learn something that has meaning for the rest of their lives.
“If there’s any single thing that is my philosophy, it’s ‘give somebody a fish, feed them for a day; teach them how to fish, feed them for life,’” he says.
It’s important to Moore his players don’t need him by the time they graduate. That goes for his kids as well.
“He’s definitely taught me to be more disciplined,” senior Katie Swoboda said. “In all aspects of life, from doing laundry before game night, to school work.”
But the story isn’t over. Oregon is still in the early goings of a grueling Pac-10 lineup, and with the oncoming weeks, new expectations will be added on to his own.
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