The Arena Football League season may still be a few months away, but for Orlando Predators fullback-linebacker Marlon Moye-Moore, the football season is just starting.
He still shows up to the practice field every day ready to work, but he’s not facing off against other 250-pounders this season. He’s traded his helmet and shoulder pads for a whistle and clip board in order to coach 7-9 year olds in Pop Warner’s Lake Mary (Fla.) Youth Football Association.
Moye-Moore, 26, has a passion for football. He was approached last season by Predators ownership partner Steve DeLuca about joining him as a youth football coach, and Moye-Moore jumped at the opportunity.
“When I’m done with football, coaching is what I want to do,” Moye-Moore said. “I really just want to be involved in the community and with youth.”
At 6-foot-1 and 245 pounds, Moye-Moore can be a little intimidating to a 70-pound offensive lineman, but he has a great rapport with the kids.
“The neat thing is the kids and the parents’ interest in Marlon,” DeLuca said of having a professional athlete assist him on the sideline. “Marlon has committed the time to go and become certified by Mid-Florida Pop Warner and is taking this opportunity seriously.”
And Moye-Moore wouldn’t have it any other way.
Football is serious business to the former University of Maryland star, who was overlooked by most NFL scouts after his senior season was cut short because of injuries.
He played one season for the Charleston SwampFoxes of af2 – the Arena Football developmental league – before joining the Predators in 2003. In just three seasons in Orlando, Moore-Moye already ranks among the Predators’ top 10 players in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns, and last season led the club with 11 rushing scores.
“Football is fun,” Moye-Moore said. “It doesn’t matter what the age or the level.
The kids really look up to me – they see me on TV and they’re a little in awe so I have to tell them ‘I’m your coach. I’m not a player right now’. But, a lot of the parents come up to me and say ‘thanks for helping out’ and that’s cool – that’s where I get my reward, knowing they appreciate my help.”
Moye-Moore’s respect and passion for coaching can be traced back to his high school days at Potomac High School in Oxon Hill, Md., where his football coaches Eric Knight, Pat Burns and Marvin Jackson really had a positive impact on his life.
“If it wasn’t for my coaches in high school, I’m not sure what I’d be doing today,” Moye-Moore said with deep appreciation in his voice. “They kept me on the straight and narrow and on the right path. I didn’t see it that much then but I do now. I appreciate what they did for me.”
Even when he’s not on the football field, Moye-Moore has found the time to give back to the Orlando community working with the Predators community relations department by speaking to numerous elementary schools and volunteering with the Boy’s and Girl’s Club of Orlando.
"I just want to help other people learn and help spread some of the knowledge that I was thought,” he said.
Sometimes, in the world of professional sports, the real good guys get overlooked. And even though Moye-Moore doesn’t like the attention, he deserves it.