By Greg Gielczyk
LocalSportsJournal.com

HOLTON–Tommy Moore graduated from high school in Chesterton, Indiana in 2004 and joined the United States Air Force.

Moore was on active duty in the Air Force from 2004-2012 and was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training.

After basic training, Moore stayed in San Antonio for technical school where he learned his job, which was in the Military Police. He received his first duty assignment after completing tech school, which was in Enid, Oklahoma.

From there, he deployed to the Middle East twice and then was stationed in Michigan as a recruiter until he separated from the service in 2012.

“I volunteered for my deployments (to the Middle East) because I was young and that’s what I wanted to do,” said Moore. “I spent the first year at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait where I was patrolling outside of the wire.

“I was responsible for protecting the 2K and 5K berm outside of the base as planes were landing and (taking off) with passengers, supplies, prisoners … pretty much anything and everything that we were doing in operations at that point.

“My job was to secure the aircraft and the airfields. Then on my days off, I would join those aircraft on fly away missions, where we would go all over the world taking supplies to forward operating bases.”

He added that his military service gave him an attention to detail that he was lacking as a young kid, and he says he helped him excel as a father, a husband and a college student.

That attention to detail also aided him as he started his football coaching career.

“It helps me game plan pretty intensively for our opponents,” said Moore, the new varsity football coach at Holton, “because I look for the finest details that I can find.

“My military service has helped me be prepared for anything, which would include having very few kids to workouts because we are such a small school and all the athletes are playing multiple sports.

“Adaptability is one thing that I feel has been a key that I picked up in the military that’s really helped me transition into this head coaching position.

“You have to be able to think on your toes pretty quick. I spent years under great leaders in the military and on the football field, and now it’s just time to transition what I’ve learned from all of them into my own program.”

Moore did become a non-commissioned officer while he was in the service, and was put into leadership roles with several troops under his command.

Just that now he’s dealing with civilians rather than military personnel, which means he has to be more subjective to people’s feelings.

He admits he’s had a hard time doing that.

In imparting some advice for anyone thinking of getting into coaching, Moore said the sacrifice is worth it.

“You have to sacrifice family time, you have to sacrifice fun time, to pursue your passions,” Moore said. “But, it’s definitely worth it in the end for sure.

“I have a very supportive wife (Brittani) who helped me pursue my passion of being a head coach by holding down the fort so I could use my MGI Bill to go back to school.”

Moore took last year off from coaching to finish his Bachelor’s Degree at Grand Valley, using up his MGI benefits.

He has two children, a daughter Karsyn who is 13 and 10-year old son, Trey.