Alan Moore: The Oldest College Football Player in History

Join us on Daily Sports History as we highlight the incredible story of Alan Moore, who became the oldest college football player in history at age 61. Discover his inspiring journey, what led him back to the field decades later, and how his determination broke age barriers in sports. This is a tale of passion and perseverance that transcends football.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On September tenth, two thousand and fifteen, sixty one year
old Alan Moore suits up for the Faulkner University Eagles
and during the game, he gets put in and kicks
a field goal, all at the age of sixty one,
becoming the oldest college football player to ever play in

(00:20):
a game. In a story that sounds right out of Hollywood,
We're gonna learn all about it today on Daily Sports History.
Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide
as you learn all about sports history to increase your

(00:41):
sports knowledge. And today's trivia question to listen out for
is how much older was Alan Moore than the previous
oldest college football player? Now? Alan Moore grew up in Mississippi,
and for Augston's purposes, he grew up as a regular Southern.
He had three brothers and they grew up on a

(01:02):
three hundred acre farm, growing up going to school and
coming home doing chores like cutting haye, pulling corn, planting vegetables,
feeding chickens. But that big farm, they had plenty of
spaces to play and they love to play football. And
they would play football in the front yard, basketball in
the backyard, basketball, hoop on a pine tree and it
would go play baseball in the past year. And Alan's

(01:24):
mom actually was the one that kind of got him
into kicking. She said she really enjoyed the kicking aspect
of football. Now maybe she was just trying to keep
him safe, but that's the position he really took up.
And at this time, back in the nineteen fifties and sixties,
straight on kicking is what was common, which is where
you line up in a straight line from the ball

(01:44):
to the goal. You don't come at the ball from
the side like we see today, which didn't become popular
till in the nineteen seventies. And his family supported him.
All his family supported him when they were at every
high school game at the fifty yard line watching him kick.
And he got a live attention from schools like Arkansas
State and Oklahoma State, but no scholarship offers and his
family couldn't afford tuition, so Moore chose a small college

(02:07):
twenty five minutes away at Jones County Junior College, and
he would go on to kick a fifty five yard
field goal as his team went nine to zero and
won a state championship his freshman year, and it was
a great time for him in the school, but it
was nineteen sixty eight. So after his freshman year, with
his draft number getting close, Alan decided to join the

(02:28):
army so he could pick his assignment and maybe not
be sent into combat to avoid the challenges of the
Vietnam War. But he still got put into the Infantry
Division and had to go fight in Vietnam for almost
a year, and when he came back from the war,
school wasn't on his mind. He learned how to lay
pipe and embarked on a career in ci ful construction

(02:49):
and left his dream of football behind to help raise
his family, and over the span of four decades he
would have two wives and three kids just go on
to live his life. But just like all of us,
we always wonder what if, and he played that game
for a while Back in two thousand and nine, after
the housing market crashed, he got laid off and so
at the age of fifty nine, he moved back to

(03:11):
Mississippi so he could be around his grandkids and maybe
possibly live out his dream. Not knowing what to do next,
he thought about going back to college, but if he did,
he wanted to try to see if he could still
pick so he even fashioned a goal post in the
backyard at a PVC pipe to test if he could
still do it, and after forty years since he last kicked,

(03:32):
he showed he was able to do it. So he
went back to his old college, Jones County Community College,
told the coach, don't give away my jersey because I'm
coming down to kick for you this year. But the
college wasn't interested in having Alan Moore, so he went
on to try out for Holmes Community College in Ridgitand, Mississippi,
and they gave him a roster spot, but that doesn't

(03:52):
mean he was able to play, and after that season
at Holmes, he got in contact with the coach at
Faulkner University, which was an INNA school. As Holmes went
winless and wasn't scoring very much, so there wasn't a
lot of chances to kick, but Faulkner might be a
better option. When he arrived for his tryout for Faulkner,
their coach could see that he wasn't just playing around,
even though he was sixteen years the senior of his coach.

(04:16):
He joined the Faulkner team. The team always looked up
to him like a coach as he was older than
his other coaches, but he was very supportive from the
team and he wore number twenty six. Now, this was
actually a good thing for Faulkner. That got them a
lot of publicity and the media actually came down in
August to kind of talk to more and be there
for their games. And they were actually asked the coach

(04:38):
is he actually going to play? And he said, if
we have the opportunity, if we get up, he will play.
So in their first game against Ave Marie University, it's
exactly what happened. The Eagles went up twenty four to zero,
and after missing an extra point, had a pair of
failed two point conversions, Alan Moore finally got the call
to step in to kick a field goal. Wearing a

(04:59):
square toe shoe in his signature straight on style, he
went in to kick an extra point and gave them
a twenty five lead, and they would end the game
with a win forty one to nineteen, giving Alan Moore
the record for being the oldest player to ever play
a college football game, beating out Tom Thompson by just

(05:21):
two months, who had played for Austin College back in
two thousand and nine. And he was supported by his family,
his kids, and his grandkids were at the game, and
everyone was there to cheer him as he finally got
to live out his dream. It wasn't a what if
as he went out there and got to kick again
on his own terms, and he presented his jersey, football

(05:41):
and kicking shoe to the College Football Hall of Fame
so he could be enshrined forever. If you like this story,
please leave us a rating review wherever you listening. In
that review, tell us a topic you want us to cover,
and we'll get that done just for you, And come
back tomorrow for more daily sports history. And did you

(06:04):
catch the answer to today's trivia question? How much older
was Alan Moore than the previous record holder? And he
was just two months older than Tom Thompson, the previous
record holder.