Former Warsaw Star's Footprint Is Now International
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Roger Grossman, Lake City Radio-
Imagine working with someone as closely as I get to for four years and then boom, you don’t get to see them anymore.
Saturday I got to spend a few minutes with Nic Moore.
Nic lives about three blocks from my house in Winona Lake, but he’s not home much. OK, he’s hardly ever home.
But on Saturday, he and I were at his former Warsaw Tiger teammate Brock Davis’ wedding to former Tiger cheerleader Cheaney Maierle.
Moore, who graduated from Warsaw as No. 2 on the school’s all-time boys basketball scoring list (1,891), first went to Illinois State and then followed his head coach to Southern Methodist University in Dallas when his ISU head coach became and assistant under legendary coach Larry Brown.
Saturday was one of the two days Nic said he had off before he returned to SMU for summer team responsibilities. He had just come back from South Korea where we was playing for the U.S. team in the World University Games. That team was coached by Kansas University coach Bill Self and made up of returning Jayhawks players – and Nic Moore.
Self and Brown used to coach together, and the two had a conversation about Moore joining the Jayhawks on their international trip.
It was a short conversation.
Moore said he was called into Brown’s office and offered the chance to play, and he jumped at the chance.
He immediately made an impact, both on the court and off. His new teammates commented in the Kansas City newspapers about how vocal he was and how much they appreciated Moore’s attitude and approach to melding in with them in what can only be described as a unique and unusual situation.
“He got there halfway through (the first) practice, walked in and acted like he owned the place. That’s exactly what the best players in leagues do,” Self said.
No one in Warsaw should be surprised.
I have known Nic since he was in the fourth grade and playing elementary basketball for the Madison Cardinals. When people ask me what Nic Moore is really like, this is the story I tell: When Nic was in the fourth grade he walked into the Tiger Den to watch a boys game and he passed in front of the Warsaw student section. A group of junior and senior-aged girls screamed for him to come and sit with them like they used to do for the Beatles. He climbed into the third row. Those girls then spent most of the JV game fighting to sit next him. They were juniors and seniors, he was in the FOURTH GRADE!
But, that’s just Nic Moore.
Nic has been THE leader on every team he’s ever played on. Heck, he is like the pied piper – where he goes people just follow. And he doesn’t have to try to lead. He just does, and maybe that’s part of why people follow so easily.
It’s like he has Jedi mind powers!
Think about it: he goes to Illinois State and everyone there is raving about him. He’s fun to watch. His picture is on the Redbird website after every game. He becomes the voice and face of the team. Everyone in Normal, IL knows Nic Moore.
Then he moves to SMU – see above steps to becoming a local hero.
Then he becomes the best player in the American Athletic Conference.
Then he gets that phone call to come to Larry Brown’s office in the spring.
When you consider that he had never really met or played with any of the Kansas players prior to training for the WUGs, he played well in the tournament. His numbers for the tournament weren’t overly impressive, but in the double overtime-win over Germany for the championship last week, Moore scored seven points, grabbed six rebounds and collected three steals.
And he left a clear impression on Self and his temporary KU teammates.
“We’ve got good players, but we haven’t had anybody that’s been Player of the Year in the league,” Self told www.kusports.com “Nic is Player of the Year in the American Conference, a great league. SMU won it last year.”
But I was reminded of why we love Nic Moore most on Saturday night.
He had TWO DAYS off between returning from South Korea and heading back to Dallas to start work on his final college basketball season.
He made time to be at one of his high school teammates’ wedding.
He didn’t have to do that. No one would have blamed him if he would have sent Brock and Cheaney a text to congratulate them and had his mom put their gift in the mail for him. He’s an uber-busy guy, right?
But this is Nic Moore. He was there, and he stayed – late.
And in the five minutes I got to spend with him, we talked about the 12-hour flight we each had made recently (him from South Korea and my wife and I from China) and I introduced him to my new son.
While we were standing there, he did two things that blew me away: he asked my daughter Hannah if she still had the blanket he made for her when she came home from China in 2010 (which she sleeps with every night), and he reached out to hold my son’s hand … and Oliver took it.
Oliver doesn’t do that for much of anyone.
But even the 17-month old who was born in China knew … this is Nic Moore.
Nic Moore’s impact is growing, but his roots still are anchored firmly in a residential neighborhood in Winona Lake, Ind.[[In-content Ad]]
Imagine working with someone as closely as I get to for four years and then boom, you don’t get to see them anymore.
Saturday I got to spend a few minutes with Nic Moore.
Nic lives about three blocks from my house in Winona Lake, but he’s not home much. OK, he’s hardly ever home.
But on Saturday, he and I were at his former Warsaw Tiger teammate Brock Davis’ wedding to former Tiger cheerleader Cheaney Maierle.
Moore, who graduated from Warsaw as No. 2 on the school’s all-time boys basketball scoring list (1,891), first went to Illinois State and then followed his head coach to Southern Methodist University in Dallas when his ISU head coach became and assistant under legendary coach Larry Brown.
Saturday was one of the two days Nic said he had off before he returned to SMU for summer team responsibilities. He had just come back from South Korea where we was playing for the U.S. team in the World University Games. That team was coached by Kansas University coach Bill Self and made up of returning Jayhawks players – and Nic Moore.
Self and Brown used to coach together, and the two had a conversation about Moore joining the Jayhawks on their international trip.
It was a short conversation.
Moore said he was called into Brown’s office and offered the chance to play, and he jumped at the chance.
He immediately made an impact, both on the court and off. His new teammates commented in the Kansas City newspapers about how vocal he was and how much they appreciated Moore’s attitude and approach to melding in with them in what can only be described as a unique and unusual situation.
“He got there halfway through (the first) practice, walked in and acted like he owned the place. That’s exactly what the best players in leagues do,” Self said.
No one in Warsaw should be surprised.
I have known Nic since he was in the fourth grade and playing elementary basketball for the Madison Cardinals. When people ask me what Nic Moore is really like, this is the story I tell: When Nic was in the fourth grade he walked into the Tiger Den to watch a boys game and he passed in front of the Warsaw student section. A group of junior and senior-aged girls screamed for him to come and sit with them like they used to do for the Beatles. He climbed into the third row. Those girls then spent most of the JV game fighting to sit next him. They were juniors and seniors, he was in the FOURTH GRADE!
But, that’s just Nic Moore.
Nic has been THE leader on every team he’s ever played on. Heck, he is like the pied piper – where he goes people just follow. And he doesn’t have to try to lead. He just does, and maybe that’s part of why people follow so easily.
It’s like he has Jedi mind powers!
Think about it: he goes to Illinois State and everyone there is raving about him. He’s fun to watch. His picture is on the Redbird website after every game. He becomes the voice and face of the team. Everyone in Normal, IL knows Nic Moore.
Then he moves to SMU – see above steps to becoming a local hero.
Then he becomes the best player in the American Athletic Conference.
Then he gets that phone call to come to Larry Brown’s office in the spring.
When you consider that he had never really met or played with any of the Kansas players prior to training for the WUGs, he played well in the tournament. His numbers for the tournament weren’t overly impressive, but in the double overtime-win over Germany for the championship last week, Moore scored seven points, grabbed six rebounds and collected three steals.
And he left a clear impression on Self and his temporary KU teammates.
“We’ve got good players, but we haven’t had anybody that’s been Player of the Year in the league,” Self told www.kusports.com “Nic is Player of the Year in the American Conference, a great league. SMU won it last year.”
But I was reminded of why we love Nic Moore most on Saturday night.
He had TWO DAYS off between returning from South Korea and heading back to Dallas to start work on his final college basketball season.
He made time to be at one of his high school teammates’ wedding.
He didn’t have to do that. No one would have blamed him if he would have sent Brock and Cheaney a text to congratulate them and had his mom put their gift in the mail for him. He’s an uber-busy guy, right?
But this is Nic Moore. He was there, and he stayed – late.
And in the five minutes I got to spend with him, we talked about the 12-hour flight we each had made recently (him from South Korea and my wife and I from China) and I introduced him to my new son.
While we were standing there, he did two things that blew me away: he asked my daughter Hannah if she still had the blanket he made for her when she came home from China in 2010 (which she sleeps with every night), and he reached out to hold my son’s hand … and Oliver took it.
Oliver doesn’t do that for much of anyone.
But even the 17-month old who was born in China knew … this is Nic Moore.
Nic Moore’s impact is growing, but his roots still are anchored firmly in a residential neighborhood in Winona Lake, Ind.[[In-content Ad]]
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