Prominent on her to-do list after retiring this month from a four-decade career in the Denver Public Schools is saying hello to the Statue of Liberty, a grand, old girl Leslie Moore must meet.
“It’s something I’ve always wanted to see,” said Moore, 60.
Her preparation for the July trip includes standing tall among kids, notably as a vital beacon for ushering in Colorado girls sports and as a source of much-needed stability for the Denver Prep League.
As the 2008 Dave Sanders Colorado Coach Award winner, in honor of the teacher-coach murdered while attempting to save others during the Columbine shootings in 1999, Moore is a lifelong city girl who went from frustrated tomboy in the 1960s to champion of all Denver athletics, an ever- present figure who was as much a fixture at city events as the scoreboard.
Said Columbine principal Frank DeAngelis: “Whenever we played any DPS schools, she was actively involved. She has really done an outstanding job to promote athletics and the DPL. And she was a pioneer for female athletics.”
Her hands-on approach, East boys basketball coach Rudy Carey said, “was important and gave us so much more structure than in the past. She gave us balance, which we didn’t have before. She’s a coaches’ advocate and a strong leader, someone who supported us.”
Opportunity for girls
The daughter of a 40-year city teacher and coach may not have had any games to play when she was a schoolgirl, but she believed in what became Title IX and was determined to do something about it.
“It was huge,” Moore said. “That’s when I decided I wanted to get into education. I got into it to see that girls had that opportunity, wanted to make sure that didn’t happen to anybody else.”
Moore’s perspective is legitimate — there would be gatherings termed “sport days” for girls as a high-schooler at Thomas Jefferson, but no score was kept. She never played full-court basketball until she was at Western State College. Even girls uniforms were sparse. She remembers wearing button-down blouses.
“These kids didn’t even know it,” Moore said of telling a few tales to today’s students. “When I told them I wasn’t allowed to play, they say, ‘What?’ In one way, that’s great. I don’t want them to even have to think about it.”
Moore competed in AAU basketball for a couple of years, then got a teaching job and immersed herself in physical education and coaching basketball, track and field, and gymnastics. The mid-1970s were the advent of sanctioning for in-state girls sports. Her teams went on to league championships and undefeated seasons, and included athletes such as John F. Kennedy’s Sharon Burrill, who remains one of Colorado’s best-ever female jumpers.
Wearing many hats
Moore’s appetite grew to include administrative duties. Committees. Serving as an official. Hosting league and state playoffs. Her leadership role grew to city, state and national levels, although she never forgot where she came from — she’s Denver through and through, and probably could drive to any city site in her sleep.
“When you’re a leader, you always have to be out there, and she was,” Thomas Jefferson baseball coach Tory Humphrey said. “She had more attendance at games than a lot of other administrators.”
Selected as the coordinator of city girls athletics in 1992, Moore became district athletic director in 1998. And, sure, she was tested.
“All the men coaches were, like, ‘Oh, boy, here we go. Now it will all stop, we won’t get anything and all she’ll do is girls sports,’ ” Moore said. “But I went to every single football game, basketball, I went to everything. I went to that more than the girls stuff. They saw I was for athletics as a total program, not boys or girls, but athletics for everybody. That’s the way I attacked it. I had to get their respect.”
She attained it — Moore was elected president of the Colorado High School Activities Association’s executive committee from 1996-98, overseeing its board of control. Since 1921, there have been 55 male presidents. Moore was the only female.
“She was chosen for that,” former CHSAA commissioner Bob Ottewill said. “She’s terrific, a great compromiser with a very good knowledge of athletics. And she was very inclusive. She didn’t do the big-me, little- you stuff as some in Denver could do.”
Moore did get big nationally, working with the National Federation of State High School Associations and National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators when hurdling even larger gender issues.
“It was very difficult,” she said. “Once I got into administration, (former Jefferson County District AD) Chris Bullard and I would go to national conferences and there’d be maybe 10-15 women, over 1,500 men. No minorities, only white males. It’s kind of the way it was. It has grown for me to be elected president.”
Somber day
While attending what appeared to be an uneventful Colorado Athletic Directors Association gathering in 1999, Moore was in the hotel conference room where Kevin Land, Columbine’s AD, was informed of reports about shooting at his school.
“His face got ashen,” Moore said.
Though she didn’t know Sanders, the gut-wrenching aftermath convinced her that “Dave was a hero. . . . I’ll never forget it. It’s totally in my brain forever.”
Moore, whose replacement is Karen Higel, has a lot to remember, such as Montbello’s girls basketball title in 1997, the only one by city schools. “I was so moved, I had tears,” she said.
The consecutive Class 5A-4A boys basketball championships the past two seasons by East and Abraham Lincoln are personal sources of pride, as are TJ’s in 2005 and 2006, but so is everything from TJ’s consecutive title-game showings in baseball from 2007-08 to newly reopened Manual’s ninth-graders, who began anew in her final school year.
“That’s all I know, DPL and its kids, and how they are,” Moore said. “They don’t have a lot.”
CHSAA commissioner Bill Reader watched Moore “serve a lot of different masters. She had to deal with a lot of variables. Socioeconomically, (DPL high schools) are all different. She dealt with the whole spectrum, and thankfully so.”
Land called Moore “a very good selection for this award. She helped a lot of kids in a lot of different areas. She was always at the front line.”
Her midlife-crisis sports car, a new set of King Cobra golf clubs and travel will occupy most of her time, but she’ll remain in the Washington Park area, not far from a couple of her previous homes away from home: All-City Field and All-City Stadium.
“This is hard. I’m going to miss a lot of people,” Moore said. “I’ll still go to games — I’m not that far away.”
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
About the Dave Sanders Award
By eyewitness accounts, William “Dave” Sanders was a hero on April 20, 1999, the date of the worst tragedy in the history of American high schools. The 47-year-old teacher and coach, a Columbine High School faculty member for 25 years, helped get numerous students to safety before he was killed, along with 12 teenagers, by student gunmen. In honor of his commitment to young people, notably girls athletics, The Denver Post presents an annual Dave Sanders Colorado Coach Award. In accordance with the Sanders family, including his widow, Linda Lou Sanders, The Post recognizes a high school coach who not only has longevity and success in the ranks of teaching and coaching but also outstanding character. In 2000, Sanders, who was heavily involved in girls sports, was awarded an ESPY and the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. He was honored posthumously with the first Post award in 1999. Retiring Denver Public Schools athletic director Leslie Moore is the 2008 honoree. Additional winners:
2000
Dick Katte, the head boys basketball coach at Denver Christian since the 1964-65 season, who has an 803-205 career record, tops in state annals.
2001
Maurice “Stringy” Ervin, who has coached boys swimming at Littleton for 40 years. His Lions have won 12 Colorado team championships.
2002
Rick Bath, the veteran teacher and coach at Columbine and Sanders’ best friend. Bath is retired.
2003
Warren Mitchell, who has coached Colorado high school sports for 58 years, including the past 54 as head boys track coach at Limon.
2004
Montbello’s Don Gatewood, who surpassed 30 years in teaching and retired after 35 years as head boys track coach.
2005
Pam Fagerlund, the longtime Flagler volleyball coach who has 483 career victories and has won four Colorado small-school titles.
2006
Judy Barnett, a female sports pioneer who won 398 volleyball games and four titles at Manitou Springs, and was an assistant commissioner of CHSAA.
2007
Caryn Jarocki, the longtime girls basketball coach at Colorado Academy and Highlands Ranch, who has a career mark of 390-127 with six titles.
About Leslie Moore
•Native of Denver, 1965 graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School.
•After earning a bachelor’s degree at Western State College, began career as a physical education teacher at Kepner Junior High School in 1969; later earned a master’s.
•First coaching job was track and field at Abraham Lincoln in 1970; later coached basketball and gymnastics at John F. Kennedy.
•Got into administration in 1990; took over city girls athletics in 1992.
•Became the only woman president of the Colorado High School Activities Association in 1996.
•Has won numerous state and national awards; given multiple presentations in Colorado and nationally; served on dozens of committees; and was instrumental in local Title IX application.
