Communities mourn passing of GA Moore
Hundreds celebrated the life and legacy of G.A. Moore, a legendary Texas high school football coach and pastor of Mustang Baptist Church, following his death on Sept. 5.
Moore, born Gene Autry Moore Jr. in the Mustang community outside of Pilot Point in November of 1938, called the area home throughout his life.
“Family and faith were at the center of his life, and his greatest joy was always seeing each generation grow and thrive and just seeing how things have changed,” his daughter Tona VanHook-Drees said. “He was a man of integrity and quiet strength. I can personally witness for this.”
His love of Pilot Point athletics started as a student.
“When they told me he lettered in four sports, he obviously lettered every single year in every sport,” VanHook-Drees said as she read her father’s obituary on Tuesday. “I didn’t know that.”
It was at North Texas State University, now the University of North Texas, where G.A. met his lifelong companion, Lois Ann Moore.
It was also there that he played football on the collegiate level and from which he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
G.A. was a role model on and off the field, his lifelong friend, former athlete and fellow coach Sonny Gibbs said as he shared his stories about G.A. during the funeral service.
“He was one of the most consistent people I’ve ever been around in my whole life,” Gibbs said. “He was no different last Friday than he was when I was 8 years old. Same guy, same values, same character, same passion.”
Gibbs was a senior on the first Bearcat football team G.A. coached in Pilot Point.
“There’s no way to say thank you for what he did for us,” Gibbs said. “He wasn’t coaching football. He was coaching life, and if we paid more attention, we’d have been better off, probably.”
His historic coaching career started in in 1962 at Bryson High School, with G.A. coming back home to coach in Pilot Point in 1963 to 1970.
“After a year or two of deep prayer, my mom said they knew and decided and felt like their calling was with young students, getting young students and athletes to the Lord and accepting salvation,” VanHook-Drees said.
He made the jump back into coaching in Celina in 1972 as the head football coach, where he achieved a record of 52 wins, five losses and two ties in five years along with a state championship win in 1974.
“He has a group text with all of those players,” Van-Hook-Drees said. “They all send scriptures and prayers multiple times a day, so he was still in communication with the majority of that team. That ‘74 team was very special to him.”
G.A. returned to Pilot Point in 1977, during which the Bearcats earned back-toback state championships in 1980 and 1981, and he stayed until 1986, when he made the jump to Sherman, where he was named Dallas Area Coach of the Year.
“My earliest memories of the game of football involved Coach Moore,” Pilot Point head football coach Chad Worrell said. “… My whole love for football stemmed from that, and then obviously trying to model my coaching style after some of the things I saw growing up—a godly man who was a great role model and who had such an impact on so many people, not only just in Pilot Point but Celina and any other place that he coached.”
Worrell, who has quoted Moore’s description of Pilot Point as “a special place,” spoke of the special man who affected so many lives.
“There’s countless people’s lives he’s touched,” he said. “… He’s a legend, one of the best.”
The Bearcats played hard on the field bearing his name to honor his memory, Worrell added, earning the victory.
“We talked to our kids about his legacy and what he’s meant to Pilot Point and how much he loved Pilot Point,” Worrell said. “… I think he was probably watching down and loved that.”
From Sherman, he returned to Celina for 14 years with a record there of 16322 with five state championships.
VanHook-Drees spoke about how special it was to see her father and her younger brother, Gary Don Moore, who proceeded G.A. in death, win a state championship together in 1995.
“He won state there with my little brother as a senior and as the quarterback— very special,” she said.
He returned once more to Pilot Point in 2002, serving as head coach there until his health required him to step away from coaching three years later.
In 2009, he took to the sidelines again, this time as the Aubrey Chaparrals’ head coach, fully retiring from football in 2011.
“What a legendary Texas high school coach and just a phenomenal man in general,” Aubrey head football coach Keith Ivy said. “I think he was just an outstanding person, first and foremost, that loved kids, loved the game of football, had a passion for it and was just tremendously successful. … He’ll go down as one of the best to ever do it.”
Ivy never played for Moore, but he did play against him and coached from the opposite sidelines before Ivy came to Aubrey.
“I just have the utmost respect for him and his family,” he said. “He’ll be greatly missed.”
VanHook-Drees shared G.A.’s overall coaching record.
“When he finished coaching, he had over 400 high school football wins and eight state championships,” she said. “He retired as Texas’ winningest high school football coach at that time, with a record of 429-97-9.”
The impact he had on his athletes did more than help shape their physical development; it extended to their spiritual health.
G.A.’s son-in-law Brian Lynn, who has served with his father-in-law as associate pastor of Mustang Baptist Church, spoke of the way G.A. showed his faith through his coaching.
Lynn heard from G.A. for the first time as a sixthgrader trying out for football.
“He said, ‘Boys, I don’t care who your mom and dad are,’” Lynn said. “’I don’t care how much money they have. I don’t care what color your skin is. If you do your work in the classrooms, you’re respectful to your teachers and you do what we ask you, when you get in high school, you will get an opportunity to play for the varsity Bearcats.”
That lack of favoritism mirrored the Bible’s passage about not being a respecter of persons, Lynn said, and was a small example of the approach G.A. took.
Lynn, who is married to Carol, shared his gratitude for the way G.A. shaped his view of being a good man.
He also spoke, as Van-Hook-Drees did, of the unwavering love G.A. had for his college sweetheart and wife of 64 years, Lois Ann.
“As Sonny said, G.A. was blessed to have a pillar like Lois Ann to support him every step of the road he traveled,” he said.
While the world may know him for his football career, the family said, they hope he will be remembered for his steadfast Christian faith and for the way he loved his family and friends.
“I’ll tell y’all this,” Lynn said. “Tona talked about his record. This is the greatest victory that G.A. Moore ever had. His official record is 1-0.”
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