Moore back as Waynesburg’s football coach
Russ Moore’s hiatus from coaching football didn’t last five months.
The longtime Waynesburg head coach was re-hired by the district at a committee meeting Tuesday night. Moore, 57, retired as the school’s athletic director in November and also decided to step away as football coach.
It only took a few phone calls to bring him back.
“I really didn’t want to leave the first time,” Moore said. “I thought maybe they needed new ideas, fresh people. I wanted to stay in a way. I wanted to get out of the athletic director job. It was just too time consuming. It was just too much to do. I was running from one job to do the other.”
When Justin Stephenson, the school’s acting athletic director, called to gauge his interest in returning to the sideline, Moore’s excitement grew when thinking of coaching the Raiders once again.
“As long as we can have him, he has a place in Waynesburg,” Stephenson said. “He’s turned the program around numerous times. He does an excellent job with the kids and he has a great repoire with all of them. He’s something special, so we’re glad to have him.”
Moore led Waynesburg to its first playoff win in 1996, when it defeated Elizabeth Forward in the first round of the WPIAL Class AAA playoffs. The Raiders won another playoff game in 1998 and defeated rival Washington in the Class AA championship game at Three Rivers Stadium in 1999.
He resigned fifth months after winning the title and was later an assistant coach at Washington & Jefferson College, an assistant at Canon-McMillan under Tim Sohyda and was head coach at Ringgold for two seasons.
His second stint at Waynesburg started in 2012. He has a 12-25 in those four seasons, including a WPIAL playoff appearance in 2014, but injuries helped cause the Raiders to go 1-8 last fall.
The program had plenty of players on the roster and Moore even convinced a few new players to join the team, but Waynesburg lost four consecutive games to start the season and was outscored by an average of 18 points in the final three games.
When he decided to step away in November, Moore believed a new vision may be necessary to move the program forward, but after speaking with his family, he realized that the freedom of not also being athletic director might help him be a better football coach.
“I’ve never just coached before,” Moore said. “With the athletic director job, you think you had more time to do stuff, but you didn’t. Now I have more time to watch film and I don’t have to go anywhere after practices. I can stay with the kids longer. If a kid needs extra help, I can do that. It will give me a chance to be better prepared.”
Moore has found a new energy in retirement, cleaning the family’s garage and performing every other tasks set aside over the past 15 years.
He’ll need that energy as the Raiders move into Class 3-A in the WPIAL’s expansion to six classifications. Waynesburg will compete against McGuffey, Mt. Pleasant, Derry, Elizabeth Forward, Southmoreland, South Park and Yough.
Moore has a few ideas to help Waynesburg bounce back. He’s looking to encourage athletes in the school who specialize in other sports to give football a try.
Those efforts and a new-found excitement to get back to coaching will go a long way to helping the Raiders return to prominence in the WPIAL.
His third journey with the program will begin when Waynesburg opens the season Friday, Sept. 2 at Mt. Pleasant.
“This is sort of like the old days where I could get after it, spend all my time focusing on football and my family and not have other things distracting me,” Moore said.