From Prosser High to Boise State, an inside look at WSU coach Kirby Moore’s development

BOISE – A decade and a half ago, before he took the field for his first college practice, Grant Hedrick knew Kirby Moore had coaching running through his bloodstream.

It was the summer of 2010, before Hedrick’s freshman year at Boise State, where he was teammates with Moore for three seasons. This year, they were roommates. One night, a party was being thrown at their place. Hedrick felt a tad uncomfortable. He was 18, living in a new place, trying to get to know 100 new teammates.

Early on in the night, sensing his roommate felt a bit out of place, Moore approached Hedrick. “Hey,” Moore told him, “let’s go get ice cream.”

So the two hopped in Moore’s car and did just that. They got ice cream and talked: about life, about football, about everything under the sun.

“I was like, that was pretty cool,” Hedrick said. “To take me under his wing. He knew I was a little bit uncomfortable, being a young guy, and that wasn’t his scene, either. That was him. I’ll always remember that.”

A decade and a half later, Hedrick’s sixth sense came true. On Tuesday, Moore was introduced as Washington State’s next head coach, parlaying a three-year stint as Missouri’s offensive coordinator into his first head coaching opportunity. A native of Prosser, about 175 miles from Pullman, Moore’s introduction has infused new life into a WSU program entering a new era next season.

Who is Moore? He’s a husband, a father of three. A former Boise State wide receiver. The brother of fellow BSU star Kellen Moore, who is now the head coach of the New Orleans Saints. A 35-year-old who used an innovative offensive mind to climb the ranks with remarkable speed: Only three years ago, he was the offensive coordinator at Fresno State. Now he’s the head coach of a storied WSU program.

All of that information, though, can be found online. What’s harder to track down is the stuff that really makes Kirby Moore, well, Kirby Moore. Those kinds of stories come from Hedrick, from his teammates and coaches at Boise State and beyond, who got to know Moore firsthand, well before the Cougars’ job was anything but a glimmer in his eye.

Hedrick and Moore never got on the field much together, he said, but that didn’t stop the two from getting to know each other fairly well. In fact, Hedrick didn’t need to know his old roommate all that well to notice what set the stage for his coaching career later on.

“I think the big one was just how prepared he was for everything,” said Hedrick, who started for the Broncos from 2013-14. “He knew the insides and outs of the offense, even at the receiver position, which you don’t really see a whole lot. Normally, it’s the quarterbacks and the centers that are really dialed in on everything – and he was that way as a receiver. So that was really interesting.”

Those in Moore’s position group got an even better look at that side of him. Take it from wide receiver Shane Williams-Rhodes, who was teammates with Moore for the 2012 and 2013 campaigns. Even more than a decade later, Williams-Rhodes remembers feeling compelled by Moore’s attention to detail, the way he was easily able to communicate with coaches and teammates.

“Based off of playing with him, definitely a player’s coach,” Williams-Rhodes said, “and just one of those guys, the knowledge side of it, very articulate with the game. I think on the player side, he’s very down to earth, easy to talk to. He’s soft-spoken, also, that’s the other side of him. Not a big talker, if you’re just in a setting, but he can have those articulate conversations with you, depending on who he’s in front of. I’m excited for him.”

There might be nobody on the earth who knows Moore better than his father. To call Tom Moore a legendary high school coach would be to make a massive understatement. Prosser High’s head coach from 1986 to 2008, Moore led the program to 21 league titles and four state championships, becoming one of the most revered coaches in the state.

Tom had a front-row seat to Kirby’s career, which started his freshman year and ended in his senior season. In between, Kirby hauled in 95 touchdown passes, which was then a record – not just for Washington, for the country. When they weren’t on the field, the trio of Tom, Kirby and Kellen often found themselves in Pullman, watching WSU practices led by a “who’s who” of legendary Cougar coaches: Mike Price, Bill Doba and others. They’d watch spring ball and fall camp.

“The highlight,” Tom said, “was going to double-headers. Come here at 1 o’clock and go to Idaho at6. That was great. My wife would be like, when are you coming home? They were little kids. They’d sleep in the back on the way home. Fun weekends.”

That’s the thing about Prosser, population 6,000: It’s a small community, the type where family means a little more and bonds grow a little easier. “Everyone knows everyone,” Kirby said. “There’s two stoplights.”

Which is why someone like Mark Little has known Kirby since the day he was born. Heck, he was there for the birth of Kellen, too. Little was on Prosser’s coaching staff for all four years of Kirby’s career, and he taught Kirby in the fifth grade.

Did Little ever think Kirby could become a college head coach one day? Little took a second to think about it. Then he found his answer: “Not surprised,” he said. “Let’s put it that way.”

“I mean, it’s kinda the family business,” Little added. “He was around it constantly. When he was growing up, he was at practice all the time and playing on the tactic dummies and messing around, running out to get the tee when they kicked off, just did all that stuff.”

For his part, Williams-Rhodes interpreted Moore’s career path a tad differently.

“I don’t know if I actually had the head coach side in mind,” Williams-Rhodes said, “just because of how soft-spoken and reserved he is. I’m a freshman. I’m 18. Him being 21, redshirt junior, being much more mature and soft-spoken, I couldn’t see that. But from the knowledge side, I could see the OC part. So after seeing him go through Fresno, I knew at that point it was game on. I think at Missouri, he went out and proved it, being in the SEC and being able to win 10 games in multiple years, that’s tough to do.”

“He was definitely out of some of our packages on defense,” said Doug Fassler, the Mustangs’ defensive coordinator. “He played a little safety. I mean, he was 6-4, 210 pounds. At a 2A school, we found a way to use him once in a while. He was playing for us as a freshman, which was extremely unusual, but that’s where he was developmental-wise when he came in. Just a joy to coach.”

When we look at Moore’s development, from high school freshman to rising coaching star, this seems to be clear: He is who he is. He’s never changed to fit a different image.

“Just an amazing guy in just about everything,” Hedrick said. “You knew right away that he was just really authentic to what he believed, and was never persuaded with any outside noise. He was really focused on what he was doing. And I could tell that right away. Whether it was his academic side or obviously the football side, he was just extremely focused on what he was supposed to do. Really intelligent. Just an awesome person.”

Not long after that summer night in 2010, Hedrick got a better sense of why Moore was destined for coaching. At Boise State, Hedrick spent more time with Kellen, because both were quarterbacks. They were in the same meetings, same conversations. Hedrick got to see how diligently Kellen went about his preparation, his business.

“And Kirby was the same way. He’s just a different position,” Hedrick said. “So it was like that quarterback mentality in the receiver room when we were in college. Prepared the same way. You could tell like coaching was in his blood, too.”