Moore happy in new role as assistant coach in FC
Shonda Moore is the essence of being the quintessential assistant, representing the most perfect or typical example of quality and class. And she is more than just fine with that.
As a junior high and high school basketball player at Forrest City, it was all about the game for Shonda Burgess Moore who worked diligently to become the best player she could be for then junior high coach Johnny George and Stan Siler, once she moved into the high school ranks.
As a sophomore for Siler's Lady Mustangs, Moore sat the bench waiting for her name to be called while watching Siler's starting senior point guard and leading scorer Yolanda Anthony run the Lady Mustangs – which ultimately became the Fillies – offense.
"She was really good and Shonda was sitting the bench," Siler recalled. "Anthony got sick and couldn't play in a game at Jonesboro, so I started Shonda. She went out and scored about 24 points for us."
Moore went on to become the starting point guard for the remainder of her sophomore season as well as her junior and senior seasons alongside her best friend and teammate Kim Henderson, Trey Thompson's mother, who also won a starting role as a sophomore that season.
"She could score points for us. She became a good floor leader for us and so was Kim," Siler added. "She was well liked by her teammates and she got along well with everyone. Kim had the size and Shonda had the quickness. They were always in class and on the basketball court. It was tall and small for us, but it worked."
The two best friends spent as much time playing pickup games after school and on the weekends as they did practicing and playing high school basketball.
Siler remembers that as incoming sophomores, Moore and Henderson quickly raised the expectations for the team. Siler's Lady Mustang teams qualified for the state tournament each of those three seasons.
"We never made it to the championship game," Siler remembered. "But we were one of the top teams in our district. Shonda played well for us and was a leader."
"We qualified for state every
(Continued from Page 1) year," Moore added. "Man, man I can remember thinking back that we were doing it. We were just happy to be a part of it. And we all had the desire to go farther, but that dream never happened for us. But, boy oh boy, did we play and have fun. And we took pride in what did on the court and we were serious about it all the time."
Recently, Moore sat down and talked about her Lady Mustang years.
"Now that just shows the difference between today's kids and our generation," Moore said. "In junior high and high school, we practiced hard and from the time we moved into the high school ranks, we sat until our number was called and then we went in and did the job that coach expected us to do. And that's what happened.
"Today's kids, I think, are not that willing to sit the bench until the coach calls on them. They want to play from the start. And I know times have changed since I played. Television and video games have caused a lot of those changes.
"We did our best to carry the Fillies name with pride," Moore added. "We wanted to compete every time we walked onto the court. I was playing behind Carla Lucas and I knew what I was going into because Carla was tough, tough."
Moore graduated from Forrest City in 1992 with designs on playing college basketball at UAPB, a place that took her life in an entirely different direction.
After two years of junior college basketball at Clarksdale, Miss., Moore made the team at UAPB but had lost the desire to continue basketball and never played a minute of basketball at UAPB.
Moore returned to Forrest City in 2009, working for Kids For The Future, and is now employed by the FCSD working with the special needs students in special services. She saw her role change last season when she began working as a Reach Associate working with the science department.
Prior to the start of the current basketball season, Moore was offered and accepted the job of becoming an assistant coach to the Lady Mustangs sitting alongside another Forrest City graduate and former Lady Mustang Caronica Randle Williams.
"I've always been interested in coaching," Moore said. "I have been a volunteer coach. Last summer one of my co-workers told me I should send a letter to the superintendent saying I was interested in working with the Lady Mustangs basketball team."
In August, Moore took a position with the junior high, and when Coach Williams' assitant coach Jordan Weaver left at the end of last year, she stepped into that role.
She couldn't be happier. Moore is currently working to attain her coaching certification. But she is adamant that she is not interested in moving into a head coaching role.
"I saw that she had stepped into the assistant's role this season," Siler said. "She is suited for and qualified for that role. She knows the game."
"I love being an assistant coach, and I take pride in that role,” Moore added. "I told Coach Williams I'm not a back stabber and I'm not going to tell her how to coach the team. All I want is to be the best assistant coach I can be, whether it is with the basketball team or within the teaching ranks. I get to help Coach Williams be better and if I don't use the skills I have, then I will probably lose it. When I tell you that I am very happy in the assistant coaches role, I am.
"Off the court, I want to bring wisdom to these young ladies because Coach Williams and myself are teaching them, not only the game of basketball, but how to be women and helping them to mature. That is the bigger picture. Now do we want and have to win ball games, yes. But more importantly we want these young ladies to become productive members of society. I want them to know, once they graduate from here, how to get up and get to work on time. And know how to carry themselves. I tell them at some point in time, you are going to be a wife, a mother, maybe even a boss, and I want them to know how to stand on their own. I am a mother, a wife, an educator and a coach. I love it."
One thing Moore knows for sure is how the game of basketball has changed since she played.
"Basketball is so fast to me now," Moore said. "It is a much faster paced game than it was when I played. I will play with my youngest son, Ryan but not with Randal my oldest. I can't let him beat me. I can win against Ryan, but if Randal beats me I will never live it down and he will never let me."
As an assistant coach, Moore is not the only former Mustang player to move into those ranks.
Randal Moore was a threeyear starter for the Mustangs and did not miss a start during that time, becoming the first Mustang quarterback to do that since Barrett Astin.
Both Astin and Moore started 32 games during their time at quarterback. Astin’s three-year total won-lost record was 19-13, while Moore’s total won-lost mark for his three years was 1517.
Williams and Moore are not the only former Mustang players and graduates who have returned to Forrest City to coach.
Former Mustang and Arkansas Razorback players Marcus Britt and Trey Thompson have teamed up to coach the Mustang varsity basketball team. Former Mustang Chris Williams enjoyed a stint as the junior boys basketball coach while another former Mustang player Teraye Lee is coaching the junior girls basketball program, and Jarvis Palmer, in the past, has served as the eighth grade boys basketball coach.