Jake Moore is currently in his 33rd year of coaching girls high school volleyball, and his 38th year of coaching club volleyball.
Prior to the Husker’s recent Volleyball Day at Memorial Stadium, Moore was contacted by Nebraska volleyball coach John Cook and Lindsay Peterson, director of operations, to be honored as one of the state’s most successful high school coaches. Moore was among a group of coaches that was given an honorary coaches award in front of over 90,000 people who filled Memorial Stadium.
“The honor of winning this award was for every player, team manager, coach, assistant, and everyone that I have worked with in my years of coaching girls volleyball,” Moore said.
Starting off his career at Fairmont, Moore was a teacher and coached there for four years.
The opportunity to teach and coach at Pius X came later, as he then became head coach for the volleyball team. He served as head coach for 25 years and was JV coach for the remaining two years that he worked at Pius X.
“I left Fairmont with the intention of not returning to coaching,” Moore said. “However, my first year at Pius, I had a really good group of seniors and a lot of underclassmen, and it gave me the love of volleyball back. Then in the mid ‘90s, we qualified for state, and it brought back the passion I had to do it again.”
Moore describes his time coaching as also having the ability to teach and help the players. He believes sports can teach players good life lessons such as the importance of learning through perseverance, trial and error, and failure.
“My dad always said, ‘not everyone has the chance to coach at the state tournament so take that opportunity when you can.’ At Pius, we were lucky enough to go 20 straight years,” Moore said. “So, every year was a blessing. It didn’t matter the year, my goal was always to empower the players, to not only be good volleyball players but also to be good people.”
Brianna Olson, a teacher at Pius X and the Catholic Youth Sports Athletic Director, coached with Moore his last two years at Pius X. She described her time coaching by his side as always having fun, whether at practices and games.
“He is very knowledgeable, and I learned a lot from him in the two years I coached volleyball at Pius with him,” Olson said. “When I started coaching, I didn’t know much, but I learned almost everything from him.”
Following Pius X, Moore is continuing his coaching career at Marian High School in Omaha, starting on his second year. Moore is looking forward to another great year of volleyball and is excited to have three freshmen on the varsity team.
Even throughout his 33 years of coaching high school volleyball, Moore has many memories that have stuck with him.
“The years won at state are the ones you always remember,” Moore said. “I also can still remember the players from every year I’ve coached because they left an impression on me. However, the stuff outside the sports always meant the most – seeing players later in life knowing that sports helped them get to where they were.”
Every year, Moore is able to give his players advice, whether related to the game or not. He strongly believes that it is okay to go through trial and error and to learn from failure. A quote that he likes to live by and teaches to his players is, “If it is to be, it is up to me.”
“Don’t look for others to do something for you, do what you want to do and push yourself to do it,” Moore said. “At times it’s hard to get trapped in negativity but see things for what they are and be happy for what you have, not what you don’t.”
Moore believes that throughout his years of coaching, volleyball has allowed him to be a better teacher. He has learned to be a better person through learning how to adapt every year to the athletes, based on who is on the team, what the ages are, and the personalities of every player. No matter the role, every player, team, assistant, manager, and coach are important.
