Cory Moore keeps on winning

BY DEXTER MCCREE, Feature Writer

ST. PETERSBURG – Head Coach Cory Moore and his Lakewood High School football team recorded their first victory of the 2017 season last Friday. For Lakewood’s team, this was a football game, but for Moore, however, it was a continuation of his winning ways.

Moore won the Pinellas County Health Physical Education Association Award (PCHPEA) for High School Physical Education Teacher of the Year for the 2016-17 school year.

“I’m ecstatic for Cory and it is so well deserved. He put a lot of time into his students and extra effort to ensure that they get it,” said Chantella Moore, his older sister and department chair. “He is effective because he builds relationships with the students and they trust him. Since they trust him then they are willing to try new things, which inevitably help them.”

Chantella knows about working hard and what it’s like to be selected High School Physical Education Teacher of the Year. Two years ago, she too won the award. Along with her teaching duties at Lakewood High School, she is the department chair of health, physical education driver’s education, AVID Coordinator and senior class sponsor.

The Pinellas County Health Physical Education Association Award is based on recognition of the peers. Recipients are nominated by other educators and voted on. To be eligible for the award, teachers must have four or more years of teaching experience and be in at least the sixth year of their teaching career for physical education or health.

Candidates must be employed in the capacity for which they are being nominated and within the same year of consideration. It’s an award based on teacher performance in the classroom, not the coach calling plays on the football field.

“Winning this award has a lot of meaning because of who I represent and the message that comes along with it,” explained Moore, who is in his ninth year at Lakewood. “Being the football coach, people tend to see you as one dimensional. Our kids need to see what achievement looks like.”

His job at Lakewood is to be a teacher first and his goal is to be balanced and bring positive attention to the school. Monroe said Principal Erin Savage is doing good things at the school and the physical education department is great.

“Anyone of the teachers in the department could have won the award and deservingly so.”

Along with teaching and being the head football coach, Moore is the sponsor of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, coordinator of Feed the Homeless Program and part of the AVID site team.

At Christ Gospel Church, he is an elder, youth leader, musician and a mentor.

According to Lisa Wolf, Public Information Officer at the Pinellas County Board, Moore is eligible to be nominated for the State Physical Education Teacher Award.

“Our parents brought us up setting high standards for Chantella and me. They pushed and gave us goals to reach. That has not stopped and I fear my parents to this day,” said Moore. “Our parents have worked hard to be respectable examples for us. I don’t just represent myself. I represent them, Lakewood High School, my principal, Pinellas County Schools, my church family at Christ Gospel, students that I teach and the players that I coach. They’re all the family and you don’t embarrass the family.”

Moore spends his days coaching students who are preparing themselves to win big. They’re learning to keep their bodies and minds healthy, physically fit and disease free. This isn’t a game at all. When the final score is tallied, Moore hopes that his efforts to prepare them for the game of life have been victorious.

To reach Dexter McCree, email dmccree@theweeklychallenger.com