Bernie Moore

Bio

The son of a Baptist minister, Bernie Moore believed in the highest standards of sportsmanship, yet demanded the utmost in aggressive and tough football from his players. With a 83-39-6 record, he served longer (13 years) at Louisiana State than any other coach in the school's previous history. Moore resigned that post in 1947, and became the Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, a league he won twice as a football coach and 12 times as coach of the LSU track and field team. His 1933 five-man track squad won the NCAA Championship. Moore saw front-line action during World War I and remained in France after the Armistice to study at Montpelier University. He returned to the United States to coach La Grange High School in La Grange, Georgia, before accepting a position as an assistant at the University of the South (Sewanee). Mercer University invited Moore to rebuild its program and, while coaching there between 1925 and 1927, he developed two great players - Phoney Smith and Wally Butts. In 1929, Moore moved to LSU as an assistant, replacing Biff Jones as head coach in 1935.