By Solomon Crenshaw Jr. | For The Birmingham Times
The president of the Southwest Athletic Conference Alumni Association said it’s “about time and overdue” for Birmingham’s Alvin Moore to receive the conference’s prestigious Alumni Award. “Anytime is the right time,” said Lonza Hardy. “We felt that now was the right time to go ahead and honor Alvin.”
The 22nd Southwestern Athletic Conference Legends Awards and Roast will be Saturday, May 17 at the Sheraton Flowood in Flowood, Mississippi. The event is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.
Moore’s resume reflects success both as an athlete and coach. He had been a defensive lineman at Birmingham’s Carver High School but converted to the defensive line in college. He became an extraordinary offensive lineman for Alcorn State from 1968-70. During that span, the Braves won two outright SWAC championships and tied for the league title once.
After graduating from Alcorn State, Moore returned to Birmingham and served 42 years as a high school coach and educator. He served as the head basketball coach, assistant football coach and athletics director at Phillips High School (1993-2000) before transferring to Carver High and serving in the same position until he retired in 2014.
Moore was introduced to football as a freshman at Carver following his older brother onto the gridiron. “I think back in the day, especially in the early ’60s, you just tried to find something to do,” he said. “We didn’t have any activities. In those days, you might have had 150, 200 kids going out for football and different sports and basketball. That was something that could occupy your time.”
But his credentials go beyond his playing days. He was inducted into the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s Hall of Fame in 2014 because of his stellar career as a basketball coach at Birmingham’s Phillips High School and later Carver High. His time at Alcorn put him on a coaching path.
The game became more than a pastime for Moore, whose play garnered the attention of legendary Alcorn State football coach Marino H. “The Godfather” Casem.
“What I learned at Alcorn, the kind of people who surrounded us at Alcorn (showed) that you can go out and help motivate other young people,” Moore said. “That was a good training session for me.”
Henry Pope, athletic director of Birmingham City Schools, said he’s never met anyone like Moore.
“When you start looking at him, you would think that he was going to be a rough guy,” Pope said. “He’s just a gentle giant. He’s a very kind man. He was always great when it came to the student athletes.
“He always put students first,” the athletic director continued. “That was one thing that I loved about him most in the time that I spent with him. I think he’s a great guy all around.”
Ennis Whatley is likely the best known of Moore’s former basketball players. The Phillips High point guard went on to star at the University of Alabama before being drafted to the National Basketball Association.
“I think our relationship was developed from Day One, from the minute that I decided to come to Phillips High School,” Whatley said. “I felt like we had a connection and a divine relationship. “I think some relationships are just natural but when someone is sent into your life, I think that’s what I mean by spiritually divine. He was sent to me as I was sent to him also.”
Hardy said Moore has been active in alumni efforts.
“He has been involved in raising money for scholarships in other areas to help the university financially,” the alumni association president said. “That, in itself, helps the conference as a whole. Whenever you do things to build up one of the conference members, you’re really uplifting the conference as well.”
Moore has been a long-time member of the SWAC Alumni Association Board of Directors, serving as treasurer and business manager.
“Every year, we have award programs and honors (for) individuals that have made names for themselves and put the name of SWAC out nationally,” Hardy said. “We thought it was now time for us to honor a man who has helped to honor people in the past, giving Alvin an award this year, honoring him with the Lifetime Achievement Award.”
A man of faith, Moore, 76, has been a member of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Pratt City since 1984, chairing the Deacon Ministry and leading the Married Couples Ministry. He also serves on the Finance Committee. His religious awards and leadership include Man-of-the-Year for National Baptist Laymen, President of Alabama State Baptist Laymen, President of Northwest State District Laymen, President of Peace Baptist District Laymen and former Director of National Baptist Junior Laymen.
At the SWAC Legends gala, Moore will receive the award named for career journalist Roscoe Nance, who helped form the alumni association and was its first president for 19½ years.
“In my very first job at Alcorn, Roscoe was a reporter with The Clarion Ledger in Mississippi, and then, of course, went on to work with USA Today,” Hardy said of Nance, who died at 71 in January 2020. “He was involved in covering all of the legends of SWAC and he was in Birmingham, Alabama, at one of the early SWAC football championship games.”
Nance’s daughter Rahkia Nance was formerly a reporter at The Birmingham News.
L.C. Greenwood (posthumously) and Robert Brazile will join Moore in receiving Roscoe Nance Lifetime Achievement Awards. Greenwood played defensive end for the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff and went on to NFL super stardom with the Pittsburgh Steelers’ “Steel Curtain” defense in the 1970s. Brazile, a standout with the Houston Oilers, inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2018, was an outstanding linebacker for Jackson State and was one of two JSU first-round draft picks in the NFL’s 1975 draft; the other was running back Chicago Bears great and Hal of Famer Walter Payton.
Wilbert Ellis, the former Grambling State University baseball coach, will receive the Dennis E. Thomas Distinguished Service Award. In 26 seasons as the Tigers head baseball coach, Ellis compiled a 737-413-1 record while winning three SWAC championships.
Eddie James, the long-time press box announcer for Jackson State University home football games, will receive the Charles “Chuck” Prophet Wagon Master Award.
The highlight of the evening will be the Celebrity Roast. Patricia Cage-Bibbs will be the Roast Guest of Honor. Bibbs was a very successful women’s basketball coach at Grambling, Hampton University and North Carolina A&T.
Tickets for Saturday’s event are $75 apiece and can be purchased via check, money order or cashier’s check made payable to “SWAC Alumni Association.” Payment should be mailed to P.O. Box 5815, Birmingham, AL 35207. Electronic and online payments can also be made using Zelle (amoore1949@gmail.com). For questions regarding tickets, contact Moore at amprint1949@aol.com or by telephone at (205) 222-1044.
