Full Name:  Coyle Ellis Moore
     Born:  March 5, 1900, Laurens, S.C.
     Died:  February 13, 1990, Tallahassee, Fla.

Legacy Bricks:  Legacy Walk Map Link
   1977 Adminsitrator HOF - Loc 39

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'Mr. Florida State' has died at 89.

By Browning Brooks, Democrat staff writer.

Coyle E. Moore, called "Mr. Florida State" for half a century of devotion to Florida State University, died Tuesday at 89.

The founder of the FSU School of Social Welfare - and the person who influenced FSU athletics more than any other - Moore had a major role in helping FSU grow from a small women's college into a major university.

Friends and colleagues remembered him Tuesday as a perpetual champion of the underdog, a poor tenant farmer's son who became a pioneer in social work, who loved to see kids from poverty get an education and make the best of it.

It was largely Moore who brought football to FSU in 1947 and forced the Gators to play in Tallahassee for the first time in 1964.

It was he who started "the sod games" - a tradition that endures today in which players bring home a piece of a favored opponent's football turf from the most difficult battles, away from home, against the crowd, and against the odds.

A direct man of curiosity, energy and biting humor, Moore arrived at Florida State College for Women in 1928, and four days ago was still raising money for FSU.

From a ramshackle cabin in Waterloo, S.C., where he was born, Moore said, he could "study geology by day and astronomy by night." His parents told him education was the way out of poverty.

"I think what was so interesting about Coyle Moore was that he was both a product of the Old South and very proud of the New South," said longtime friend Doug Mannheimer. "He was on the cutting edge of education for the poor."

After working in the fields as a child, Moore went on to earn a bachelor's degree in engineering from The Citadel in 1920, a master's degree in sociology from the University of North Carolina in 1925 and a doctorate in social welfare from the University of Chicago in 1928.

He established FSCW's program in social work and was chairman of the division of applied science when FSU went coed in 1947. Two years later he became dean of what is now the School of Social Work.

Moore helped shape social programs in Florida. "He opened a lot of doors and windows," former Gov. LeRoy Collins said.

Moore began a graduate program in social work in 1948 with 10 students. When he retired in 1968, it was the 10th largest in the country.

His activism in athletics also was legendary.

"He had more bearing on FSU athletics than any other individual anywhere, anytime," said head football coach Bobby Bowden, victim of Moore's pointed but friendly Monday-morning quarterbacking.

Moore wanted FSU to compete with the University of Florida as a means to an end.

"The people of Florida considered us as inferior to the University of Florida," he said, because of the athletic program. Once the contests began, "our image picked up...and we moved from inferior salaries and appropriations to something approaching par."

Moore set up a trust that today gives thousands of dollars to the athletic program.

Coyle E. Moore Athletic Center was named for him. Moore Auditorium on FSU campus was named for his son, Coyle E. Moore Jr., a former FSU student body president, who died of cancer.

Moore and his wife, Mabel, contributed the first $1 million to the "Gateway for Future Generations" campaign, which will pay for scholarships and help build the proposed University Center.

"We are all tarnished somewhat," Moore once said. "There are no 14-karat-gold people. We have the assets of our liabilities and liabilities of our assets. Life isn't black or white, it is sort of a gray in which we all try to find our way through the maze."