James Moore Jr., BHS 1938 Ventura County Star (CA) - Friday, April 4, 2008
James Moore Jr., loving husband, father, friend and coach, passed away peacefully of natural causes on March 28, 2008. He was born James Moore on Feb. 21, 1920, in Scammon, Kan., and his family moved to Burbank in 1928. At Burbank High School , Jim met his sweetheart and future wife, Jean Steiner.
Jim was a natural athlete, and with his outstanding ability in football he earned a highly coveted scholarship to University of Southern California. Jim was a member of the Beta Sigma chapter, Kappa Alpha fraternity. While at USC, Jim was a member of the 1939 Pacific Coast Conference and NCAS National Championship football team.
Jim's tenure at USC was interrupted with the outbreak of World War II and his enlistment in the U.S. Navy. As a chief, he served on several destroyers in the Pacific Theater. Toward the end of the war, Jim and his wife, Jean, lived a few years in Tsing Tao, China, with their young son Steve. While in China, Jim coached football and led a Navy team against an Army team in Shanghai.
From 1949 to 1957, Jim and Jean lived in Yuma, Ariz., where Jim served as athletic director and head football coach at Yuma High School and Jean began raising their young family, which now included daughter Martha and youngest son Mark. They loved Arizona and established many lifelong friendships there.
In 1957, Jim accepted the head football coaching job at Ventura College. He coached the Pirates from 1957 to 1966. In 1965, Jim and his staff led the Pirates to their first league championship in several decades. Jim also taught physical education and health and assisted other athletic programs at the college. Jim often served as a guest speaker at local high school sports banquets, community service clubs, and youth groups at the church, always promoting strong personal values, academics and physical fitness.
In 1967, Jim accepted the position as the first athletic director at newly opened Moorpark College. Large and in charge, he quickly became well-known as "Big Daddy." While there, he also accepted a position as a board member of the Western States Athletic Conference. Jim was particularly pleased when Moorpark College's athletic teams won the coveted Western State Conference Athletic Supremacy Award.
In the 1970s, Jim left athletics to become the dean of registration at Moorpark College. He then returned to Ventura as assistant superintendent of the Ventura County Community College District and finally district superintendent. Jim retired in 1982 but remained active in the community.
He was a member and past president of the Moorpark Rotary Club and was active for many years in the American Heart Association. Jim was a longtime member of Community Presbyterian Church in Ventura and Trinity Presbyterian Church in Camarillo.
An avid golfer, Jim was an active member and served on the board of directors at Las Posas Country Club. Jim was also very honored to have been uniquely selected to both the Moorpark College Athletic Hall of Fame (2000) and the Ventura College Athletic Hall of Fame (2007).
Jim and Jean enjoyed many wonderful sightseeing and golfing vacations together, including favorite trips to Alaska, Russia, Scotland, Ireland and Hawaii. Jim also loved to fish in the High Sierras, taking the family vacationing there many consecutive years. He particularly enjoyed several horse pack trips into the wilderness. Jim fully embraced life and was never afraid to try something new, which included a helicopter ride to an Alaskan glacier and drift boat steelhead fishing and whitewater rafting in several Northern California rivers.
Jim was tough on the outside but soft on the inside with an engaging personality. He was not afraid to speak his mind and was known as a great motivator. He was fair, positive, quick with a smile and had a great sense of humor, always ready to share a joke. Jim instilled in his family honesty, dedication, fairness, hard work and a sense of community.
In 2003, Jim was preceded in death by his wife, Jean, who was the loved of his life for 63 years. He was also preceded in death by his father, James Moore Sr.; mother Georgia Moore; and brother David.
Jim resided in Camarillo for the past 41 years, and his family and friends will deeply miss him. Special thanks go to the many wonderful longtime friends and healthcare professionals who assisted Jim the last five years since Jean's passing and most recently the wonderful staff at Alma Via of Camarillo.
Friends are welcome to visit from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, April 4, at Griffin Family Mortuary, 1075 E. Daily Drive, Camarillo. A service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 5, at Trinity Presbyterian Church at the corner of Las Posas Road and Antonio Drive, Camarillo. A graveside service will be at Conejo Mountain Memorial Park immediately following the service. Please sign the guest book at obits.VenturaCountyStar.com
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