Freddogg Off The Chain

Coach Holland Morre @ 74

Ron Singletary to Aubrey McKithen Mile Relay

Athlete of Meet Aubrey McKithen

Wendy Vareen 3rd from left 1981


HOLLAND MOORE: A SECRET TREASURE OF LEWES DELAWARE
A Lewes man generations local completes a legendary 36-year coaching career in the year 1999 that put him out there on the national map, his track teams setting national high school records in the mile and two mile relay events; there are shot putters, high jumpers, long jumpers and hammer throwers. He develops a sprinter in 1981, Wendy Vareen-- still on the New Jersey all time list with an 11.1 clocking in the 100 meters--who goes on to run in the 1984 Olympic games.
But Holland Moore can move through Lewes with the whisper jet efficiency of a world class sprinter without ever being detected. Coach Holland Moore is “cool like that.”
“I coached them all, cross country and boys and girls track for 36 years at Trenton Central in New Jersey,” Moore said from his seat in a booth at the Rehoboth Diner last week sitting next to his wife Emily and cousin Delema Lott. Moore was a Job Coordinator at Cape for three years prior to taking the job at Trenton.
Holland Moore is 74 and the child of Bernice Holland and George Moore of Lewes. He met Emily while they both were Florida A & M Rattlers. They have four children.
Holland will return to the Penn Relays next year for the 114th running of the country’s most prestigious track event where he will celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the last April weekend of 1978 where five of his athletes put down the greatest 24 hours of high school racing in the history of the Relay Carnival.
Moore, a legendary high school track coach, will shake hands with those who remember his great teams but he will also run the 100 meters in the 75 and over Masters class.
“I will turn 75 this year so I could have run but I have a few things wrong and want to get myself right,”Moore said.
“No boys team for the same school ever won the Championship of America race in the mile and two mile relays in the same year,” Moore said. “And the day before we should have won the distance medley but we ran out of order and still placed second when Aubrey McKithen ran a 4:15 mile and was run down by All American John Gregorik from Saint Anthony’s of Smithtown, NewYork, who ran 4:08.”
There is a kaleidoscopic unfolding of related events when talking of coaching and athletes, and all coaches when they sit down find uncanny connections to events and each other.
John Gregorik and Aubrey McKithen would both receive scholarships to Georgetown and two years later they ran on the same Distance Medley team that upset Villanova, ending a 20 year stranglehold on the event.
That Saturday in 1978 began at 9:50 a. m. when Trenton Central won its section of the large-school qualifying race in the two mile relay in 7:39.5, a meet record. The runners were Andy Bing (1:57.0), Fred Gore (1:55.5), Darrell Jeffress (1:55.2) and Aubrey McKithen (1:51.8).
The same Trenton team would be back on the track two hours later with Ron Singletary replacing Andy Bing. Fred Gore led off in 49.6, Ron Singletary ran a 47.0 on the second leg, Aubrey McKithen ran 48.2 and Darrell Jeffress closed in 47.4. The result was another meet record of 3:12.2.and New Jersey state record.
Those athletes would come back later in the afternoon as 50,000 fans filled the Franklin Field for showdowns between the best sprinting and distance college track programs in America, interspersed with Olympic development races featuring world class athletes, and win the high school Two Mile Relay Championship of America and 15 minutes later step back on the track and win High School Mile Relay Championship of America. The place rocked as Trenton was local--just up I 95--and was an American team “snapping” against the Jamaicans and powerhouse teams from the entire Mid Atlantic Seaboard.
“As a result of our accomplishments we were invited to Jamaica to compete and went down there to a big meet and did the same thing,” Moore said. “We also won at the Golden West Meet in Sacramento, California.”
Moore’s successful and joyful journey was made with his wife by his side. Emily has had her own career in the library sciences working at Bensalem High School and later Bristol High School.
“What is this I’m eating for lunch?” Holland asked his wife.
“Turkey sandwich,” she said, having placed the order.
When asked if he kept a memorabilia room Moore laughed about a giant hammer throw plaque won at the Golden West Meet hanging on his wall then asked his wife, ”How about the gold watches? (won for Penn Relays Championship of America victories) I haven’t seen them. Do you know where they are?” Emily shook her head that she did.
“Man we had no money and there were always these fundraisers, dinners and jackets. There were always jackets all over our house. We still probably have jackets. And we never made money. My teams could run because they were tough kids who just hated to lose. But they couldn’t sell jackets and neither could I,” Moore said laughing.
Moore coached nine Mercer County Indoor Track Championship teams, thirteen Mercer County Outdoor Track Championship teams, Five Group Four Championship teams and a State Cross Country Championship team.
Moore’s 1978 relay teams twice set National High School records in the mile and two mile relays. In 1978 he was New Jersey State Coach of the Year.
Moore went to high school at Lower Marion and was boyhood friends with Bill Cosby and Olympian Josh Culbreath, a Penn graduate who won the bronze medal in the 400 meter hurdles in the 1956 Olympics.
Coach Holland Moore coached over 3000 track and cross county athletes over his 36-year career. His Tornadoes of Trenton High once went a period of 10 straight years without losing a dual meet.
Holland Moore and his wife Emily are looking forward to spending more time in downstate Delaware, where he is related to many but few know much about the man. Any coach sitting down to chat with Holland Moore will find himself instantly in a comfort zone of familiarity sharing stories and laughing because in the end for a coach it’s not about gold watches or plagues but memories, stories and some laughs and knowing you did a good job for kids.