Foster kid finds a new family on the football field
FELTON, Del. – Benjamin Moore always wanted to play football when he was younger, but his family circumstances didn’t allow it.
Now that he is able to play, he never leaves the field.
It’s his senior year, his final season of football at Lake Forest High School, and Moore does it all. He starts at slotback and linebacker, snaps the ball for punts and field goals, and also returns punts and kickoffs.
Moore works just as hard in the classroom. He has become a source of pride and motivation for his classmates, his coaches and the staff at the Elizabeth W. Murphey School, the group home in Dover that has been his residence for the last five years.
A difficult upbringing hasn’t stopped him. Limited contact with his parents hasn’t stopped him. Living in a cottage with six other boys from troubled backgrounds hasn’t stopped him.
Nothing has stopped Ben Moore.
“If most of the adults in his world went through half of what he’s gone through in his lifetime, we’d be lucky to get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other,” said Michael Kopp, executive director of the Murphey School. “Let alone do well in school and also do well in a sport.”
He doesn’t talk much about the past, doesn’t go into detail about a difficult childhood. To Moore, a burning desire to succeed trumps everything else.
“You’ve got to have confidence,” he said. “You’ve got to tell yourself every day that you want to be somebody. … If you want to be successful, it can be done. If you just get up every day and do what you’re supposed to do and listen to whoever you have to listen to, like your teachers or coaches, God will bless you.”
Turn for the better
Moore was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, but moved to Woodside with his grandmother and mother when he was a year old. He was placed into foster care at age 12, a difficult step for anyone. But even then, he saw the bright side.
“It was a great transition for me,” Moore said. “When I was younger, I always wanted to play sports. My mom never really could afford equipment for me to play sports. Foster care opened a lot of doors for me.”
The second oldest of four brothers, Moore was often separated from his siblings. He doesn’t know them very well.
“It was a different situation. I was never home, my older brother was never home,” he said. “It wasn’t how a family should be. I didn’t really spend a lot of time with my brothers.”
He first met his dad when he was 13. Moore spent a summer with his father in Kentucky, but it didn’t work out well.
“It was just hard for me, because he had never been in my life,” Moore said. “It was hard for me to go and just meet this stranger and live with him. It was different, and I just really wasn’t having it. I just wanted to come back to Delaware.”
After a brief stay with a foster family, he was placed at the Murphey School by the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and their Families. Murphey isn’t a school, but rather a group home for children on a 15-acre campus in Dover. The facility typically houses 30 to 35 children in nine buildings, with all living in a private room and receiving 24-hour supervision. Murphey also teaches transitional living skills to about 55 additional older teenagers who are close to leaving foster care.
Moore credits the Murphey staff for much of his positive development.
“Every day, they’re on me,” he said. “They’re telling me, ‘You can be successful if you want to be successful.’ I just take what they say, because they’re older, they’re wiser. They’ve been there, done that. I just live off of that and try my hardest.”
Lake Forest football coach Fred Johnson knows some of the staff at Murphey. When Moore enrolled at Lake Forest, the coach could see his potential in all facets of life.
“I’ve just watched him grow and mature as a person,” Johnson said. “He’s a really good student, and he’s turned out to be a really fine athlete. He’s a good, strong young man. He always responds with 'yes, sir or no, sir.'”
Johnson is amazed by Moore’s ability to overcome challenges that often derail teenagers trying to transition to adult life.
“It just shows a lot about Ben as a person, and it shows a lot about his character,” the coach said. “I’ve seen people in situations very similar, and they don’t do well in the classroom, they’re always in and out of trouble, and then they wind up in a juvenile detention center or jail. But he’s managed to keep a straight and narrow path.”
To read the rest of Moore's inspiring story, click here.
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