News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
After a 2023 season that saw only two wins in 13 games, Upperman High School’s soccer program has a new head coach in Mixon Moore who’s no stranger to starting from scratch.
Entering his 32nd season as a soccer coach, Moore has spent his entire adult life lending a hand to programs in need. And when he saw the opportunity to join the Upperman High’s athletic program, Moore said it was a no brainer.
“This school knows how to win. That was one of the things that attracted me about it, I mean I couldn’t believe the job was open,” Moore said. “I said ‘Upperman High School?’ I mean, they win at almost everything, they’ve got good academics. So I was just stunned that there was an opening.”
Moore said he wants to build the soccer program to match the prestige of other Upperman High athletic programs. That starts with defense and stopping teams from scoring early, which Moore compares to defensive boxing.
“I think this is a lesson for soccer and for life, you can’t always win everything in the first two rounds,” Moore said. “Sometimes you got to get to that 12th round, right? And that’s what we preach, if we can stop teams, we will find offense.”
Defend the goal, let the other team wind down, and then open up on offense is the strategy Moore has found success in his stops at Gibson County, South Fulton, Haywood, and White County.
“A hard rain one day will soak a field, but it’ll dry up. But a light drizzle over a course of months will flood things,” Moore said. “For us it’s, guys there may not be a magic bullet to make you a soccer player immediately, just amazing. But if we keep doing constant work, and keep that slight, you know, fall of rain coming, all of a sudden by the time you’re there next season, you’re like a monsoon.”
As a high school student at Gibson County, Moore gained enough interest to start a boys soccer team. A team he would lead to the state tournament as head coach years later. And at South Fulton, he was tasked with creating the boys soccer program.
“I’ve been able to get a lot of kids involved in soccer, and just excited about soccer, and just try soccer out for the first time,” Moore said. “And so, all of those things by themselves may not seem big, but I’ve found over the years if you add them all up things start getting better.”
Understanding where the program stands now, Moore is aware of the challenge ahead of him. But with a constant grind to improve, he hopes to see his current team experience newfound successes at Upperman High.
“I hope that some of the players on this team one day see, you know, a district championship berth, or a region championship berth, or something like that,” Moore said. ” But that’s where we are trying to get to. So the first idea is, we’re here right now, but we’re getting better every day and that’s where we’re headed. So if I can get that mentality established, you know get some wins, get some success behind us, that’s what I want to get accomplished this year.”
