Through two coaching tenures, Coach LeRoy Moore has bled red and white for the Crestwood Red Devils girls’ softball team. After spending 11 years at the helm with his alma matter, Moore is starting a new chapter by becoming the head coach of the Streetsboro Rockets’ softball team.
“It is kind of refreshing going into a new program with the support I have received so far,” Moore told The Weekly Villager. “Since I have been there, the girls have received me in a favorable manner as their head coach. I think it is just a new fresh start that has renewed my energy.”
After completing his 11th season as the Red Devils’ coach last year, Moore said he was informed that Crestwood would not renew his contract. He acknowledged that he took some time to contemplate his next move and considered retiring from coaching.
He said that his daughter, Stephanie, alerted him to a job opening at Streetsboro High School and he decided to continue his coaching career with the Rockets. Coincidentally, the Red Devils replaced Moore with Matt Helm, Streetsboro’s former softball coach.
Moore inherits a Rockets’ program that has only recorded two winning seasons in the last 24 years and has not had a winning record since the 2018 campaign.
Despite that record, he is looking forward to the opportunity to revitalize Streetsboro’s softball program.
“It is a challenge to be the one to try and turn that program around but I see a lot of their players have potential,” Moore added. “It is up to the coaches, they motivate them to use that potential to turn that program around.”
Having played baseball for most of his life, Moore became involved with softball because his daughters competed in the sport. As his daughters came through Crestwood’s school district, Moore said he realized that Crestwood did not have a fast-pitch feeder program.
He joined with other parents to create a fast-pitch feeder program in the mid 1990s and his daughters became members of the first core group of players to come from that program to the high school level.
Moore became Crestwood’s softball coach in 2000 and the Red Devils became a powerhouse, eventually going on to become the 2003 Ohio High School Athletic Association Division II state champions, becoming the first softball team in Portage County to win a state title.
What made it even more special for Moore was that his daughter, Stephanie, was the starting pitcher on Crestwood’s first state championship squad.
“It made it even more special that we were able to share that special moment together and when we see each other at times especially during softball season we still talk about it,” he said.
Moore stepped down after the end of the 2006 season because he wanted to spend more time watching Stephanie finish her collegiate softball career at the University of Toledo. Once she graduated, Moore spent a lot of time away from the game but was lured back when one of his former players from that 2003 state title team became the head softball coach at Berkshire High School and asked him to join her staff as an assistant coach.
Moore served as an assistant coach for the Badgers for four seasons before he returned to where it all started for a second turn as the Red Devils’ coach with Stephanie by his side as an assistant coach. Moore recaptured the magic from the 2003 campaign when the 2019 squad became district champions and advanced to the regional round.
“It was pretty ironic too because some of the teams that we played and beat in that run were the same teams that we played back in 2003,” he noted. “It was like my daughter and I were having a déjà vu moment.”
Despite leading Crestwood to three more winning seasons in the last three years, Moore’s time as the Red Devils’ coach ended but he is ready to pave the way for success with the Rockets.
Moore said he is already familiar with some of Streetsboro’s players because he coached a few of them with his Red Devil players when they formed a winter league team in the offseason before the 2023 season.
“I knew that they had some talent so I just thought this would be a good opportunity to get my hands on some of that talent,” Moore said.
Moore’s new team only consists of five seniors, three are returning starters, and a large freshman class of 10 players.
“I don’t want to wait a year before we turn things around,” Moore said. “It is this year we start doing it. Like I said, it is refreshing and challenging as we get the players in the right positions that can do it but that is the main responsibility of the head coach.”
The Rockets’ season begins when they host Cuyahoga Falls at Veteran Field on Saturday, at 1:00pm.
