Alumni Spotlight
Tyler Moore ‘11
After graduating from The Dunham School, Tyler attended Louisiana State University, where he
played baseball for three years. After his junior season, he was selected in the 6th round by the New York Mets, where he played five seasons and reached the Double-A level within their farm system. He is now the President of Moore Industries, a Industrial General Contracting firm based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Favorite memory as a Dunham Athlete?
When I look back on my time as a Dunham Athlete, I had fun. If I had to pick a favorite memory, it would be traveling to Shreveport to play in the Baseball State Tournament with my teammates. Every year teams set out to win a State Championship, and my senior year that was not only a very realistic goal, but it was also expected. We fell short and lost in the semi-finals, but that experience was something I will never forget because of the guys I got to experience that with. We all were pulling in the same direction and cared more about the team than ourselves. I will always remember that team and that experience.
What is something - advice or practice - that your coach taught you that has continued in your life today?
Mitch McIlwain and Joey Thibodeaux were my head baseball coaches at Dunham and both had major impacts on my life. I do have two main takeaways, one from each of them. Coach McIlwain encouraged me to be myself and not try to do too much. Coach Thib told me to have a plan and take what they gave me. There are much deeper meanings to both of those pieces of advice that go beyond the baseball diamond, and I could write a book as to why those pertain to my life today. I greatly appreciate their leadership and their impact on my life.
Did you play outside of Dunham? If so, describe the transition from high school to college or professional ball.
I played college baseball at LSU, and played professionally for the New York Mets, reaching Double-A within their farm system. I always dreamed of playing college and professional sports, but that dream turned into a real possibility in my
freshman year of high school. Because of that potential, I trained to become a better athlete and had mentors who helped me along the way. One thing I learned during my year in college, even though I put a lot of work in to become a better athlete and baseball player, was that there was nothing that could have fully prepared me for my first season at LSU. The expectations I put on myself are very high, and it was the first time I experienced the expectations of others to be close to the expectations I had of myself. There was one main difference from level to level. There is not much grace when it comes to performance at a program like LSU, and even less with the New York Mets. Those organizations have immense amounts of pressure to perform, and the coaches and players within the organization need to perform at the highest level not just to have fun, but to keep their jobs. If I did not develop quickly, and take advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves, I knew that my path to becoming a Major League Baseball player could come to an end very quickly. In this transition, I learned a lot about myself, and over time I learned that God had a plan for me and was putting me through certain challenges and situations to make me a better man. In this transition, I learned how to love being under pressure. Performing under pressure takes an incredible amount of focus and confidence in your preparation. I also learned that pressure brings out one’s true self. So, it made me dig deep within myself, find who I was, and work to become who I wanted to be. I was blessed to have many opportunities playing at LSU that most would call “pressure”, but after many times failing and continuing to push myself, those opportunities felt more like home than pressure.
One of the biggest transitions for me was that baseball became more like a job at the college level, and that became a full reality at the professional level. I always felt like I was a representative of the name or letters written across my chest, just as much or more than the name written on the back. Just as the level of competition increased in college and professionally, so did the expectation of performance, on and off the field. It was no longer about having fun, but about performing at a high level while representing the organization positively regardless of what was going on personally outside of baseball.
I am grateful God allowed me to play baseball collegiately and professionally. I did not make it to the Major Leagues, and I fell short of living my dream, but I received more from God by not living my dream than if I had. God’s plans are better than mine and I am right where I am supposed to be. I have a beautiful wife and daughter with a son on the way, and we get to build our lives together instead of me being on the road most of the year. I wouldn’t trade a day of what I was blessed to experience. I learned so much about myself through my baseball career that has shaped me into the man I am today.
What advice would you give to student-athletes today?
There are many things I have learned in my life that have played major roles in the path God had for me as an athlete. I know that not everyone plays sports, but these few pieces of advice do not only apply to athletes. If I had to just pick a few, these are what they would be.
1. DREAM BIG. God can speak to us and teach us through our dreams, not just the ones when we are asleep. There will be many times that fear or doubt will creep in, don’t let them. There will also be people who think you are crazy or think you can’t do it. Use them as motivation. You’ll be thanking them later.
2. TAKE A STEP. There were many times in my baseball career when I was discouraged and felt like I could not deal with failure anymore. I took a step. Taking steps is a pivotal part of life. When you stay still, nothing happens. If you take a step forward, you will at the very least learn something about yourself, and that will never be a wasted effort.
3. NO ONE WILL LIVE YOUR DREAM FOR YOU, YOU MUST DO IT FOR YOURSELF. I am not saying that you should not surround yourself with a great support system. My support system is a major reason why I had the success I had. But in the end, you must be able push through the hard times and pick yourself up, because you are the one doing everything you can to live your dream. Below is a speech by Teddy Roosevelt that I very much relate to, and when you put your heart and soul into your dream, you will too.
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
- Theadore Roosevelt
4. TRUST THE PLAN GOD HAS FOR YOU. My dream ended with a 29 second phone call from my Director of Minor League Baseball for the New York Mets, telling me they were going in a different direction, and I was no longer a Met. I was crushed. Everything I had worked for my entire life was over in a matter of seconds. Little did I know God would give me new dreams, and the next few years of my life would be the best years of my life. God is good all the time.