2024 Guest Speaker- Mike Ayers
2023 Guest Speaker- Jerry Moore
Coach Jerry Moore Bio
Years: North Texas (1979-80), Texas Tech (1981-85), Appalachian State (1989-2012)
Place of Birth: Bonham, Texas
Date of Birth: July 18, 1939
The winningest coach in both Southern Conference and Appalachian State history, Jerry Moore became the first coach to lead a team to three consecutive FCS national championships, guiding the Mountaineers to titles from 2005-07.
After coaching stints at North Texas and Texas Tech, Moore moved to Appalachian State in 1989, and he finished his impressive career with 242 victories en route to becoming the 16th-winningest coach in Division I (FBS and FCS) history. The only coach to win AFCA National Coach of the Year honors in three consecutive seasons, he led his teams to 18 FCS postseason appearances, and he won a record 13-straight postseason games in contiguous years (2005-08). Moore claimed Southern Conference Coach of the Year honors eight times while leading the Mountaineers to 10 Southern Conference championships, including six straight from 2005-10.
Moore led the Mountaineers to one of the most memorable upsets in college football history, topping No. 5 Michigan at the start of the 2007 season. The win earned Appalachian State the distinction as first FCS team to ever top a nationally-ranked FBS opponent, and the signature victory helped them become the first FCS team in history to receive votes in the final AP poll. Moore finished his career with a 242-135-2 record, winning 64.1 percent of his games.
At Appalachian State Moore coached 2011 College Football Hall of Fame linebacker Dexter Coakley, the only two-time winner of the Walter Payton Award Armanti Edwards (2008 and 2009) and NFF National Scholar-Athletes Donald Campbell (1992) and Tony Washington (2013). He also coached Hall of Fame defensive tackle Gabe Rivera while at Texas Tech.
The 2006 Eddie Robinson Award winner and 2009 Liberty Mutual FCS Coach of the Year was inducted into the Southern Conference Hall of Fame in 2014. Moore is enshrined in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.
Coach Jerry Moore was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame Class of 2014.
2022 Guest Speaker- Buddy Green
Buddy Green Bio
Buddy Green served 14 seasons at the Naval Academy. Green served 13 seasons as the defensive coordinator and secondary coach. He has been an integral part of a staff that has brought the Midshipmen back into the national spotlight with a 100-54 (.649) record over the last 12 years, that includes 11 bowl games, nine Commander-In-Chief's Trophies and a 13-0 mark against Army.
Coach Green helped Navy win at least nine games five times in the last 11 years. Before the current streak, Navy had won nine or more games just five times in the previous 77 seasons.
Green is a 1976 graduate of NC State where he earned his B.A. in speech communication. A two-sport athlete for the Wolfpack, he played football and baseball. He played on two ACC Championship teams in baseball and was a member of Lou Holtz's 1972 Peach Bowl squad.
Green earned his first collegiate coaching job in 1979 as a graduate assistant at NC State, a year the Wolfpack won the ACC Championship.
The following year, Green moved on to a coaching post at LSU for one season. In 1981, he earned his first coordinator job, serving as the defensive coordinator and secondary coach at Southern University from 1981-82. He took his first head coaching job at Northern Nash High School in North Carolina for one season where he was also the Director of Athletics. Green got back into the college ranks at VMI as the secondary coach in 1983 and moved on to Auburn where he helped lead the Tigers to the 1985 Cotton Bowl.
He returned to his alma mater in 1986 where he was the secondary coach for eight years and the defensive coordinator for four of those seasons (1990-93). While at NC State, he helped lead the Pack to six bowl games.
Green left NC State in 1994 to become the head coach at Tennessee-Chattanooga, where he coached for six seasons and was also the Director of Athletics for two years. In 1997, Green led his Chattanooga squad to a I-AA national ranking and its first winning record in six years. He also helped develop one of the top wide receivers in the NFL, Terrell Owens.
Green returned to Raleigh in 2000 and took over one of the worst defenses in the ACC. By the time he left, they were ranked in the top 25 in scoring defense and were at or near the top in every defensive category.
Green and his wife, Sharon, have two children, Todd and Courtney.
2021 Guest Speaker- Bob Sanders
Bob Sanders enters his first season as outside linebackers coach with the Buccaneers in 2022.
Sanders brings 17 years of NFL coaching experience and 40 years of total coaching experience to his new role. Sanders last coached in 2019 as the defensive coordinator for the Orlando Apollos of the Alliance of American Football. Prior to that, Sanders spent three seasons as linebackers coach for the Arizona Cardinals.
During his time in Arizona, outside linebacker Chandler Jones recorded 28.0 sacks in two seasons (2016-17), leading the NFL in that category with 17.0 in 2017. He was named to the 2017 Pro Bowl and also earned his first AP first-team All-Pro honors under Sanders' guidance that season. In 2016, both Jones (11.0) and Markus Golden (12.5) accumulated double-digit sack totals, marking just the third time in team history that Arizona had multiple players record 10.0-or-more sacks in the same season. Golden's 12.5 sacks that year were a career high and marked the most by a linebacker in Cardinals' history, before being surpassed by Jones' 17.0 the following season. In his three seasons in Arizona, the Cardinals defense finished as the No. 5 overall defense in 2015 (321.7 ypg), the No. 2 overall defense in 2016 (305.2 ypg) and the No. 6 overall defense in 2017 (310.9 ypg). Arizona tied for the seventh-most sacks in the NFL (121.0) during that three-season span.
Sanders first broke into the NFL coaching ranks as linebackers coach for the Miami Dolphins from 2001-04. He then spent the 2005 season as defensive ends coach for the Green Bay Packers prior to being promoted to defensive coordinator from 2006-08. In 2009, Sanders joined the Buffalo Bills as defensive line coach and later spent two seasons as the team's linebackers coach (2010-12). His final NFL stint before joining Bruce Arians' staff in Arizona, was serving as linebackers coach for the Oakland Raiders from 2013-14. With the Raiders, Sanders helped tutor Khalil Mack, who finished the 2014 season as a finalist for NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, tallying 84 tackles, 4.0 sacks, four passes defensed and one forced fumble in his debut season.
Before he began his NFL coaching career, Sanders spent 22 seasons at the collegiate ranks. His final collegiate job was at the University of Florida, where he coached for 11 years on the defensive side of the ball, spending one season as assistant head coach and nine as assistant defensive coordinator. Florida led the SEC in sacks in four consecutive seasons (1996-99), while winning five SEC titles and the 1996 National Championship. He previously coached at Georgia Tech (1978), East Carolina (1980-82), Richmond (1983-84) and Duke (1985-89) prior to his time at Florida.
Sanders and his wife, Kathie, have two daughters Lindsay and Sarah, and one son, Rob, in addition to five grandchildren. Sanders graduated from Davidson College in 1976 with a degree in political science.
