As Linden’s football season drew to a close with a third-round setback, basketball began to move to the forefront of Patriot athletics. That means that Roosevelt Moore goes from being an assistant coach responsible for the secondary to the head guy. That adjustment is one with which athletic director Andro Williams is very comfortable.

“I really think he’s a good fit,” Williams said of Moore, a man he hired away from Highland Home during the summer. “He’s businesslike. He’s just a good fit. He works hard.”

In Moore, Williams sees a coach he finds reminiscent of himself.

“He is in it for the same reason I’m in it, to build young men, try to put a good product on the field and sell them what we need to be selling them.”

Moore is regarded as hard worker, a personality that manifests itself in his team’s on-court play.

“We’re uptempo. We fast break a lot. We press a lot,” Moore said of the strategy the Patriots will employ this season. “We try to put a lot of pressure on the other team. Conditioning is very important because you have to have a lot of energy. It is real uptempo. You have to be conditioned in order to play your minutes.”

Having yet seen a Moore-coached team take to the court, Williams is confident he can envision exactly what the squad will look like.

“If we were playing kickball or badminton, he’d be the same guy,” Williams said. “He carries the way he coaches from one sport to another sport. That’s what I like about what he brings to the table.”

Moore’s blue collar philosophy on the court is also clear in his approach to life off of it.

“I believe you should do what you’re supposed to do when you’re supposed to do it,” Moore said. “That means handling yourself accordingly and respecting yourself, your teammates and everyone in the community. You also want to do what you’re supposed to do academically.”

Moore came to Linden after spending three years as an assistant at Highland Home where he coached football and basketball. Prior to that, the Greenville native worked as an assistant at Charles Henderson High in Troy.

“I like what I see,” Moore said of the Linden athletes, “hard working guys. They’re not afraid of working.”