When Master’s candidate Desmond Moore was a kid growing up in Fayetteville, Ga., he never dreamed of being a professional athlete, let alone working for a professional sports franchise. And yet, through the School of Health and Human Sciences, he was able to spend the summer interning with the Las Vegas Raiders.
“I wasn’t much of an athlete my whole life,” he says. “I just loved playing sports. The last time I played organized sports, I had to have been like 15 years old, playing for a rec basketball team. I was never even good enough to be on the school team.”
His hoop dreams deferred, he accepted a scholarship to Morehouse College to study psychology.
“I’ve wanted to be a mental-health professional since I was about 13 or 14 years old,” he says. “When I heard about sport psychology and I knew I could blend the worlds of mental health and sports, I knew that was going to be for me.”
Becoming a Spartan
He learned about UNCG when he began researching graduate programs in sport psychology, and it became the place where he met his mentors and found his calling.
“It was all part of a perfect plan,” he says. “UNCG has one of the pioneers in sport psychology, Dr. Diane Gill. She’s a trailblazer in the field, and I can go and talk to her anytime.”
He also notes the difference between his initial plan to become a mental-health professional and his current path of becoming a mental-performance consultant.
“Mental health is more about depression, anxiety, and things of that nature,” he says. “Performance is about team cohesion, preparation routines, communication, things that will prepare you to perform on and off the field and give you the best tools in your mental toolbox as an athlete. Team cohesion is so important because you can do the best you can individually, but then sometimes your teammates will fall short.
“UNCG is one of the few schools that’ll prepare you to become a mental-performance consultant and to sit for that certification exam,” he continues.
A Spartan Becomes a Raider
He landed the internship with the Raiders through one of his UNCG mentors, Dr. Jen Farrell, and a connection between UNCG and the team.
Dr. Lindsay Sanders UNCG (’12, ’21) was hired by the Raiders to work with team alumni by revamping their benefits program and expanding their wellness services when they retire, Dr. Farrell explains. She says she steered Moore towards the internship because of his passion, motivation, and ability to connect with people.
“He does a really good job of being able to speak on a personal level, but also at a professional level,” she says. Farrell remembers a call from Dr. Sanders after Moore’s interview: “She said, ‘He just totally wow-ed us.’”
Moore worked with Dr. Sanders in the Alumni Relations Department for ten weeks in Las Vegas. He listened to former players talk about their challenges and connected them with the benefits and resources they earned while on the field.
“It’s one of the only departments of its kind in the NFL,” Moore says. “Not every team has something like that.”
Moore is not the only Spartan with NFL ties
Dr. Shaun Tyrance, an alumnus of Kinesiology’s Exercise and Sport Science Program, is tasked with the mental health of the Kansas City Chiefs’ organization. He said some of the things he tells the players, coaches and staff can be applied to everyone.
At the end of the summer, he attended the Raiders Alumni Wellness Weekend, attended by some of the biggest names ever to wear the silver and black. He met former Raiders cornerback Mike Haynes, shook hands with legendary quarterback Jim Plunkett, and brushed shoulders with Marshawn Lynch.
“It’s kind of a big party,” he says. “But the wellness weekend actually focuses on healthcare – spiritual, mental, physical, everything.”
Lessons learned and professional preparation
Among the lessons Moore has learned during his graduate studies is that “you don’t have to get ready if you stay ready.”
“I’d always known I wanted to work in professional sports, and I didn’t think I’d even come close to sniffing it until at least a couple of years into my PhD program,” he says. “When the opportunity came, and I saw that the job requirements pretty much matched my résumé, I was just ready to go after it.
“It wasn’t on my Bingo card for 2024 at all,” he says, “but I was ready for it.”
And though he says that he always wanted to open a private psychology practice and avoid the corporate world, he changed his mind after a key insight he gleaned from his time with the Raiders.
“Professional sports is just the corporate world with a ball in the middle of it,” he says.
And now his hoop dreams are a bit closer to reality.
“I’m waiting to hear back from some PhD programs to get my degree in counseling psychology,” he says. “I’d like to have my own private practice where I can see people for general counseling needs, as well as sport psychology. I would like to be contracted as an NBA team’s in-house psychologist. Football is great, but basketball kind of runs in my veins.”
Story by Brian Clarey, University Communications
Photography courtesy of Desmond Moore and the Las Vegas Raiders
