Leroy Moss, a star athlete at Poplar Bluff High School who went on to play football in college and professionally, died earlier this week. He was 70.
Inducted into the Poplar Bluff Sports Hall of Fame in 1990, Moss was a member of the 1966 undefeated Mules football team and a three-sport athlete in high school. He was a JUCO All-American football player at Centerville (Iowa), played two seasons on the University of Missouri football team and was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals. He signed with Edmonton of the Canadian Football League and was named to the All-Rookie Team in 1974 and helped win a Grey Cup the following year.
Moss played his final two seasons with the British Columbia Lions, staying in Vancouver where he was a businessman and raised a family.
In 2012, Moss watched his son compete in the Olympics.
“The things I learned here in Poplar Bluff I was using on my last play on the football field,” Moss said in 1990.
“When I was in high school, Billy Piper came in and spoke to our team. He said the experiences you have at this level you never forget. He was right.”
Moss was a sophomore in 1966 when the Mules football team finished 9-0 and won a SEMO North Conference title.
“There were so many good players it was hard to get the ball,” said Moss in 1990. “We had guys like Larry Vaughn, my brother (Eddie) and John Brown and every one of them was good.”
The following year, Leroy Moss and Brown tied for the conference scoring record with 78 points and the Mules finished 7-3. Moss averaged 8.2 yards per carry that season and finished with 1,203 rushing yards, second most at the time in program history.
Moss was named team captain as a senior in 1968 when Poplar Bluff finished 5-4-1 and he earned all-conference honors. He was also a captain for the basketball team as a senior, earning two varsity letters in the sport, and was a three-year letterman in track and field.
“Those were some unbelievable times,” Moss said in 1990. We had some great coaches and great players those years and sports was very big in Poplar Bluff.”
Moss finished with 24 touchdowns and 1,768 career rushing yards, which currently ranks 16th most in the program’s history. The list also includes younger brothers Hosie (2,156) and Mike (3,176).
Leroy joined older brother Eddie in Centerville, Iowa, for college.
In 1970, Leroy earned JUCO All-American honors and won the Iowa Junior College Federation titles in the 100-meters and long jump.
“Back then, if you were a good football player from Missouri you went to Missouri,” Moss said in 1990 of his next stop. “Dan Devine was there and he was getting all the good players because of his connections with the NFL.
“At the time, Devine was bigger in the state than the governor.”
Devine left the Mizzou program after the 1970 season and Al Onofrio took over.
Moss scored the first touchdown in Mizzou’s 30-26 win over eighth-ranked Notre Dame in 1972 when the Tigers finished 6-6. Mizzou, No. 14 at the time, faced seventh-ranked Oklahoma and former Poplar Bluff teammate Derland Moore, with the Sooners winning 17-6. Mizzou lost to Arizona State 49-35 in the Fiesta Bowl.
As a senior, Moss helped the Tigers start the season with six straight wins, reaching No. 7 in the AP poll after beating second-ranked Nebraska 13-12. He scored twice in a win over Virginia and ran for 103 yards in a 17-13 loss at Colorado. The Tigers lost to third-ranked Oklahoma two weeks later and finished 8-4 with a 34-17 win over Auburn in the Sun Bowl.
Moss was third on the team in rushing with 373 yards on 114 attempts that season. He also caught two passes for 23 yards.
A November 1973 Associated Press story said his nickname in junior college was “Sudden Leroy” because he was a “jumpin’, duckin’ runner” and that he “delights in punishing tacklers with a forearm shiver in the open field when not running past defenders with his 9.5-second speed in the 100.
“I got that habit from playing defensive back,” Moss said in the story. “A guy gave it to me one time, so now I use it whenever I can.”
Moss signed with the CFL after being selected by the Cincinnati Bengals in the NFL Draft. He ended up with Edmonton, then the Eskimos, and was named to the All-Rookie team in 1974 as Edmonton lost the Grey Cup.
The following year, Moss ran 25 times for 118 yards and a touchdown while catching three passes for 35 yards. Edmonton, which finished 14-4, again reached the Grey Cup final, this time beat Montreal 9-8 in a game played in minus-15 degree weather.
He played two more seasons with the B.C. Lions and finished with two career touchdowns and 185 rushing yards on 41 attempts.
Born on March 27, 1951, Moss is survived by his wife Jeannie and sons Ryan, Prentice, Curtis and Rashad.
Moss ran a distributorship for McDonald’s restaurants in the Vancouver area. He later coached baseball and football, leading the South Burnaby Metro baseball team to consecutive provincial championships. He attended the 2012 London Olympics to watch his son Curtis place 22nd in the javelin with a throw of 78.22 meters, missing the final by 2.17 meters.
“They were all standing by the fence watching and they were just jumping up and down,” Curtis Moss said in a 2012 interview of making the Olympic team. “I started crying. It was really emotional. I took my last throw and it was the farthest one and I just ran back started hugging everyone.”
Funeral arrangements are pending.