Download Magazine - Levin College of Law - University of Florida

CONTINUING TO GIVE BACK
His political life behind him, Moore continues to give to
his community as best he can. Several years ago he stepped
to the plate with the first $5,000 and raised the remaining
$20,000 to affiliate the local youth sports league with the
national Police Athletic League, which targets at-risk youth
and includes football, baseball, basketball and track teams, as
well as cheerleading squads.
Moore recently took on the task of helping to form a new
booster club to support Boynton Beach High School, which
opened in 2001.
“We fought like hell to get this high school here, and then
there was this big vacuum of not having an amalgamation of
alumni,” he says. We want to have mentor services for the kids
and do whatever we can to help.”
Moore recently was honored by the Southern Conference
with a Distinguished Service Award. Les Robinson, the athletics
director at The Citadel who has known Moore for several
years, said he has given generously to the school and successfully
challenged others to do the same.
“Gene Moore is one of the more fierce competitors I
have been associated with,” Robinson says, “and I can see
why he has had so much success as a lawyer, mayor and
businessman.”
TED WILLIAMS’ FRIEND
For all his success, even Mooreʼs heart raced a little bit
when a friend asked him many years ago if he would like to
Moore (right) represented baseball great
Ted Williams (seated) for many years
Never backing down
from a good political fight,
Moore is proud of the
nickname he earned
while in office, “The
Kamikaze Mayor.”
meet baseball legend Ted Williams at his home in Islamorada
in the Florida Keys. Moore responded with the enthusiasm
you would expect from a man who grew up during the era
when “The Splendid Splinter” earned his reputation as the
greatest hitter who ever played the game. It was the start of
a friendship that would last many years until Williamsʼ death
in July 2002.
Moore became a Boston Red Sox fan almost as a matter
of course, hanging out with Williams, representing him
in real estate deals and fishing with him in at his fishing
camp in Canada and elsewhere. While Williamsʼ reputation
for being a bit irascible at times was well-deserved,
Moore remembers how his old friend kept his sense of humor
even in the wake of two strokes. Moore is knocking away at
a piece of fiction in which Williams, and particularly the fate
of his famed remains, play a central role. It will be titled The
Curse of The Splendid Splinter.
“He was a real good friend,” Moore says. “There wasnʼt
anything he wouldnʼt do for you.”
These days, Moore puts in a half day at the office four
days a week. He spends much of the rest of his time reading
books at a clip of five every week, enjoying the company of
his friends, and talking up the exploits of his grandchildren,
who live in Atlantic Beach, Fla. and Oakland, Calif.
While he has a difficult time distinguishing any one of
his many accomplishment as being his greatest, he says,
Mooreʼs relationship with his grandchildren is his most
treasured. One grandson, heʼs proud to report, is in the
starting five for Jacksonvilleʼs Fletcher High School
basketball team.
Today, Moore looks back and sees how fortunate heʼs been.
More often than not, the breaks have gone his way, like a ground
ball taking a room-service hop right into his baseball glove.
“Everywhere there was a turn in the road,” he says, “I
got lucky.” ■
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