AbbySparwasser

The checkout machine beeps as the cans of food slide over it, plopping into a plastic bag one by one. “How was your day?” the cashier of the grocery store asks with a smile on his face, glasses reflecting against the fluorescent lighting above him. On his shirt is a name tag that reads “Jake Moore.”

Now, this is Moore’s dream job. “I’ve wanted to work at a grocery store since I was 12,” Jake Moore said. Moore’s dream will hopefully one day be achieved. But for now, he is a volleyball coach, as he has been for 41 years and counting.

Not only that, Moore has achieved what few coaches ever have: 800 wins in one career. And he didn’t do it for glory or achievement. He succeeded simply because he liked his job.

Moore grew up in the small town of Fairbury where athletics surrounded his every waking move, especially as the son of a coach. “Whatever sport was in season, that was what you did,” Moore said.

However, volleyball didn’t come into his life until his junior year of high school. “I didn’t make the basketball team,” Moore said, “and I wanted to do something my family had never done.” He only played volleyball recreationally, but the experience gave him a new path that he would take later on.

As he began college at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Moore didn’t have teaching in mind at all. “I didn’t want to be a teacher because my dad was a teacher,” Moore said. He started as an accounting major, but learned quickly that it wasn’t for him. From there, Moore tried physical therapy and athletic training. “I quickly learned that blood and I do not mix,” he said. That was when Moore tried teaching. It stuck.

After graduating, Moore interviewed for a job at Fairmont High School in a small town approximately 15 miles south of York. He applied to teach business classes. But to get the job, Moore needed to take over the school’s volleyball team.

So that was what he did.

Going into his first year of coaching, Moore thought he “understood the game,” but he quickly discovered this was not the case. “I took a lot of phone calls to talk to people,” Moore said. “I would stay after matches and ask [the other coaches], ‘I see that you do this. Why do you do that?’” Moore realized that to succeed, he needed to care about getting better at coaching. “I just wanted to learn,” he said.

After four years at Fairmont, Moore moved his career to Lincoln Pius X, where he would remain for the bulk of his career. For 32 years, Moore taught business classes and coached volleyball as well as track and field.

In 2022, Moore once again moved, this time to Marian, where he is now head coach of Varsity volleyball and the assistant athletic director. Along with these roles, he also teaches multiple business courses.

Activities director and assistant principal Rochelle Rohlfs has now worked with Moore in the athletic department for four years. Before that, they both coached teams that frequently played against each other. “We were friends outside of the season, too,” Rohlfs said. “Mr. Moore is really good at taking care of the school program, not just the Varsity team. He’s very intentional about including every girl,” Rohlfs added.

Moore learned that Marian was not like the other schools he had been at in the past. “I taught for 36 years in a co-ed environment, and there you always have to teach empowerment,” Moore said. “That’s kind of instilled here.”

Now as a more experienced coach, he has learned to be more flexible with changes in the athletic department and the team. “You have to change,” Moore said, “and so changing with the times is like teaching an old dog new tricks.” He learned that to coach athletes, a coach must make athletes “buy into what you’re doing.”

On Sept. 1, 2026, Moore’s hard work in coaching paid off when he achieved his 800th win as a head coach after beating Omaha Westside, winning three out of five sets. He is currently one of seven volleyball coaches in Nebraska to accomplish this feat.

If there is one thing Moore has learned in his 41 years of coaching, it has been patience. “I’m asking athletes to do something I physically couldn’t,” Moore said. “I take a step back and just marvel at what they can do, and so I try to encourage them. I’m big on trying to push them out of their comfort zone because, a lot of time, they don’t know what they can achieve until they’ve been pushed.”

So in 10 years, when Marian volleyball Coach Moore bags groceries at the local grocery store, he will do so with a smile, because, after all those years on the sidelines, he has finally achieved his dream.