One-armed player an inspiration at center stage for Delran football

Colin Moore was born without the bottom half of his right arm, but it was his left arm that had him doubting if his dreams would ever come true.

For the first three years of Moore’s life, his missing limb, caused by amniotic band syndrome, a condition in which the lining of the amniotic sac is damaged in the womb and can wrap around the fetus, preventing developing parts from growing, didn’t seem like much of a hurdle.

Doctors told his mother Denise that Colin may never crawl, yet he sped around the house like he had a motor strapped to his back.

“This was a toddler watching TV on his head,” she recalled. “He’d be upside down on the couch. We’d try and get him to Velcro his butt to the chair.”

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That changed when he was 4 years old.

Colin was playing in the garage when he tripped and fell. He told his mom he couldn’t move his left arm and she was concerned he broke it, which he did, but the news was much worse. Colin had a bone cyst in his humerus.

His “good” arm was brittle because of it.

“He jumped off the couch and said to his brother (Gavin), chase me,” Denise said. “He ran around the table, slipped on a book and broke his arm. It was hard to try and contain a toddler, a preschooler and tell him to sit still.”

Colin, who wound up breaking his arm four times, did though, so much so that the rambunctious child within him started disappearing. He’d wanted to play football like his brother, but he wasn’t permitted to do many physical activities. He resigned himself to watching TV and playing video games.

“I did a lot of unproductive things, almost training lazy habits, and it messed me up for a long time,” Moore said.

“Lazy” can no longer be used to describe the Delran High School junior. He has football to thank for that.

Moore earned the starting center spot for the Bears this offseason, however, he will unfortunately miss the early part of the campaign after breaking his leg on Thursday. He is expected to return midseason though.

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“A year ago, I didn’t think he could play center for us,” head coach Frank Holmes said. “I really didn’t, just because he wasn’t that thick yet and I was worried about his situation, but he’s put himself in the position to compete for this spot.”

’I want to play football’

Holmes recently looked at a picture of Colin from last year and compared it to one from this summer.

“Holy moly,” he said. “I didn’t realize he got that much bigger, so, I looked at last year’s roster. He weighed 190. I weighed him the other day, 230. That’s 40 pounds. Take a look. There’s not an ounce of fat on him. That’s 40 pounds of muscle that kid put on in the offseason.”

Colin wanted to play football for years, just like Gavin, but he heard he couldn’t so many times that he started believing it.

“My whole life people would say, kids in school would say they felt bad for me,” he remembered. “They said it so much I started to feel bad for myself.”

Doctors gradually cleared Moore for physical activities like karate and soccer, but those were never his passion, so he stayed “sedentary,” Denise said.

Moore doubted doctors would ever say yes to football, but in eighth grade, they gave him the good news.

“The day the orthopedic doctor said I don’t see any reason he can’t do anything he wants, I don’t even think I heard him say it,” recalled Denise, discussing the overwhelming emotion of the moment. “I’m like, what did you say? It’d been so long.”

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Colin didn’t waste any time responding to the doctor’s OK.

“He said to me, I want to play football,” Denise said.

A new Colin

Denise can still remember the emotional lift she got watching then-Central Florida linebacker Shaquem Griffin, who was born without his left hand, at the NFL Combine in 2017.

Griffin had a memorable performance in Indianapolis and was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the fifth round that spring.

Colin was disappointed though.

“I wanted to be the first NFL player with one hand,” he said, dejected.

That was two years before he was even allowed to strap on pads. Colin wanted success, but it didn’t come easy his first three years on the field.

“I really wanted to be the best I could be, so even if it was just a simple mistake, something that’s easily correctible, I’d still beat myself up over it,” he said.

He played freshman ball his first season and JV last fall. He was getting bigger and stronger and started shucking his previous bad habits, but it still wasn’t enough to crack the varsity.

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When last season ended, a switch flipped.

“Winter workouts, you can tell who wants to go and who wants to take it easy for a little bit,” quarterback Derek Namnun said. “He was one of the first guys to say let’s go. We got to get ready. We have to get started. We have to get ready for next season.”

His desire manifested in maniacal fashion. He started obsessing over what he ate. He’d lift until Holmes kicked him out.

“I just watched him quietly each day and I’m like wow, Colin’s still working, wow, Colin’s still training,” Holmes said. “I want to close the weight room and Colin is still here. Alright, time to go home now.”

He asked for a prosthetic for Christmas so he could lift more – he bench-presses with a single dumbbell in his left hand and a barbell weight resting on his right.

“I knew I had no choice but to work harder than everybody else,” he said. “I would train on the hot summer days, cold winter nights, whatever it might be in my garage. Work out, lifting weights and doing whatever I had to do.”

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He hit 135 pounds on the power clean in January and lifted 165 last month. His lifts were posted on social media and garnered him lots of attention, both good and bad.

Moore sees comments about how defensive players should just shoot at his missing limb, how he’s going to be a weakness on Delran’s front.

His coach doesn’t have the same opinion.

“I played right on this football field (Washington Township) for four years blocking like this,” Holmes said, putting his hands on his chest. “You were not allowed to use hands. Back in the 80’s in high school, you were not allowed to use your hands. I got to West Chester, they’re like what are you doing? Throw your hands. I’m like we’re allowed to throw our hands? … That’s why I know it’s doable, because I did it for four years.”

But it’ll be tough. Moore has fixed his body and built his strength. Now, he must perfect his fundamentals, particularly his feet.

Moore maybe would’ve shied away from that work earlier in his life. Not anymore.

“It’s still something in the back of my mind,” he said. “I’ve always had that voice in the back of my mind saying this isn’t for you. This isn’t something you can do, but I’ve always had to put my head down and deal with things regardless of that voice, because that voice isn’t my own. It’s the voice of people that put me down in the past and still don’t believe in me.”

He added, “I’m going to put my head down and work, push through, become the person I never thought I could be – a phenomenal football player. Not someone that’s just good for having one arm, not anything like that. Good in general. Someone that people look at like, damn, that’s a good football player.”

Josh Friedman has produced award-winning South Jersey sports coverage for the Courier Post, The Daily Journal and the Burlington County Times for more than a decade. If you have or know of an interesting story to tell, reach out on Twitter at @JFriedman57 or via email at jfriedman2@gannettnj.com. You can also contact him at 856-486-2431. Help support local journalism with a subscription.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Delran football center with only one arm inspires team