JANIE MOSS

Moose Moss used to quote his wife Janie as telling him to “get down off that tractor an hour early and coach our children … and the neighborhood ones too.”

And he did.

With a rare drive and determination, he trained youngsters to become outstanding divers.

And in the process, he built one of the nation’s top diving programs at his rural Colquitt County farm.

He started Moss Farms Diving in 1964 and by 1971 had his first national champion, daughter Peggy, who went on to become the program’s first collegiate All-American.

By the time he died in October 1993 at age 75, Moss Farms-trained athletes had earned 18 of the 20 Georgia High School Association championships; 21 national high school All-American designations; 23 National YMCA championships and 102 YMCA All-American honors; 137 medals in U.S. Diving Junior Olympic National Championships, including 50 gold, silver and bronze medals: 27 Can-Am-Mex Junior Championship medals; and 17 international and World Junior Championship medals, including several World Championships.

In 1985, Moss was named by U.S. Diving as its National Age Group Coach of the Year.

In 1994, he was posthumously awarded the prestigious Glenn McCormick Award for outstanding contributions to diving. The National YMCA named its annual diving award for him and U.S. Diving named its annual national coaching award the Moose Moss Age Group Coach of the Year Award.

He also was included in the first class of the Georgia Aquatic Hall of Fame, inducted in 2011.

In her introduction, Hall of Fame director and longtime Moss Farms Diving supporter Camila McLean called Moss a man who had big aspirations for himself, for his family and his athletes.

“Whatever he did, he did in an exceptional way,” she said. “He was named Farmer of the Year. He was a Flying Tiger ace. He was a Master diving coach.”

She asked, “What was so special about Moose Moss? What made him different from other diving coaches? Would it be his tenacity? Or his work ethic? Or would it be his genuine concern for his athletes?

“I would say it is a combination of all these attributes.”

The Moss Farms program has continued to produce outstanding performers under coaches Jay Lerew, Wenbo Chen, Ron Piemonte and Ed Goodman in the years since Moss’s death.

Over the years, the program has produced some 40 divers who went on to earn scholarships and dive at Harvard, the U.S. Naval Academy, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, the College of Charleston, Clemson, Georgia, Emory, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Florida, Florida State, Miami, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Texas, Arizona State and Indiana.

Moss Farms divers won Georgia high school diving championship 34 times in 37 years. They went on to win numerous SEC championships, NCAA titles, two NCAA Diver of the Year awards and one of its divers — Lauryn McCalley Niday — was named the 2005 NCAA Female Athlete of the Year.

And just months before Moss’s death, the Moose Moss Aquatic Center opened in Moultrie. It has been used as a training site for six Olympic teams and has played host to numerous outdoor championship meets.

The remarkable success of the program can be traced back to the community of Poplar Arbor in northwest Colquitt County, where Robert C. Moss was born on October 16, 1917.

Moss played basketball at Doerun High School and when he went to what is now Georgia Southern University, he played in the first football game he had ever seen.

During World War II, he was part of a group of 87 pilots that assisted the Chinese in their battle with the Japanese.

The group, flying the P-40 fighter-bombers and known as the Flying Tigers, was credited with downing 299 enemy planes. He flew “the hump” over the Himalayas to aid the Chinese and received the Distinguished Flying Cross.

In California, he met Jane Austin Harding, a model, fashion designer and stewardess. She grew up on the campus of the University of Illinois where her father was the director of bands for 43 years.

“Miss Janie” and Moose married in 1946 and moved to Colquitt County where they farmed and raised their four children, Steve, Merry Lynn, Rick and Peggy, now Peggy Benner.

In the 1960s, he began coaching youngsters.

Moss had no background in diving, but studied, learned the sport and then taught it at the pool he built a stone’s throw from his home on the farm.

He didn’t charge the youngsters willing to undertake his grueling training.

He had the reputation as a tough taskmaster, but those accepted the hard work and discipline thrived.

Daughter Peggy Benner won a National Junior Olympics gold medal in 1971 and the program never looked back.

It became so respected that aspiring divers from throughout the country came to Moultrie to take advantage of the coaching and facilities. Several enrolled in high school here.

The Moose Moss Invitational, which will be held Saturday and Sunday, got its start at the pool near Doerun, where competitors and their families camped out around the deck and enjoyed the hospitality provided by Moose and Miss Janie.

In the late 1980s, Moss pursued the idea of building an Olympic-style facility and finally won over local officials.

The program raised some $1 million to build the pool and the City of Moultrie donated the land in the Jim Buck Goff Recreation Complex and agreed to provide maintenance.

Dedicated June 18, 1993, the Moose Moss Aquatic Center remains one of the nation’s top outdoor facilities.

It features four 1-meter and four 3-meter springboards and five towers. It also has a 6,000-square-foot dryland training area.

Divers from six countries trained at the facility in preparation for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and it has played host to numerous national and international events over the years.

On June 13-15, USA Diving’s Summer Junior Region 7 Championships will be held there.

And with an outstanding crop of young athletes, Moss Farms and its Diving Tigers appear primed to continue live out Moose Moss’s dream of athletic excellence.